CALM SITE U12A

TOOLIK

Site code

U12A

Site name

Toolik Lake

CAPS I Metadata form

GGD359

CAPS II Metadata form

GGD313U_12

Site Photograph

Data

Responsible for data submission

Nikolay Shiklomanov

Email Address

Shiklom”-at-“gwu.edu

Institution/Organization

GWU

Location description

Arctic Alaska

Location Lat.

68 deg. 37 min. N

Location Lon.

149 deg. 36 min. W

Elevation avg. (m)

750

Methods Grid

1000

Methods Other

Air Temperature, Soil temperature, Soil Moisture

Landscape Description

Glaciated foothills tundra and prostrate-dwarf-shrub

Vegetation /Classification

Tussock-graminoid, dwarf-shrub tundra and prostrate-dwarf-shrub, moss tundra (moist acidic and nonacidic)

Soils (or Material)

Ruptic-Histic Aquiturbel

Thaw depth measurements (year started)               

1995

Air temp. measurements (year started)

1995

Snow cover measurements (year started)

NA

Soil temp. measurements (year started)

1998

soil moisture measurements (year started)

1998

general description of soil moisture (dry, moist, wet, saturated)

Dry on top of the ridges, wet to saturated in the watertrack

soil texture: if non organic describe texture, if organic indicate thickness of organic layer (cm)

Organic Layer thikness:15 (cm); mineral texture -- silty loam /silty clay/gravelly loam (coarce glacial till)

 

DESCRIPTION OF AREA CONTAINING SITE:

This grid occupies the flanks of a bedrock-cored hill adjacent to Toolik Lake. Moist acidic tundra has developed atop glacial tills. Vegetation and soils vary with slope, aspect, and drainage, and are discontinuous (Hinkel & Nelson, 2003).

 

SOIL DESCRIPTION: (predominant texture, i.e., ‘sand’, ‘gravel’, ‘peat’, etc.): Typic Aquiturbel

 

SAMPLING DESIGN AND METHOD:

1-sq km grid consists of a square array of surveyed permanent stakes separated by 100 m, yielding an 11 × 11 array of sampling nodes on each grid. Thaw depth and snow sampling was conducted twice by manual probing at each stake. The two values for each sampling point are averaged, yielding a maximum of 121 data points per grid per probing date. The active layer was not measured at locations where grid points intersect rocks or deep water.

 

The soil climate station was established in September of 1998 and is located near Toolik Lake, Alaska, at the University of Alaska/National Science Foundation Research camp. The station is located within the 1 km CALM u12A grid. The elevation is about 759 m (2490 ft). This station monitors air temperature, precipitation, soil temperature at various depths to a maximum of 120 cm, and soil water contents at 9, 12, 38, 39, and 68 cm depths. Measurements are made at 20-minute intervals and averaged and recorded every hour.

 

REFERENCES:

 

Hinkel, K.M. & Nelson, F.E. 2003. Spatial and temporal patterns of active layer thickness at Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) sites in northern Alaska, 1995-2000. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol.108, No. D2, 8168.

 

Shiklomanov, N.I. and F.E. Nelson. 2003 Climatic variability in the Kuparuk region, north-central Alaska: optimizating spatial and temporal interpolation in a sparse observation network. Arctic, 56: 136-146.

 

Shiklomanov, N.I. and F.E. Nelson. 2003 Statistical representation of landscape-specific active-layer variability. In Phillips, M., Springman, S. M., and Arenson, L. U. (eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Permafrost, vol. 2. Lisse: A.A. Balkema, 1039-1044.

 

Walker D.A., Jia G.J., Epstein H.E., Raynolds M.K., Chapin III F.S., Copass C., Hinzman L.D., Kane D., Knudson J.A., Maier H., Michaelson G.J., Nelson F.E., Ping C.L., Shiklomanov N.I., Romanovsky V.E., Shur Y.  2003 Vegetation-soil-thaw-depth relationships along a Low Arctic bioclimatic gradient, Alaska: Synthesis of information from the Atlas studies. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 14: 103-123.

 

Shiklomanov N. I. and F. E. Nelson, F. E., 2002. Active-layer mapping at regional scales: a 13-year spatial time series for the Kuparuk region, north-central Alaska. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 13: 219-230.

 

Klene A.E., Nelson F.E., and N.I. Shiklomanov. 2001   The n-factor as a tool in geocryological mapping: seasonal thaw in the Kuparuk River Basin, Alaska.  Physical Geography, 22(6): 449-466.

 

Klene A.E., Nelson F.E., Shiklomanov N.I., and K.M. Hinkel. 2001   The n-factor in natural landscapes: Variability of air and soil-surface temperatures, Kuparuk River basin, Alaska.  Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research, 33(2): 140-148.

 

Nelson, F.E., Shiklomanov, N.I., and G.R. Mueller. Variability of active-layer thickness at multiple spatial scales, north-central Alaska, USA. 1999   Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, 31(2): 179-186.

 

Shiklomanov, N.I. and F.E. Nelson. Analytic representation of the active layer thickness field, Kuparuk River basin, Alaska. 1999 Ecological Modelling, 123: 105-125.

 

Bockheim, J.G., Walker, D.A., Everett, L.R., Nelson, F.E. and N.I. Shiklomanov. 1998 .  Soils and cryoturbation in moist nonacidic and acidic tundra in the Kuparuk River basin, Arctic Alaska, USA. Arctic and Alpine Research, 30(2): 166-174.

 

Nelson, F.E., Hinkel, K.M., Shiklomanov, N.I., Mueller, G.R., Miller, L.L., and D.A.

Walker. Active-layer thickness in north central Alaska: systematic sampling, scale, and spatial autocorrelation. 1998    Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 103(D22): 28963-28973.

 

Nelson, F.E., Outcalt, S.I., Brown, J., Shiklomanov, N.I., and K.M. Hinkel. Spatial and temporal attributes of the active-layer thickness record, Barrow, Alaska, USA, 1998   Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Permafrost. Centre de etudes nordiques de l'Universite Laval, Laval, Quebec, Canada, Yellowknife, NWT, Canada, pp. 797-802

 

Walker, D.A., Auerbach, N.A., Bockheim, J.G., Chapin, F.S., Eugster, W., King, J.Y., McFadden, J.P., Michaelson, G.J., Nelson, F.E., Oechel, W.C., Ping, C.L., Reeburg, W.S., Regli, S., Shiklomanov, N.I., and G.L. Vourlitis.1998 Energy and trace-gas fluxes across a soil pH boundary in the arctic. Nature, 394(6692): 469-472.

 

Nelson F.E., Shiklomanov, N.I., Mueller G.R., Hinkel K.M., Walker D.A., and J.G. Bockheim.1997 Estimating active-layer thickness over a large region: Kuparuk River basin, Alaska, USA. Arctic and Alpine Research, 29(4): 167-378.

DATA

 

Soil temperature and soil moisture metadata and data are also available at http://soils.usda.gov/survey/scan/alaska/Toolik/

 

Site Photos

List of available data

Data Access