CAREER: The Lateral Transport of Watershed Atmospheric Carbon by Rivers

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Increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide pose a threat to today's ecosystems. Regardless of the potential linkages to global temperatures, increased atmospheric CO2 stands to modify important ecological processes, such as plant productivity, that can control ecosystem structure and function. A central atmospheric-land-ocean connection in global and regional carbon budgets is chemical weathering (the dissolution of rock minerals by water and CO2) and the subsequent export of atmospherically derived terrestrial CO2, as carbonate alkalinity, to coastal systems. The main research question of this CAREER proposal is "how will contemporary weathering rates and the transport of atmospheric CO2 to rivers respond to environmental change"? The proposed work will utilize watershed approaches including field and modeling components to research the mechanisms and feedbacks between land-cover, land-use, climate, terrestrial productivity and chemical weathering rates in United States watersheds. Educationally, this proposal will establish a program in watershed science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science (FES). FES has a history of graduating a large cohort of master students into the scientific, management and policy fields. In addition to direct education of FES students, the watershed program will link with a Center for Ocean Science Educational Excellence to educate the general public and educators through a new instructional website.