EAR-PF: Climate sensitivity in mountain lakes of the Sierra Nevada, CA: controls on thermal regimes and carbon cycling

Adrianne Smits博士被授予NSF EAR博士后奖学金，在加州大学戴维斯分校开展研究和教育活动。主要研究目的是研究高海拔湖泊的物理特征如何介导融雪对湖泊温度和碳化学的影响。本研究将促进对高海拔流域气候、地貌和湖泊温度之间相互作用的认识，以及景观对山地湖泊碳循环的控制。通过开发预测高海拔湖泊温度和确定湖泊对气候变化敏感性的模型，本研究将有利于山区水资源管理。Smits博士将直接让本科生参与拟议的研究，培训他们的科学方法和分析。此外，Smits博士将通过与加州大学戴维斯分校的艺术/科学融合项目合作，开发结合艺术和科学的教育和推广材料，以便与广大受众交流这项研究的结果。本研究的目标是：(1)通过研究本地和区域驱动因素如何相互作用影响湖泊热收支和变暖速率，建立高海拔湖泊温度的预测经验模型；(2)量化山地湖泊景观格局及其对生态系统代谢和碳排放的控制。将结合现场高频温度数据、遥感产品、热预算算法和时间序列分析来实现第一个目标。Smits博士将改进现有的量化湖泊热预算的算法，包括融雪的平流作用，从而更好地反映山地湖泊的水文。为了实现第二个目标，Smits博士将在相关环境梯度上进行多湖碳生物地球化学调查，并将使用氧质量平衡方法来量化生态系统代谢。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Dr. Adrianne Smits has been granted an NSF EAR Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out research and educational activities at the University of California, Davis. The main research goal is to examine how physical characteristics of high elevation lakes mediate the influence of snowmelt in determining lake temperature and carbon chemistry. This study will advance understanding of interactions between climate, geomorphology, and lake temperature in high elevation watersheds, as well as landscape controls on carbon cycling in mountain lakes. This study will benefit water resource management in mountain regions by developing models that predict high elevation lake temperature and identify lake sensitivity to climate change. Dr. Smits will directly involve undergraduate students in the proposed research, training them in scientific methods and analysis. In addition, Dr. Smits will develop education and outreach materials that integrate art and science via collaboration with the Art/Science Fusion Program at UC Davis, in order to communicate the results of this research with broad audiences. The objectives of this research are (i) to develop predictive empirical models of high elevation lake temperature by investigating how local and regional drivers interact to affect lake heat budgets and warming rates and (ii) to quantify landscape patterns and controls on ecosystem metabolism and carbon emissions in mountain lakes. A combination of in-situ high frequency temperature data, remote sensing products, heat budget algorithms, and time series analyses will be used to achieve the first objective. Dr. Smits will improve existing algorithms for quantifying lake heat budgets by including the advectic role of snowmelt, therefore better reflecting the hydrology of mountain lakes. To achieve the second objective, Dr. Smits will conduct a multi-lake survey of carbon biogeochemistry across relevant environment gradients and will use an oxygen mass balance approach to quantify ecosystem metabolism.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.