The abrupt thawing of permafrost may affect up to half of all carbon stored in the layer of frozen Arctic soil, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience, and could double permafrost’s contributions to global climate warming compared to some previous model estimates that focused on gradual thaw alone. […]
Fire is a primary disturbance in boreal forests and generates both positive and negative climate forcings. The influence of fire on surface albedo is a predominantly negative forcing in boreal forests, and one of the strongest overall, due to increased snow exposure in the winter and spring months. Albedo forcings […]
Ecoss Assistant Research Professor Christina Schädel talks to KNAU and explains what the latest IPCC Special Report on 1.5° warming means for Arizona. Schädel was a contributing author to the report. Short excerpt from the interview: KNAU: What kind of changes are we seeing from climate change here in Arizona? […]
During the 2016-2017 academic year, Ecoss teamed up with STEM City to serve as a Flagstaff community STEM partner in the Scientists in the Classroom Program (http://www.flagstaffstemcity.com/scientists-in-the-classroom.html). Each month, Ecoss students, postdocs, faculty, and staff members visited Ms. Kathryn Wertz’s 6th grade science class at Sinagua Middle School to share […]
The Arctic continues to warm at a rate that is currently twice as fast as the global average (see essay on Surface Air Temperature). Warming is causing normally frozen ground (permafrost) to thaw, exposing significant quantities of organic soil carbon to decomposition by soil microbes (Romanovsky et al. 2010, Romanovsky […]