---TITLE:

Biocomplexity Associated with the Response of Tundra Carbon Balance to Warming 
and Drying Across Multiple Spatial and Temporal Scales


---AUTHOR(S):

Walter Oechel
John Kimball 
Craig Tweedie 

-Name(s) of PI and all co-PIs

Walter Oechel (PI)
John Kimball (Co-PI)
Craig Tweedie (Co-PI) 

-Complete mailing address, telephone/facsimile Nos., web pages and E-mail 
 address of PI

Global Change Research Group
Department of Biology
PS-240
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182

Phone: (619) 594-6613
Fax: (619) 594-7831
Email: gcrg@sciences.sdsu.edu
Web: http://gcrg.sdsu.edu


---FUNDING SOURCE AND GRANT NUMBER:

National Science Foundation, Award Number: 0421588


---DATA SET OVERVIEW:

This research examines how biological and physical processes interact to control 
carbon uptake, storage and release in Arctic tundra ecosystems and how the 
self-organizing nature of these interactions varies across multiple spatial and 
temporal scales. Approximately 25% of the world's soil organic carbon reservoir 
is stored at high northern latitudes in permafrost and seasonally-thawed soils 
in the Arctic, a region that is currently undergoing unprecedented warming and 
drying, as well as dramatic changes in human land use. Understanding how changes 
in annual and inter-annual ecosystem productivity interact and potentially 
offset the balance and stability of the Arctic soil carbon reservoir is of 
utmost importance to global climate change science. If there is a net loss of 
soil carbon to the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases (namely CO2 and 
CH4), greenhouse warming could be enhanced. This non-linear, potentially 
positive feedback response could very quickly cause Arctic terrestrial 
ecosystems to function in a manner not known to us from the late Holocene and 
with globally significant implications.

The activities in this research benefit from a foundation and wealth of 
international and national carbon cycle research undertaken in northern Alaska 
and other Arctic regions over the past three decades. The group will initiate a 
comprehensive study involving an integrated framework of multi-scale aircraft 
and satellite remote sensing, micrometeorological and CO2 and CH4 flux 
measurements and hydro-ecological process model simulations over a 350km 
North-South transect spanning the dominant Arctic topographic and land cover 
units of northern Alaska. The study region encompasses many long-term 
measurement sites that have been in place for 5 to 10 years. They will expand 
these observations to include an extensive soil moisture manipulation involving 
a 60 hectare tundra flooding/draining experiment near Barrow Alaska on the 
Arctic Coastal Plain. The objective of this study is to quantify linkages 
between soil moisture and carbon uptake, storage and release over multiple 
spatial (microbial to landscape) and temporal (minutes to decades) scales. Only 
by increasing the spatial extent of our experimental manipulations and the 
duration of our observational time series can we better understand and predict 
the effect of scale on the complex coupling within Arctic ecosystems; namely, 
how small scale processes participate as components of higher scale phenomenon 
and how higher scale phenomenon constrain the former lower scale processes. This 
knowledge will improve our understanding of the current behavior and potential 
response of arctic tundra to global change, resulting in better predictions of 
feedbacks to climate and the global carbon cycle. 

The dataset includes:

Gridded data:
  BrwBeLandCover2002
  BrwBeLandCover2008
  BrwPeninsulaLandCover2002
  DigElevModel
Thematic Data:
  BaidBeResearchSites
  BeCatchment
  BoardWalks
  Dikes
  DrainageLines
  DrainagePoints
  MattedTrail
  PowerPoles
  Tramlines
  TreatmentAreas


-Time period covered by the data

2004-09-14 to 2010-08-31

-Physical location of the measurement or platform (latitude/longitude/elevation)

Various.


---INSTRUMENT DESCRIPTION:

n/a


---DATA COLLECTION and PROCESSING:

n/a


---DATA FORMAT:

ESRI ArcGIS Software


---DATA REMARKS:

ESRI ArcGIS Software


---REFERENCES:

n/a