Albin Hammerle is part of the biometeorology working group headed by Georg Wohlfahrt (www.biomet.co.at). Basically his work might be condensed to the question which conditions cause an ecosystem to be a sink or a source for greenhouse-gases?
The still very high uncertainty on the terrestrial ecosystem GHG-budgets, the likely changes in future climate and the responses of terrestrial ecosystems related to it including possible feedbacks are the motivation for his profession.
To answer these questions Albin is involved in several national and international projects dealing with the exchange of climate-relevant gases like CO2, CH4, CO, N2O, COS and energy (water vapor and sensible heat), mainly working with methods based on micrometeorological theory combined with a strong background in ecosystem modelling.
In his current project, funded by the FWF, on the land-atmosphere carbon monoxide exchange he tries to reduce the uncertainty of the terrestrial contribution to the CO budget. Furthermore he investigates the above- and below-ground flux contributions to the ecosystem-scale CO exchange by simultaneous measurements of CO exchange through the soil surface in situ along with the ecosystem-scale CO fluxes.
Dr. Albin Hammerle
University of Innsbruck
Institute of Ecology
Ecosystem and Landscape Ecology
phone: +43 (0)512 507 51612
email: albin.hammerle@uibk.ac.atweb: http://www.uibk.ac.at/ecology/