Thesis Defense: 'Complex carbon cycle responses to multi-level warming and supplemental summer rain in the High Arctic,' July 11

Wednesday, July 11, 10 a.m.
Administration/Humanities Building, Room 204

The Biological Sciences Department is pleased to have Elizabeth D. Sharp, master's student in Biological Sciences, defending her thesis, "Complex carbon cycle responses to multi-level warming and supplemental summer rain in the high arctic." The graduate committee will consist of Paddy Sullivan, Ph.D., Jeff Welker, Ph.D., and Andrew Kulmatiski, Ph.D.

Sharp on her thesis:
"The Arctic has experienced rapid warming and changes in precipitation. Climate changes are expected to affect gross ecosystem photosynthesis (GEP), ecosystem respiration (ER) and the net ecosystem exchange of CO2 (NEE). A long-term, multi-level and multi-factor climate change experiment was established in 2003 in a polar semi-desert in northwest Greenland. Two levels of heating were applied and the higher level was combined with supplemental summer rain. Low-level warming increased the magnitude of the ecosystem C sink; high-level warming made the ecosystem a source of C to the atmosphere; when high-level warming was combined with increased summer rain, the ecosystem became a C sink of a magnitude similar to that observed under low-level warming. Supporting measurements suggest GEP responses largely reflect changes in leaf area of Salix arctica, rather than changes in leaf-level physiology. My findings indicate that the future High Arctic C budget may depend upon changes in summer rain."

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Please contact Biological Sciences at (907) 786-4780 for further assistance.