Angela Gallego Sala

I am a biogeochemist with expertise in climatic regulation of carbon fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. My particular area of expertise is peatlands and I have targeted my research to peatlands situated in different climatic zones to build a global perspective. I am also well placed to bridge empirical field/laboratory methods and global modelling. My career aim is to elucidate the unique role of peatlands in the Earth System at different time horizons, e.g. from peat inception and accumulation over the Holocene, through to current methane emissions to the potential of peatlands to become larger sources of carbon in the future. I use a variety of methods in order to achieve this, including the paleo-record,
gas flux measurements and land-surface modelling to forecast the fate of peatlands under different scenarios.

Currently, I am working on MOTHERSHIP (https://www.peatmothership.org), CURFEW (https://sites.google.com/view/curfew-nerc/home), and TROPWET studying peatlands in the Cerrado biome in Brazil. All of these are funded by NERC. I am also excited to start working on CLIMPEAT (https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-environment-science-and-economy/peatlands-project-wins-prestigious-erc-grant/), an ERC synergy grant looking at abrupt changes in the Arctic. And also glad to be involved in WIE-MIP (https://www.sparkclimate.org/warming-induced-emissions/wie-mip). All of these projects allow me to work with a fantastic team of international scientists.