NASA funds ENRI climate change project

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has just funded a $1.5 million collaborative research project led by Dr. Jeff Welker, director of the Environment and Natural Resources Institute (ENRI), and Dr. Rob Campbell of the Prince William Sound Science Center. The interdisciplinary team will study the changing C cycle (carbon cycle) of the Copper River Watershed (CRW) and the Gulf of Alaska. The primary purpose of the study is to quantify the biogeochemical connections between terrestrial and aquatic systems and the marine ecosystems of the Gulf of Alaska.

Welker's team will use intensive site-based studies in the upper CRW to quantify C capture and loss today as a means of predicting how these processes will behave in the future as these landscapes continue to change. They will measure the carbon dioxide exchange of spruce forest, mixed forest, shrubs and recently deglaciated areas, along with dissolved organic C in the stream and river systems in these landscapes with differing deglaciation ages (successional stages).

The rapid recession of glaciers in the Wrangell Mountains and the associated transitions in the abundance of different vegetation types as the landscapes mature mean that studies done today can be used to forecast the magnitude of C cycling in the CRW in the future.

The team will be based out of McCarthy, Alaska where access to the range of vegetation types is feasible using fixed-wing aircraft. Studies will begin in May 2011 and continue until September 2013 in phase one.

Postdoctoral scientist Rommel Zulueta and graduate students Laurel McFadden and Matt O'Dell have been recruited to join the team along with Professor Doug Causey and Dr. Paddy Sullivan of UAA's Biology Department and ENRI.