I've been having a pleasure to learn more about the research HENVI Forest is conducting in Department of Forest Sciences. Principal investigator Kari Minkkinen has been a perfect contact person to introduce me to the research group.
HENVI Forest has a goal to discuss what affects forest owners' choices when they manage their forest. These point of views are:
- Climate
- Profit
- Biodiversity
- Bioenergy
One can pretty easily make a conclusion that these point of views has a lot to do with politics and values in the end.
The plan to reach this goal is to combine different models that is produced by different partners in the research group. Most of the research, 90%, is done with virtual modelling in Dep. of Forest Sciences and most of the field work that produce data for the models is done in Hyytiälä research station where I'll be visiting this spring.
Some interesting and not so interesting questions raised in discussions...
How to present virtual models in understandable way?
Is a researcher torturing a tree with dryness tests?
Could one visualise or smell VOC's?
Albedo as art?
What is a scent of an landscape?
If good forest management doesn't exist, what is a good compromise of today?
Can we have a country without CO2 emissions and with voracious need of energy?
I'm looking forward to meet METLA people as well as the rest of the researchers in different departments of UHEL and Finnish Meteorological Institute. At the moment, it seems that I'm surfing in cornucopia, and I'll try to find something that means the most to me - and has some importance to the researchers, too.
I didn't have any cool pics, but here's some sort of combination of forestry, climate, economy and infrastructure - road after storm Asta in 2010.