Robert Grant is the Professor of Ecosystem Modeling in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta and this is the second part of his presentation about his research on the impacts of climate change on the ecosystem in North America.
Significant amounts of carbon are buried in permafrost, and get released during the warmer seasons. This has an effect on soil decomposition, nitrogen mineralization and CO2 fixation. It is also important to note the active layer depth (ALD) may be deepening in the northern ecosystems. In most parts of the region the average rate of deepening of ALD is 2.3 cm per decade -- a significant change. Changes such as this are a key indicator of climate change in permafrost regions. Grant also compared changes in modelled LAI with those in AHVRR NDVI to test if warming in the arctic is increasing the length of the growing season, over successive 5 year periods, from 1985-2006. It was determined that after 1986 there was increased spring and summer growing seasons.
Most areas in higher latitudes have shown changes attributed to climate warming. If this warming continues, differences in gains of R v GPP will show if northern ecosystems remain carbon sinks or become carbon sources.
Grant's future research includes further testing model output against measurements at documented sites, and will be testing key information such as CO2 and energy fluxes, plant biomass growth, and soil temperature. The conduct model will run from 2010 to 2100, and will show different scenarios of climate change.
This presentation is a part of the Alberta Soil Science Workshop from February 2014.
