Micrometeorological Observations in a Sierra Nevada Meadow
Abstract
Mountain meadows play important roles on watershed and ecosystem services, including improving water quality, moderating runoff and providing biodiversity hotspots. In the Sierra Nevada, mountain meadows are an integral part of the mountain ecosystem and watersheds that impact more than 20 million people. Grazing, logging and other forms of anthropogenic land use in the Sierra Nevada have degraded the functioning of meadows, by altering the morphology, hydrology and vegetation. Existing meandering stream networks become incised and straightened by increased runoff, which effectively lowers the water table and completely alters the ecosystem from moist meadow sedges, grasses, and herbs to dryland grass and shrubs. Given the large growth cycle in healthy meadows, it is also expected that they sequester a significant amount of carbon and enhance atmospheric humidity through evapotranspiration, but relatively little work has been done on the bio-micrometeorology of meadows. The purpose of this study is to assess the growing season carbon, water and energy budgets of a partly degraded meadow in the northern Sierra Nevada. Loney Meadow, located at nearly 2,000 m in the Tahoe National Forest, has been identified as a degraded meadow and is scheduled to undergo restoration work to raise the water table in 2017. A micrometeorological tower with eddy covariance instruments was deployed at the site for most of the snow-free period from May to October 2016. The measurements include: fluxes of CO2, water vapor, surface radiation and energy budget components; ancillary meteorological and soil data; and an automated camera capturing daily images of the meadow surface. The poster will present diurnal and seasonal CO2 on a daily basis with a very rapid increase at the onset of the growing season.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.B11C0475B
- Keywords:
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- 0414 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0475 Permafrost;
- cryosphere;
- and high-latitude processes;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0480 Remote sensing;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0497 Wetlands;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES