Modeling Impacts of Climate Change on Carbon Dynamics in Northern High Latitude Wetlands
Changsheng
Li, University of New Hampshire, changsheng.li@unh.edu
Steve
Frolking, University of New Hampshire, steve.frolking@unh.edu
(Presenting)
Xiangming
Xiao, University of Oklahoma, xiangming.xiao@ou.edu
Carl
Trettin, USDA Forest Service, ctrettin@fs.fed.us
Bill
Salas, Applied Geosolutions, wsalas@agsemail.com
Globally, wetland soils contain a 20-25% of terrestrial soil carbon (C), despite occupying only 2-3% of the total land area, and a majority of that C is in high northern latitude soils. Northern hydric soils are particularly susceptible to climatic change because hydrology (e.g., precipitation) and temperature (especially in permafrost soils) strongly influence the soil C balance. We suggest that soil warming will drastically alter permafrost soils, and interactions with a changing water regime will alter the anaerobic conditions that regulate C storage, transformations and fluxes. In this new project, we will develop a process-based modeling framework, driven with remotely sensed data, to assess changes in the northern wetland C cycle in response to altered climatic regimes. The model framework will integrate three models: (1) Wetland-DNDC focuses on water, C and nitrogen (N) biogeochemistry, incorporating hydrologic drivers that regulate the C cycle, and dynamically dividing the soil profile into saturated and unsaturated zones so that it can simulate both aerobic and anaerobic biogeochemical processes occurring in the wetland ecosystems; (2) NEST predicts long-term impacts of climate change on soil temperature and moisture regimes in permafrost zones; and (3) ArcVeg is a nutrient-based, plant community and ecosystem model designed to simulate the transient effects of temperature change on biomass and community composition of a variety of arctic ecosystems Our goal is to (1) develop a DNDC-based modeling framework for simulating permafrost/wetland hydroclimate, arctic plant growth and C biogeochemistry in northern high latitudes; (2) calibrate and validate the modeling framework against observations from both field measurements (done by other groups), and remote sensing analysis at five active field sites in northern Eurasia and Alaska; (3) use PALSAR, MODIS, and Landsat data to parameterize vegetation, soil moisture and disturbance at landscape scale surrounding the selected sites, (4) develop GIS databases to link the climate, soil, vegetation and hydrology information generated from statistical and remotely sensed data as input drivers to the modeling framework; and (5) predict impacts on C dynamics and non-CO2 greenhouse emissions for the selected landscapes for 100-yr climate change scenarios. We will develop and test the computer simulation tool by integrating field data, remote sensing images and biogeochemical models.
Presentation Type: Poster
Poster Session: Carbon Cycle Science
NASA TE Funded Awards Represented:
Li, Changsheng
Modeling Impacts of Climate Change on Carbon Dynamics in Northern High Latitude Wetlands