Ram Oren

Bio and Research:

With his graduate students, Dr. Oren quantifies the components of water flux in forest ecosystems and the influence of certain biotic and abiotic factors on water flux. Climate variability, including variations in air temperature, vapor pressure deficit, incoming radiation and soil moisture, and environmental change, including elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, affect the intra- and inter-annual patterns and amounts of water used by forest ecosystems, and their spatial distributions. These variations influence the temporal and spatial partitioning of incoming radiation between latent and sensible heat. Changes in water use by forests, resulting from abiotic pressures, trigger biotic feedback responses, which may often cancel or amplify abiotic impacts. Using a local mass balance approach and detailed measurements of water flux and driving variables in the soil, plants, and the atmosphere, in forests from Brazil to Alaska, Dr. Oren evaluates the likely responses of different forest ecosystems to environmental change. Using the Free Air CO2 Enrichment facility, together with several AmeriFlux sites, Dr. Oren also quantify the carbon and water balance in forests under current atmospheric CO2 concentration and concentration projected in future atmosphere, and evaluate the effect of soil fertility on carbon sequestration and water yield in pine forests.