| Summary: | This grant is a collaboration with 0632264 (Bret-Harte, UAF). The research will (1) establish observatories at two existing sites of research on landscape-level carbon, water, and energy balance at Toolik Lake (Alaska) and Cherskiy (Siberia) and (2) forms a network of observatories across the Arctic where similar long-term observations of carbon, water and energy variables are made or proposed as part of International Polar Year (IPY). These collaborating sites are Toolik, Cherskiy, Abisko (Sweden, the main site of the ABACUS project), Zackenberg (Greenland), and several sites in Arctic Canada. This four-year grant funds instruments and personnel at Toolik and Cherskiy as well as international workshops and visits among the five sites that would ensure that data and instrumentation are easily comparable. Rather than studying one process at a time, this project focuses on simultaneous measurements of carbon, water, and energy fluxes of the Arctic terrestrial landscape at hourly, daily, seasonal, and multiyear time scales. These are major regulatory drivers of the Arctic System, forming key linkages and feedbacks between the land surface, the atmosphere, and the oceans. Observations and interpretation of carbon, water, and surface energy exchanges will be based on carbon dioxide and methane flux and micrometeorological tower measurements, as well as measurements of plant growth, stream flow, and carbon in flowing water (dissolved organic and inorganic carbon).
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