Some new faces have joined ICOS Carbon Portal since 2022. The Carbon Portal, hosted by Lund University in Sweden and Wageningen University in the Netherlands, is a ‘one stop shop’ for all ICOS data products providing free access to high-quality and standardised greenhouse gas data, as well as to scientific and educational products and services.
How have the new Carbon Portal staff been getting on, and what are they working on?
“The ICOS Carbon Portal provides a great opportunity to engage in programming and work with research data, bridging technology and science effectively”
Zhendong Wu originally joined the Carbon Portal back in 2019 as a postdoctoral researcher. As of August 2022, Zhendong has been working as a scientific products developer and researcher.
Zhendong’s works on ecosystem modeling, simulating global and regional CO2 and CH4 fluxes. He also collaborates with scientists on peer-reviewed publications, and works on a trajectory model which simulates carbon flux origin information (footprint) for in-situ ground-based observations.
What excites Zhendong most about working at ICOS is the combination of research and practical work, which contributes to understanding the global greenhouse gas (GHG) cycle and supporting policymakers' efforts in mitigating global warming. “The ICOS Carbon Portal provides a great opportunity to engage in programming and work with research data, bridging technology and science effectively. This aligns perfectly with my background and what I aspire to do.”
Mathematics, mobile phones and the steel industry
Anders Dahlner, a senior scientist/product developer at the Carbon Portal since March 2022, has a diverse educational and professional background. In addition to teaching mathematics and programming, he has worked in various roles within data analysis and system development in the financial sector, the steel industry, and mobile phone sector. Currently, Anders works on how to reach better processes in the quality control of daily measurements for ecosystem stations.
With his diverse background and climate science expertise, Anders hopes his work will contribute to answering some of the big questions. “I believe climate change is the largest threat humans have ever encountered. To solve the climate issues, we really must understand how to adopt the changes we will face - what can be grown in the future, and where? How will melting of mountain glaciers affect surrounding forests and landscapes?”
“I think it's exciting that our work contributes to climate research”
Klara Broman, a developer at the Carbon Portal since August 2022, works on the development of the metadata and data services. One recent focus of her work has been on improvements to the SPARQL service which is used to run queries against Carbon Portal's metadata database.
An alumnus of Lund University, Klara’s job at the Carbon Portal is actually her first since graduating from Computer Science and Engineering in 2022. It’s a role she finds fulfilling - “I think it's exciting that our work contributes to climate research.”
“The focus on FAIR data principles is something that I find particularly important and that is at the core of ICOS data and metadata”
Jonathan Schenk is the latest addition to the staff at the Carbon Portal. He started working as a developer in May 2023. Jonathan is part of the team responsible for the maintenance and development of the metadata and data services - the core services behind the data portal, which is one of the main access points to ICOS data and metadata for all interested users.
Jonathan’s PhD topic focused on quantifying emissions of methane from northern lakes to the atmosphere. Having obtained his PhD in Linköping, Sweden, a move to the Carbon Portal means Jonathan can contribute to making greenhouse gas data available to a broad audience. “Doing this means we are participating in the global effort to improve our understanding of greenhouse gases' atmospheric cycles.”
