Collaborative Research: Vegetation And Ecosystem Impacts On Permafrost Vulnerability

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NontechnicalRealistic representations of heat exchange in permafrost ecosystems are necessary for accurate predictive understanding of the permafrost carbon feedback under future climate scenarios. This project will provide a quantitative pan-arctic assessment of the effects of vegetation and landscape characteristics on permafrost thermal regimes. By working across ecosystems, landscape characteristics, and regions, the research will identify broad trends, and intensive energy balance sites will provide a mechanistic study of ecosystem impacts on permafrost response to climate change. The impacts of this study will be enhanced through integration of research results into regional and site-specific permafrost models and synthesis activities that will examine ecosystem impacts on energy balance and permafrost vulnerability to climate change. This work will have broad impacts on the scientific community and general public because it brings together important issues in the global environment and raises awareness of the connection between ecosystem dynamics and permafrost thaw. The proposed project will provide training opportunities for undergraduate students through collaboration between the researchers and an NSF funded field research experience for undergraduates. The researchers will mentor several students as part of this proposed work and will also teach two arctic system science courses at a predominantly undergraduate institution. This project will enhance scientific understanding through continued work with education centers, local communities and, in particular, with teachers and outreach coordinators. TechnicalSignificant declines in permafrost distribution are expected as the climate warms, but large uncertainties remain in determining the fate of permafrost under future climate scenarios. These uncertainties are driven, in large part, by vegetation and ecosystem properties that modulate the effect of climate on permafrost temperatures. Long-term monitoring of permafrost temperatures demonstrates the importance of these local conditions, yet there has been no pan-arctic effort to measure ecological and landscape variables in concert with permafrost temperature monitoring. This project will use a combination of field and remotely-sensed data to address the question of how vegetation and landscape factors modulate permafrost temperature response to climate change. To address this question the researchers will couple an extensive pan-arctic assessment of vegetation-permafrost dynamics with an intensive study of shrub and tree canopy cover effects on ecosystem energy balance. The first component of this research will be conducted at long-term permafrost temperature monitoring sites in Siberia and Alaska, and the second component, the vegetation-energy balance sites that will be established as part of this proposal, will be conducted at a shrub-tree canopy cover gradient in Siberia, where most permafrost regions are located. These intensively studied energy balance sites will provide an improved mechanistic understanding of the effects of ecosystem components, and interactions among these components, on ecosystem energy balance and permafrost vulnerability to climate change. This mechanistic knowledge will, in turn, support interpretation of broad patterns observed through a pan-arctic sampling of the permafrost temperature monitoring sites.