Fire In the Arctic Landscape: Impacts, Interactions And Links To Global and Regional Environmental Change

2007年的阿纳克图武克河(AR)大火创造了一个独特的机会来观察原始的苔原景观对一次重大扰动的反应。烧毁面积足够大(1000平方公里)，其影响可以在多个尺度上直接测量，从小块地块，到小(一级)集水区和山坡，到大(三级)集水区，再到整个烧毁区域上方的大气边界层。随着燃烧面积随着时间的推移而恢复，对关键生态系统过程以及陆地和水生群落的变化的观察将使我们能够深入了解系统组成部分之间的控制和相互作用，这是长期观察未受干扰或未受控制的冻土带景观所不可能的。随着全球气候继续变暖，AR大火也预示着北极景观及其与大气、水系和海洋的相互作用未来将发生变化。它提供了一种与基于更精细规模的短期实验研究的对干扰和气候变化的长期反应的预测进行比较的标准。最后，由于被烧毁的面积如此之大，它提供了一个测量变化的机会，其规模与大范围、全北极的建模和预测直接相关。基于所有这些原因，该项目将努力建立一个对阿纳克图武克河火灾进行长期、多尺度、多维度的观察、比较和分析的计划。这将以一种便于今后详细的过程研究以及长期建模和综合的方式进行。该计划的基础将足够广泛，可以让广泛的北极研究人员参与。这项工作的主要组成部分包括测量(1)地表碳、水和能量交换，(2)陆地有机质、碳和元素储量，(3)陆地植被组成和结构，(4)湖泊和溪流化学和水流，(5)湖泊和溪流群落组成，以及(6)用于扩大规模和与卫星和飞机反射率测量相比较的生产、生物量、群落组成和燃烧影响的光谱反射测量的评估。

The 2007 Anaktuvuk River (AR) fire created a unique opportunity to observe the response of a pristine tundra landscape to a major disturbance. The area burned is large enough (1000 km2) that its impacts can be measured directly at multiple scales, from small plots, to small (first-order) catchments and hillslopes, to large (third-order) catchments, to the atmospheric boundary layer above the entire burn. As the burned area recovers over time, observations of changes in key ecosystem processes and in terrestrial and aquatic communities will afford insights into controls and interactions among system components that would not be possible from long-term observation of an undisturbed or unmanipulated tundra landscape. The AR fire also serves as a harbinger of future change in the arctic landscape and its interactions with the atmosphere, aquatic systems, and oceans as global climate continues to warm. It provides a standard of comparison with predictions of long-term response to disturbance and climate change, based on finer-scale, shorter-term experimental studies. Finally, because the area burned is so large, it provides an opportunity for measuring change at a scale that is directly relevant to large-area, PanArctic modeling and prediction. For all of these reasons, this project will strive to establish a long-term, multiscale, multidimensional program of observation, comparison, and analysis on the Anaktuvuk River fire. This will be done in a way that facilitates future, detailed process studies and long-term modeling and synthesis. The program will be sufficiently broadly-based to involve participation by a wide range of arctic researchers. Key components of the work include measurement of (1) surface C, water, and energy exchanges, (2) terrestrial organic matter, C, and element stocks, (3) terrestrial vegetation composition and structure, (4) lake and stream chemistry and water flow, (5) lake and stream community composition, and (6) evaluation of spectral reflectance measures of production, biomass, community composition, and burn impacts for use in scaling up to larger areas and for comparison with satellite- and airplane-based measures of reflectance.This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).