Dr. Ross Morrison

Ross' research quantifies energy, water and greenhouse gas (GHG) exchanges — fluxes — between land surface and the atmosphere. It aims to improve the evidence base for land-based GHG mitigation and terrestrial GHG accounting, and provide data for improving and evaluating land models and remotely sensed data products. He specialises in biometeorological flux observations using the eddy covariance technique, with a principal focus on carbon dioxide fluxes at lowland peatland environments. Active flux sites include semi-natural and managed lowland and upland peatlands, grasslands, and food and bioenergy production systems.

Ross is currently leading work to evaluate the greenhouse gas abatement potential of optimized water management in lowland agricultural peatlands, and novel wetland agriculture systems ('paludiculture').

He leads the network of UK-SCAPE flux towers located across England and Wales. From 2018, he established and continues to grow a new network of agricultural flux towers on mineral soils under ASSIST that will provide evidence on the carbon and water balance of 'climate smart' versus conventional agricultural management systems.

Since June 2019, Ross has developed a new data processing system that exploits data collected at COSMOS-UK sites to deliver near-real-time estimates of evapotranspiration for over 35 locations distributed across the UK.

Past research has included observations of land surface-atmosphere energy and water fluxes that underpinned meteorological and hydrological modelling studies in India. He was also involved in developing the COSMOS-India and COSMOS-UK soil moisture networks.