CUHK joint study with University of Illinois reveals how vegetation recovers after sudden permafrost collapse
A collaborative study by researchers from Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, CUHK and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has revealed that vegetation recovery following sudden permafrost collapse varies dramatically across regions, ranging from less than a decade to over a century. The study identifies gross primary productivity – a measure of plants’ photosynthetic capacity – as the key factor determining how quickly affected landscapes regain their greenness, and allows scientists to accurately predict how long it will take a specific site to recover after a permafrost collapse. The findings have been published in leading journal Nature Climate Change.
The study was co-led by Professor LIU Lin of CUHK’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Professor Mark LARA, a professor of plant biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and his postdoctoral researcher Dr Summer XIA Zhuoxuan, who is also our PhD graduate.
This work and our polar expeditions are also covered by a few newspapers and TV news:
Wen Wei Po 文匯報
SingTao Headline 星島頭條
i-Cable News 有線新聞
Ta Kung Pao 大公報
RTHK Radio 3 – Backchat (Starting 40:25)
The Standard
