Terry Chapin Institute of Arctic Biology, UAF and Scott Chambers Dept.
Fire causes threshold changes in carbon and energy exchange with the atmosphere.
Immediately following fire, there is an increase in winter albedo and decrease in summer albedo, combined with reduced ET and increased carbon efflux. ET than unburned stands and become a net carbon exchange. Our work will also interface with the hydrology project by measuring evapotranspiration of major stand types for comparison with Hinzman's hydrologic models and measurements of precipitation and runoff. Our major purpose is to determine the ecological and short-term environmental controls over fluxes rather than to obtain total annual sums of carbon or water exchange. We will use modeling and comparison with chamber measurements of CO2 flux and seasonal measurements of hydrology to extrapolate to annual sums.