Methane and Carbon Dioxide Emissions during the Seasonal Permafrost Thaw at the Bonanza Creek Research Forest: Results from the May 2016 Field Campaign
Abstract
We present field measurements from a May 2016 campaign funded under NASA's Interdisciplinary Science (IDS) program to track methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions above thawing permafrost at three sites near Fairbanks, AK. Each of the sites, located in the Bonanza Creek Research Forest, represent a different ecosystem including black spruce with cold soils and stable permafrost, collapse scar bog with thermokarst formation, and a site with moderately rich fen lacking near surface permafrost. Field experiments were carried out in May during the seasonal ground thaw of the active layer. Measurements included permafrost depth and subsurface structure using ground penetrating radar, meteorological variables (air and soil temperature, net radiation, albedo, precipitation, snow depth, vapor pressure, etc.), eddy covariance data from a 3-D sonic anemometer, and surface and column concentrations of CH4 and CO2 with an open-path infrared gas analyzer (LICOR) and Miniaturized Laser Heterodyne Radiometer (Mini-LHR) respectively. We have referred to this effort as a pilot study because our intent is to expand our observational network in the future to other sites in North America, which will aid in the monitoring of changes in GHG emissions in the Arctic as well as complement and help interpret data collected by space-borne instruments, such as GOSAT, IASI, and AIRS. This is the first time that these types of measurements have been combined to provide a holistic view of the evolution of, and the atmospheric response to permafrost thaw. The final year of this effort will focus on estimating a global source of GHG emissions from thawing permafrosts. We will use MODIS and Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor data to "scale up" the data collected at the three sites on the basis of land surface type information. Based on the data collected at the three sites and a variety of existing satellite data sets, we will develop a computationally-efficient parameterization of emissions from thawing permafrosts for use in the NASA GEOS-5 Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM), thus benefiting ongoing efforts in the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) to build an Earth System Model which is used for both retrospective and predictive simulations of important GHGs.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.B43C0618W
- Keywords:
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- 0428 Carbon cycling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0486 Soils/pedology;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0702 Permafrost;
- CRYOSPHEREDE: 1615 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- GLOBAL CHANGE