ATLAS University of Alaska Home
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Artic Transitions in the Land Atmosphere System (ATLAS)
Institute of Arctic Biology
ATLAS Research Contributions
Transitions: A Study of the Spatial and Temporal Transitions of Climate and Ecosystems in the Circumpolar Arctic
Of all the terrestrial
climate processes and feedbacks, those that most directly affect
Arctic climate on seasonal to decadal time scales are associated
with the partitioning of the energy and moisture budgets and the
relationship of this partitioning to vegetation cover, snow cover,
snow melt, permafrost conditions, precipitation and radiative fluxes.
This proposal takes a comprehensive approach to study of the land
surface energy and moisture budget, involving both data collection,
detailed data analysis, model development, and spatial and temporal
extrapolation. As such, this project represents a new approach to
interdisciplinary research, in which the field program, both ecological
and physical, is closely tied to the simulation of ecosystems and
climate systems.
Our proposed work is driven by the hypothesis
that the transition regions of Arctic climate and ecosystems (e.g.
polar front, boreal forest treeline) have surface energy budget characteristics
that are not well understood, and that these characteristics have
profound implications for changed ecosystem, permafrost, snow and
atmospheric circulation distributions under a changing climate. In
order to produce credible predictions of these distributions for
the entire Arctic, it is necessary to investigate these characteristics,
determine parameterizations for their efficient modelling, and incorporate
these new parameterizations into spatially explicit predictive models.
To do this, we will employ a hierarchy of modelling approaches, including
highly detailed stand-alone permafrost, vegetation and land surface
models, column atmospheric models, vegetation dynamics models and
regional and global climate system models.
TO CONTACT US:
311 IRVING 1 BUILDING
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS
FAIRBANKS,
ALASKA, 99775-7000
PHONE: 907-474-6364
FAX : 907-474-6967
jason.beringer@arts.monash.edu.au
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No 9732126. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation
New
1999
Field report
Robert Hannon Interviews
Terry on Climate change MAY 2000
