Doctoral Student: Przemyslaw Zelazowski
Position:
DPhil StudentContact:
e: przemyslaw.zelazowski@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Title:
Spatial and temporal land change patterns in the Eastern Peruvian Andes: remote sensing, understanding, and making projections
I work in the Ecosystems Dynamics Group led by Professor Yadvinder Malhi. My doctoral research is devoted to the contemporary and future extent of evergreen tropical forests, with a special focus on on the transition between the Peruvian Amazon Basin and the high Andes. My work evolves along two main themes: the first one is change detection using Landsat imagery, and the second is inference of climate patterns from GCM (General Circulation Model) data.
In regards to satellite imagery, I am particularly interested in the bias introduced by the atmosphere between the ground and the satellite. I am developing a framework - LandCor - which removes atmospheric effects pixel-by-pixel with the radiative transfer code 6s. Controlling for atmospheric effects will allow more confident judgements about the state of environment, as seen by the satellite.
My interest in climate patterns is in the context of the analogue climate model IMOGEN, and the work of Dr Christopher Huntingford. The analogue climate model allows quick absorption of climate predictions in order to employ them in sophisticated simulations accounting for the multitude of the land's physical and chemical processes. It also makes it possible to explore new 'interpolated' climate scenarios.
The majority of my work falls into research done internationally by Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group.
Publications:
- Zelazowski, P., Malhi, Y., Huntingford C., Sitch S., and Fisher, J.B. (in press, 2010) Changes in the potential distribution of humid tropical forests on a warmer planet. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
- Malhi, Y., Aragão, L.E.O.C., Galbraith, D., Huntingford, C., Fisher, R., Zelazowski, P., Sitch, S., McSweeney, C. and Meir, P. (2009) Exploring the likelihood and mechanism of a climate-change-induced dieback of the Amazon rainforest. PNAS, 106(49): 20610-20615
- Phillips, O., et al. (2009) Drought sensitivity of the Amazon rainforest. Science, 323(5919): 1344-1347.
- Szulkin, M., Zelazowski, P., Nicholson, G. and Sheldon, B.C. (2009) Inbreeding avoidance under different null models of random mating in the great tit. Journal of Animal Ecology, 78: 778-788.
- Morgan, R.M., Freudiger-Bonzon, J., Nichols, K.H., Jellis, T., Dunkerley, S., Zelazowski, P. and Bull, P.A. (2007) The geoforensic analysis of footwear. Chapter 16 in, Ritz, K., Dawson, L. and D. Miller (eds.) Criminal and Environmental Soil Forensics. Springer NL.
- Zelazowski, P., Foody, G.M. and Malhi, Y. (in review, 2010) Pixel-based atmospheric correction of optical satellite imagery with radiative transfer code. Remote Sensing of Environment.
- Huntingford, C. et al. (in review, 2010) IMOGEN: An intermediate complexity model to evaluate terrestrial impacts of a changing climate. Geosciences Model Development.
- Zelazowski, P., Malhi, Y. and Feeley, K. (in prep., 2010) Is there evidence for climate-driven tree line migration in the Eastern Andes?
- Zelazowski, P., Sayer, A.M., Grainger R.G. and Thomas, G.E. (in prep., 2010) Reconciling satellite measurements of atmospheric properties with high-resolution land imagery.