Jeffrey Welker: Research in the Media

As part of a US Coast Guard Research and Development mission to test, evaluate and use new devices for improving geochemcial and biological awareness in the Arctic and sub-Arctic marine environment, Jeff Welker and Eric Klein (members of the UAA Arctic Domain Awareness Center-ADAC) spend 20 days on a HEALY mission from Kodiak, passing through the Gulf of AK, the Bering, the Chuchchi and the Beaufort Seas to the US-Canadian border east of Prudhoe Bay. They took over 13 million measurements of the water vapor concentration, the water vapor isotopes (18O &2H) as well as the concentrations of CO2 and of CH4 and the 13C values of the CO2 and the CH4.  Their goal is to develop a model that correlates water vapor isotopes with sea ice density and to use the carbon isotopes to detect unusual petroleum in the Arctic system, such as vessel exhaust and potentially oil on the surface.  They continuously pumped air from the bow of the HEALY down below decks to two Picarros, one for the water cycle and a second one for the carbon cycle, that took measurements once a second of the ocean air they were passing through on the vessel.  This is the very first real time and massively spatially extensive measurements at very fine scales of sub- and Arctic maritime water and carbon cycles.

The research will be reported at AGU this fall in San Francisco.

Photo: Greenland Ice Sheet at 77oN.

CBS Evening News

Jeff Welker's long-term research program in NW Greenland will be visited by CBS Evening News this month as part of a segment on High Arctic climate change being developed by the network.

For the past 13 years, Welker and colleagues (including E Klein, P Sullivan, M Rogers, M O'Dell, D Causey) have been quantifying C, N and water cycling processes; permafrost dynamics and ancient C emissions;the export of ancient C from the Greenland Ice Sheet to the nearshore marine system; the feeding ecology of sea birds; and how High Arctic tundra ecosystems will respond to a suite of climate change scenarios (warming x watering & deeper snow).

Welker's program has involved 5 other US campuses and international collaborations with Scandinavian and European institutes. The program has mentored over 10 graduate students, provided research opportunities for 5 postdoctoral scientists and training for 20 undergraduates. The research discoveries have been featured in Nature and in Global Change Biology journals recently.

Welker's program has led to national and international recognition as a place of premiere High Arctic research lead by a US/UAA faculty and this High Arctic work complements his other program on Svalbard, strengthening his Fulbright Distinguished US Arctic Chairship program with Norway.

Today, Welker's team at the Thule, NW Greenland site consists of Dr. Julie McKnight and Mr. Max Franklin-a recent UAA Biology Department graduate, whom are taking a suite of field measurements. In addition, they are overseeing the operation of Welker and Klein's in situ, real time water vapor isotope device that is evaluating how different moisture sources in the High Arctic control water vapor/precipitation isotope geochemistry;information critical to resolving how the Pan Arctic water isotope cycle is changing.

USCGC Healy supports Arctic Science

An Aerostate, used to extend communication ranges in land and in this case, sea-based vessels, is extended from the USCGC Healy in the‪#‎Arctic‬, roughly 50 miles off the coast of Barrow, Alaska.

Jeff Welker, Fulbright Distinguished U.S. Arctic Chair-Norway, and Eric Klein, a research scientist from the University of Alaska Anchorage, undertook the first in situ continuous measurements of the Arctic water isotope cycle and the carbon isotope properties of carbon-dioxide and methane during this cruise.

The research was supported by this NSF collaborative award;http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1332268/

Welker and Klein have discovered that the water-vapor isotope values vary with sea ice coverage and latitude and they will be mapping the water vapor and the liquid sea water;this data can be used in marine food-web studies.

The image was taken during a 2015 U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center sponsored mission to test and evaluate new technologies for expanding Arctic awareness and for improving marine environmental measurements packages.

University of Alaska Anchorage Flickr Page: King of Norway Visits UAA