Yatir
jhalper | April 10, 2011
These guys are as adept with a lug wrench as they are with a mass spectrometer. Prof. Dan Yakir (second from right) and members of his group had to become licensed truck drivers to operate their newest equipment - which is all packed into a custom-built truck for hauling around the country. Until now, Yakir and his team have been working from the Yatir station - a fixed tower set in a pine forest on the edge of the Negev desert. This station is part of a global network that continuously measures carbon exchange and other nutrient cycles in different forest settings. Now, he and his team will…
jhalper | December 20, 2010
Today's guest blogger is Prof. Dan Yakir. Until recently, Yakir was head of the Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department at the Institute, and he heads the Yatir Forest research station, which monitors, among other things, carbon exchange in a man-made semi-arid pine forest.
This piece comes in the wake of the worst fire in Israel's history, in which extreme drought, winds and a long fire season that depleted fire retardant supplies combined to flame a few embers into a major conflagration that burned thousands of acres of natural scrub forest.Tens of human lives were lost, many…