8:00 am - 9:00 am
Event details: A graduate exam seminar is a presentation of the student’s final research project for their degree.
This is an ALES PhD Final Exam Seminar by Christopher Schulze. This seminar is open to the general public to attend.
Zoom Link: https://ualberta-ca.zoom.us/j/92178769269?pwd=hqWPSZkaBak5YVbPVUYWaay1SCMSMG.1
PhD with Drs. David Olefeldt and Oliver Sonnentag
Thesis Topic: Out of the Dark, into the Light? Influence of Wildfire and Thermokarst on Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Boreal Peat Landscapes
near the southern Limit of Permafrost
Abstract:
Wildfire and permafrost thaw have been common disturbances in the boreal zone for millennia and are now intensified by
warming due to climate change. The Taiga Plains ecozone in northwestern Canada is warming at a faster rate than other
regions. In this ecozone, permafrost is found at relatively low latitudes due to the vast abundance of peatlands, whose
large, frozen carbon and nitrogen stocks are vulnerable to warming. Ecosystems and atmosphere exchange carbon and
nitrogen as greenhouse gas fluxes such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, which are altered by wildfire and
permafrost thaw. My findings suggest that the two disturbances are not only similar in their aerial extent across the
permafrost peatlands of the Taiga Plains, but also in their effects on increased net radiative greenhouse gas forcing,
leading to further warming by both, carbon dioxide release following wildfire and methane following permafrost thaw.
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