Long Term Patterns of and Controls on Inter- and Intra-annual Variability in CO2 Flux in the Alaskan Arctic

San Diego State University Foundation, San Diego CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will examine the potential effect of climate warming on the annual storage and/or release of carbon dioxide from tundra on the western Alaska North Slope. The measurements will be made with eddy flux towers in Barrow, Atqasuk, and Ivotuk Alaska and the results compared to remote sensing data from the MODIS satellite instruments. This study represents a continuation and expansion of a long-term examination of terrestrial responses to climate change on the Alaska North Slope. This phase of the study will examine variations of carbon dioxide flux in response to oscillations of the Arctic Oscillation on seasonal, annual, and decadal time scales. The regional results will be used in computer simulations of the ecosystem in order to build a predictive capacity to the research as more is known about climate change in the region. The acclimation of the ecosystem and soil moisture from temporal changes in net ecosystem carbon flux will be determined over varying time-scales. The study is important to understanding regional and annual patterns, particularly the variability, of carbon dioxide flux from tundra ecosystems at a time when climate warming appears to be affecting the terrestrial environment.