CALM SITE U4

WEST DOCK 1-ha GRID

Site code

U4

Site name

West Dock 1-ha GRID

CAPS I Metadata form

GGD401

CAPS II Metadata form

GGD313U_4

Site Photograph

Data

Responsible for data submission

Vladimir Romanovsky

Email Address

ffver”-at-“uaf.edu

Institution/Organization

University of Alaska-Fairbanks

Location description

Arctic Alaska

Location Lat.

70 deg. 22 min. N

Location Lon.

148 deg. 33 min. W

Elevation avg. (m)

3

Methods Grid

100

Methods Other

Air Temperature, Soil temperature, Soil Moisture, Snow cover

Landscape Description

Outer coastal plain, drained lake basins

Vegetation /Classification

Graminoid-moss tundra (wet nonacidic)

Soils (or Material)

Terric Hemistel

Thaw depth measurements (year started)               

1996

Air temp. measurements (year started)

??

Snow cover measurements (year started)

??

soil temp. measurements (year started)

1986

soil moisture measurements (year started)

1998

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

wet

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

Organic Layer thikness:34(cm)

DESCRIPTION OF AREA CONTAINING SITE:

West Dock grid is located on the outer Arctic Coastal Plain within the Prudhoe Bay oil field. The polygonized ‘‘uplands’’ and drained thaw-lake basins constitute the primary relief at these sites. Landcover units include Graminoid-moss  tundra (wet nonacidic). U4 1-ha grid is located within drained lake basin portion of the U5 (West Dock) 1 km grid.

 

SOIL DESCRIPTION: (predominant texture, i.e., ‘sand’, ‘gravel’, ‘peat’, etc.): Terric Hemistel, the organic layer thickness is 0.34 m

 

SAMPLING DESIGN AND METHOD:

1 ha grid consists of a square array of surveyed permanent stakes separated by 10 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.

 

REFERENCES:

Walker, D. A., H. E. Epstein, W. A. Gould, A. Kade, A.M. Kelley, J. A. Knudson, W. B. Krantz, R. A. Peterson, G. Michaelson, R.A. Peterson, C. L. Ping, M. A. Raynolds, V. E. Romanovsky, Y. Shur, and M.D. Walker, Frost-boil ecosystems: complex interactions between landforms, soils, vegetation, and climate, Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 15: 171-188, 2004.

Sturm, M., Schimel, J., Michelson, G., Welker, J., Oberbauer, S. F., Liston, G. E., Fahnestock, J., and V. E. Romanovsky, Are winter biological processes important in converting arctic tundra to shrubland?, BioScience, Vol. 55, No. 1: 17   26, 2005.

Shimel, J. P., Fahnstock, J., Michaelson, G. J., Mican, C., Ping, C., Romanovsky, V. E. and J. Welker, A microbial activity based model of winter CO2 fluxes in Arctic tundra communities, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research,Vol. 38, No. 2, 249-256, 2006.

Kade, A., Romanovsky, V. E. and D. A. Walker, The N-factor of nonsorted circles along a climate gradient in Arctic Alaska, Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 17: 279-289, 2006.

Nicolsky, D. J., Romanovsky, V. E., Alexeev, V. A. and D. M. Lawrence, Improved modeling of permafrost dynamics in Alaska with CLM3, Geophysical Research Letters, VOL. 34, L08501, doi:10.1029/2007GL029525, 2007.

Nicolsky, D. J., Romanovsky, V.E., and G. S.Tipenko, Using in-situ temperature measurements to estimate saturated soil thermal properties by solving a sequence of optimization problems, The Cryosphere, 1, 41 58, 2007.

Brown, J. and V. E. Romanovsky, Report from the International Permafrost Association: State of Permafrost in the First Decade of the 21st Century, Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 19: 255 260, 2008.

Nicolsky, D. J., Romanovsky, V.E., Tipenko, G. S., and D. A. Walker, Modeling biogeophysical interactions in non-sorted circles in the Low Arctic, Journal of Geophysical Research, in press

Walker, D.A., H.E. Epstein, V.E. Romanovsky, C.L. Ping, G.J. Michaelson, R.P. Daanen, Y. Shur, R.A. Peterson, W.B. Krantz, M.K. Raynolds, W.A. Gould,

G. Gonzalez, D.J. Nicolsky, C.M. Vonlanthen, A.N. Kade, P. Kuss, A.M. Kelley, C.A. Munger, C.T. Tarnocai, N.V. Matveyeva, and F.J.A. DaniКls, Arctic patterned-ground ecosystems: a synthesis of studies along a north American arctic transect, Journal of Geophysical Research, in press

Nicolsky, D. J., Tipenko, G. S., Romanovsky, V. E. and D. A. Walker, Modeling Observed Differential Frost Heave within Non-Sorted Circles in Alaska, In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost, June 29-July 3, Fairbanks, Alaska, 2008, in press

Romanovsky, V. E., Marchenko, S. S., Daanen, R., Nicolsky, D. J., Sergeev, D. O., and D. A. Walker, Soil climate and frost heave along the Permafrost/Ecological North American Arctic Transect, In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost, June 29-July 3, Fairbanks, Alaska, 2008, in press

DATA

 

Only thaw depth data determined by mechanical probing is reported on CALM website. For additional data refer to http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/Permafrost-

lab/index.html or contact site investigators directly.

 

Additional Climate data are also available at http://www.uaf.edu/water/projects/NorthSlope/coastal_plain/west_dock/west_dock.html

 

Site Photos

List of available data

Data Access