CAREER: The Lateral Transport of Watershed Atmospheric Carbon by Rivers

大气中二氧化碳浓度的增加对当今的生态系统构成了威胁。无论与全球气温的潜在联系如何，大气二氧化碳的增加都会改变重要的生态过程，如植物生产力，从而控制生态系统的结构和功能。全球和区域碳收支中一个中心的大气-陆地-海洋联系是化学风化(岩石矿物被水和二氧化碳溶解)，以及随后从大气中衍生的陆地二氧化碳作为碳酸盐碱度输出到沿海系统。这份职业建议书的主要研究问题是“当代风化速率和大气二氧化碳向河流的输送将如何应对环境变化”？拟议的工作将利用流域办法，包括实地和模拟部分，研究美国流域土地覆盖、土地利用、气候、陆地生产力和化学风化速率之间的机制和反馈。在教育方面，这项提议将在耶鲁大学林业与环境科学学院(FES)建立一个流域科学项目。FES有一大批硕士毕业生毕业进入科学、管理和政策领域的历史。除了对FES学生的直接教育外，分水岭计划还将与海洋科学教育卓越中心联系起来，通过一个新的教学网站教育普通公众和教育工作者。

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.