The long road to JCU Cairns started with a PhD in Petrology at the University of Copenhagen, then via Big Oil in the North Sea, driving an Electron Microprobe in Sydney, mapping Antarctic mountains, and years of researching metals in mud, water and biota for environmental monitoring all over Northern Australia. At JCU my task is to develop new portable instruments for field-based analysis of stable isotopes (H, C, O) in water, soil and other environmental samples. This work includes building some world-first gadgets that help provide new insights into weighty questions about global water and carbon cycling.

Interests

Research

• The use of stable isotopes in environmental science, for example to track water from rain through soil and river flow to freshwater plumes in the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon or to understand the CO2 emissions from plants and soil as part of the carbon cycle and how this contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
• The art of measuring metals and other elements at very low concentration levels in the marine environment and using stable lead isotopes to trace the dispersion of emissions from mining and smelting operations.

Research Disciplines

• Environmental Science and Management (0502)
• Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience (0406)
• Geochemistry (0402)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Physical and Chemical Conditions of Water (9611)
• Ecosystem Assessment and Management (9605)

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Birkel C, Duvert C, Correa A, Munksgaard N, Maher D and Hutley L (2020) Tracer-aided modeling in the low-relief, wet-dry tropics suggests water ages and DOC export are driven by seasonal wetlands and deep groundwater. Water Resources Research, 56 (4), Article: e2019WR026175, DOI:10.1029/2019WR026175.
• Duvert C, Hutley L, Birkel C, Rudge M, Munksgaard N, Wynn J, Setterfield S, Cendon D and Bird M (2020) Seasonal shift from biogenic to geogenic fluvial carbon caused by changing water sources in the wet-dry tropics. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 125 (2), Article: e2019JG005384, DOI:10.1029/2019JG005384.
• Fogwill C, Turney C, Menviel L, Baker A, Weber M, Ellis B, Thomas Z, Golledge N, Etheridge D, Rubino M, Thornton D, van Ommen T, Moy A, Curran M, Davies S, Bird M, Munksgaard N, Rootes C, Millman H, Vohra J, Rivera A, Mackintosh A, Pike J, Hall I, Bagshaw E, Rainsley E, Bronk-Ramsey C, Montenari M, Cage A, Harris M, Jones R, Power A, Love J, Young J, Weyrich L and Cooper A (2020) Southern Ocean carbon sink enhanced by sea-ice feedbacks at the Antarctic Cold Reversal. Nature Geoscience, 13, pp. 489-497, DOI:10.1038/s41561-020-0587-0.
• Munksgaard N and Nelson P (in press) Coupled polymer-membrane equilibration and cavity ring-down spectrometry for the highly sensitive determination of dissolved methane in environmental waters. Analytical Letters, , DOI:10.1080/00032719.2020.1767122.
• Munksgaard N, Zwart C, Haig J, Cernusak L and Bird M (2020) Coupled rainfall and water vapour stable isotope time series reveal tropical atmospheric processes on multiple timescales. Hydrological Processes, 34 (1), pp. 111-124, DOI:10.1002/hyp.13576.
• Powell L, Lim H, Brown I, Huang T, Munksgaard N, Randall M, Holdsworth J and Cook H (2020) Innovation through collaboration: improving urban water management for a reef council. Water e-journal, 5 (3).
• Turney C, Fogwill C, Golledge N, McKay N, van Sebille E, Jones R, Etheridge D, Rubino M, Thornton D, Davies S, Ramsey C, Thomas Z, Bird M, Munksgaard N, Kohno M, Woodward J, Winter K, Weyrich L, Rootes C, Millman H, Albert P, Rivera A, van Ommen T, Curran M, Moy A, Rahmstorf S, Kawamura K, Hillenbrand C, Weber M, Manning C, Young J and Cooper A (2020) Early Last Interglacial ocean warming drove substantial ice mass loss from Antarctica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117 (8), pp. 3996-4006, DOI:10.1073/pnas.1902469117.
• Wynn J, Duvert C, Bird M, Munksgaard N, Setterfield S and Hutley L (in press) Land transformation in tropical savannas preferentially decomposes newly added biomass, whether C(3)or C(4)derived. Ecological Applications, , Article: e02192, DOI:10.1002/eap.2192.
• Buckton G, Cheesman A, Munksgaard N, Wurster C, Liddell M and Cernusak L (2019) Functional traits of lianas in an Australian lowland rainforest align with post-disturbance rather than dry season advantage. Austral Ecology, 44 (6), pp. 983-994, DOI:10.1111/aec.12764.
• Duvert C, Bossa M, Tyler K, Wynn J, Munksgaard N, Bird M, Setterfield S and Hutley L (2019) Groundwater‐derived DIC and carbonate buffering enhance fluvial CO2 evasion in two Australian tropical rivers. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 124 (2), pp. 312-327, DOI:10.1029/2018JG004912.
• Munksgaard N, Kurita N, Sánchez-Murillo R, Ahmed N, Araguas L, Balachew D, Bird M, Chakraborty S, Kien Chinh N, Cobb K, Ellis S, Esquivel-Hernández G, Ganyaglo S, Gao J, Gastmans D, Kaseke K, Kebede S, Morales M, Mueller M, Poh S, Santos V, Shaoneng H, Wang L, Yacobaccio H and Zwart C (2019) Data descriptor: daily observations of stable isotope ratios of rainfall in the tropics. Scientific Reports, 9, Article: 14419, DOI:10.1038/s41598-019-50973-9.
• Munksgaard N, McBeath A, Ascough P, Levchenko V, Williams A and Bird M (2019) Partitioning of microbially respired CO₂ between indigenous and exogenous carbon sources during biochar degradation using radiocarbon and stable carbon isotopes. Radiocarbon, 61 (2), pp. 573-586, DOI:10.1017/RDC.2018.128.

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

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These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

• A Deeper Understanding of Isoscapes in the Tropics (PhD , Secondary Advisor)

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
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