MORE FOREST RESEARCH!
Markku Kulmala, one of the world’s leading researchers in atmospheric aerosol science, describes Finnish forest research as world-class, but says more information is still needed.
ELINA VENESMÄKI & SANNA LAAKKONEN, photos VESA TYNI
Academician Markku Kulmala , the first chair of the Finn- ish Climate Change Panel, has studied the atmosphere and climate change for decades. “My interest in the field arose from pure curiosity and the desire to better understand what was happening around us,” he says. A professor of Aerosol and Environmental Physics, Kulmala’s main job is at the Institute of Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR) of the University of Helsin- ki. It studies the composition of the atmosphere, atmos- phere – Earth surface feedbacks and climate change and he has been at its helm since the early 1990s, steering its national operations as well as its international networks. The world’s most cited researcher in the geosciences from 2011 to 2018, Kulmala is an honorary doctor and/ or professor of the universities of Stockholm, Tartu, Bu- dapest, Nanjing, Fudan and Beijing University of Chem- ical Technology, as well as a member of the Russian and Chinese academies of science. “I would not be an academician and my work would not be so widely referenced without the SMEAR stations,” says Kulmala. LESSONS LEARNED FROM CHERNOBYL Kulmala’s path to Stations Measuring Earth Surfaces and Atmosphere Relations (SMEAR) and their ground-breaking research began in 1977 with his studies in theoretical phys- ics at the University of Helsinki. He turned to atmospheric sciences a few years later, and gradually more and more of his research topics came to involve climate change. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 marked a turning point in his career. “We measured conifer needles, fish, the soil, cow’s milk, you name it, to understand the behaviour of radioactive
substances such as caesium. This gave us a general idea of the transfer of substances – how they circulate from the outside to the inside, from the atmosphere into the soil – and the trees, for example.” INSIGHT INTO THE EFFECTS OF THE FOREST ECOSYSTEM Kulmala says this insight served as a fundamental driv- er for the construction of SMEAR stations. They measure interactions between the atmosphere and ecosystems on the Earth’s surface, and the results provide diverse and comprehensive long-term data on various ecosystems such as forests. Markku Kulmala has been involved in the stations’ histo- ry from the outset, and the related work has made him and Finland number one in the atmospheric sciences research. He established the stations with Pertti Hari , Professor Emeritus in Forest Ecology. The first one was set up at Värriö, a fell in the eastern part of Finnish Lapland, in 1990–1991. SMEAR II, the most famous of the five stations in Fin- land, is part of many international measurement net- works. It was set up in 1995–1996 at the University of Helsinki’s Hyytiälä forestry field station in the Tampere region. It has produced a steady stream of data for re- search purposes. “The collection of data on forests is particularly impor- tant, because the forest ecosystem has a major impact on the atmosphere. Measurements help us identify various feedback loops between the two.” The SMEAR II station keeps tabs on more than 1,200 variables. “We offer the widest scope of measurements worldwide. A normal air pollution station measures ten variables, as does a normal weather station.”
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