CBA leader Dag O. Hessen writes this in the introduction:
The Centre for Biogeochemistry in the Anthropocene (CBA) entered 2020 in good pace – and then we were hit by Corona – as everybody else. As for the rest of the society, the consequences varied from modest to major. For the Master students, PhDs and postdocs who were just at the starting point of their projects, or just had arrived Norway when universities closed down at March 12, the effects have been severe. While some remedies have been taken, contacts and lectures have been digitalized and extensions given wherever possible, this has clearly not compensation for all drawbacks. Because CBA is distributed over three different departments and different research groups, the seminars and meeting places serves as an important glue – and these activities have suffered. Still, there has been an impressive amount of work done during 2020, as this annual report and list of arrangements and scientific outputs will witness.
The CBA activities cover a range of scales in space and time, from molecular and genomic processes in microbial communities to large scale regional or even global models related to climate forcing and climate responses in northern regions (covering atmosphere, tundra, boreal forests, wetlands, lakes and coastal areas). The idea behind CBA is thus to merge scales, projects, people and ideas since the complex problems involved in climate, elemental cycling and feedbacks no doubt requires a broad multidisciplinary effort. CBA should thus provide an added value and both deeper and broader insights. Many people have been involved in field activities, and a highlight in this context was the integrated sampling at Finnmark in fall, including the permafrost sites at Iškoras, where many people participated, thus fulfilling some of the key goals of CBA. A more thorough presentation of this is provided in the report. There has also been an impressive list or scientific papers provided by CBA-related researchers in 2020, several in top-ranked journals. A list can be found in the annual report.
The annual report will be printed on paper, and is available on request. The annual report can be downloaded in a high-resolution (12MB) or a low-resolution (6MB) version.