Gao Climate and Energy Solution Lab
Meeting the Paris Agreement’s climate goal of keeping temperature increases well below 2 °C — even 1.5 °C — will require removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere beyond reducing GHG emissions. Therefore, carbon dioxide removal and the sustainable management of global carbon cycles are one of the most urgent society needs and will become the major focus of climate action worldwide. However, research on carbon dioxide removal remains in an early stage with large knowledge gaps. The global potential and scalability, full climate consequences, and potential side effects of currently suggested carbon sequestration options — afforestation and reforestation, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air carbon capture — are uncertain. Moreover, although about 120 national governments have a net-zero emission target, few have actionable plans for developing carbon dioxide removal. My research is focused on biological carbon sequestration, nature-based climate solutions, and bioenergy.
Biosphere dynamics
Land biosphere absorbs around 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions each year. How climate changes have impacted and will influence biosphere dynamics? How land carbon sink (uptake) will be repsonding to future climate changes?
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Publications:
Gao, X., Liang, S., He, B. Detected global agricultural greening from satellite data, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (2019) [link]
[Satellite datasets, Food and Agriculture Organization inventory datasets]
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Gao, X., Liang, S., Sauer, J. Greening hiatus in Eurasian boreal forests since 1997 caused by a wetting and cooling summer climate, Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences (2020) [link]
[In situ, satellite, and reanalysis datasets]
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Awards:
2020 & 2021 University of Maryland Summer Research Fellowship
Nature-based climate solutions: forest conservation, restoration, and sustainable management
Nature-based climate solutions (NbS), such as forest conservation and restoration, offer a promising approach to mitigate the effects of global climate change, conserve biodiversity, and enhance rural livelihoods. By either reducing emissions or by sequestering extra carbon in terrestrial ecosystems (soil and vegetation), forest conservation and restoration can yield substantial co-benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services and is often a no-regret investment. Land use projects, which are mostly forestry projects, issued approximately half of all credits from 2000 to 2021 on the voluntary carbon market, and have featured prominently in many Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement.
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Publications:
Gao, X., Liang, S., Wang, D., Li, Y., He, B., Jia, A. Exploration of a novel carbon dioxide removal option: lighting up tropical forests at night. Earth System Dynamics (2022) [link]
[Fully coupled community Earth system model, NCAR Cheyenne high-performance computing platform]
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Gao, X., Peter B. Reich, Jeffrey R. Vincent, Matthew E. Fagan, Robin L. Chazdon, Steffen Fritz, Dmitry Schepaschenko, Matthew D. Potts, Matthew C. Hansen, Martin Jung, Pedro H. S. Brancalion, María Uriarte, Trevor F. Keenan, Thomas W. Crowther, Ralph O. Dubayah, Myroslava Lesiv, Shunlin Liang, Dongdong Wang, The Importance of Distinguishing Between Natural and Managed Tree Cover Gains in the Moist Tropics, Nature Communications, in revision [link]
[Satellite datasets, IIASA Global Forest Model]
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Awards:
2024 Dean's Research Initiative Grant
2023 University of Maryland Dissertation Fellowship
2023 AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper
2021 NCAR Graduate Student Small-Allocation Computing Award (2021-2024)
Bioenergy coupled with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)
Bioenergy has significant potential to reduce GHG emissions by substituting fossil fuels, and could achieve negative emissions when augmented with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Mitigation scenarios in the sixth assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) require dedicated energy crop expansion to meet the biomass demand consistent with global temperature targets.
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Publications:
Gao, X. Future climate risks on the efficacy of BECCS. In Preparation
[Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Global Change Analysis Model, integrated assessment model, climate models, global crop models.]
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Gao, X. Detection and Monitoring of Second-Generation Biofuel Crops in the USA. In Preparation
[I work with Louise Chini on this project, using remote sensing observations, Google Earth Engine, and field measurements.]
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Suggested readings: