Claudia Czimczik

Contact Information

Office Location: 3228 Croul Hall

Lab Location: 2222 Croul Hall

Lab Phone: 949-824-3444

E-mail: czimczik@uci.edu

Group site: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/czimczik/

Telephone: 
949-824-1049
E-mail: 
czimczik@uci.edu

Prof. Czimczik‘s research aims at understanding the impacts of climate change, alterations in natural disturbance frequencies (i.e. fire), and changes in land use and management (i.e. urbanization) on the cycling of carbon and nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems. Her research seeks to appreciate and predict how human activities will impact the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems in the future and how changing terrestrial ecosystems will feed back to the climate system.  A major focus of these activities is on high-latitude ecosystems, i.e. arctic tundra and boreal forests.

 

To obtain these results and meet these goals, her group utilizes a variety of geochemical tools including trace gas analysis and stable- and radio-isotope analysis. The work has a very strong foundation of field observations – they use both unmanipulated research sites (e.g. natural gradients, chronosequences) and actively manipulated research sites.

 

She received her undergraduate and graduate education in Germany, and obtained a Diploma in Geoecology from the University of Bayreuth (1999) and a Ph.D from the Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry and Friedrich-Schiller-University (2003) in Jena. She joined UCI’s Department of Earth System Science (ESS) as a researcher in 2003, and the faculty in 2011.

Research Interests: 
  • Studies the impacts of climate change, alterations in natural disturbance frequencies (i.e. fire) and changes in land use and management (i.e. urbanization) on the cycling of carbon and nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems.
  • Comprehends and predicts how human activities will impact the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems in the future and how changing terrestrial ecosystems will feedback to the climate system.
  • Focuses on high-latitude ecosystems (arctic tundra and boreal forests).
  • Expert in how climate and land-use change affect the storage of carbon in land ecosystems and the exchange of carbon dioxide, methane and carbonaceous aerosols between the land and the atmosphere. Key interests: Boreal and Arctic, Mega-Cities.

Research Areas: Biogeochemical Cycles