Site Description

The Arctic field site is located at Eight Mile Lake in Interior Alaska (collaboration with the project WeThaw at UCLouvain and with E.A.G. Schuur Lab from Northern Arizona University). The site presents a gradient from minimal to extensive permafrost degradation with contrasted thaw depth and water table level., i.e., an ideal situation with variable hydrological conditions for LandSense. The site lies in moist acidic tussock tundra in the northern foothills of the Alaska Range at the continuous to discontinuous permafrost boundary, and has been monitored since 2004 for soil temperature, thaw depth, water table level, vegetation^1,2,3. Mean annual temperature is 0.94°C, mean annual growing season temperature 11.91°C, and average annual precipitation is 378mm.

REFERENCES

1. Schuur, E. A. G., Crummer, K. G., Vogel, J. G. & Mack, M. C. Plant Species Composition and Productivity following Permafrost Thaw and Thermokarst in Alaskan Tundra. Ecosystems 10, 280–292 (2007).
2. Mauritz, M. et al. Nonlinear CO 2 flux response to 7 years of experimentally induced permafrost thaw. Global Change Biology 23, 3646–3666 (2017).
3. Natali, S. M. et al. Effects of experimental warming of air, soil and permafrost on carbon balance in Alaskan tundra. Global Change Biology 17, 1394–1407 (2011).