 | |
| Vol. 18, No. 35 | June 24, 1999 |
| |
| Vol. 18, No. 35 | June 24, 1999 |
The Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS) has selected Nikolay I. Shiklomanov as first-place winner in the interdisciplinary category of the 3rd Annual ARCUS Award for Arctic Research Excellence. Shiklomanov is a doctoral student in the University of Delaware's Department of Geography. The award-winning paper is based on his master's research in northern Alaska and is currently in press in the journal Ecological Modelling.
ARCUS mission is to encourage research and education in the Arctic regions, especially as they pertain to the Arctic's role in global change. Its membership includes 33 universities and research centers from around the world.
Shiklomanov said he is honored by the award and credits Professor Frederick E. Nelson, his graduate adviser, for getting him interested in permafrost research.
"I was doing my master's in the physics of the atmosphere in Russia when I got involved in a project having to do with climate." He met Nelson in St. Petersburg, and eventually Nelson convinced him to concentrate on permafrost research.
Shiklomanov's paper details his extensive rework of an analytic model, developed by Russian geocryologist V.A. Kudryavtsev, that calculates the depth of annually thawed soil in permafrost regions. His recalculations make the model applicable to extensive and varied terrain giving scientists a new way of estimating the potential impacts of global warming on the Arctic's ecosystems.
Permafrost, which underlies more than one-fifth of the Earth's surface, is ground remaining below 0š Celsius for more than two years. While the Kudryavtsev model accurately measures the depth of soil that thaws yearly, known as the active layer, it had to be modified to include remote sensing or electro-magnetic mapping of the soil so that it applied to great expanses of land.
Once Shiklomanov and Nelson added satellite imagery, regional climatic records and data from an extensive soil survey gathered in collaboration with other researchers, they were able to accurately map the thickness of the active layer over a 14,500-square-mile area in Alaska's Kuparuk River Basin.
The digital map resulting from these efforts shows the thickness and variability of the thawed layer over thousands of square miles of northern Alaska's tundra landscapes. It tracks the empirical data gathered by Nelson in a helicopter-based survey of the same area. Repeated over the same area for a number of years, the technique may reveal whether the active layer is thickening over time.
That information is signficant to researchers because when permafrost thaws, greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide could be released into the atmosphere adding to warming.
Shiklomanov and Nelson explained that accurate measurement of the depth of thaw over time, coupled with climate records and surface and subsurface conditions, could give scientists a tool to use in a broad range of multidisciplinary climate-change research. The Delaware team will soon be using the Kudryavtsev/ Shiklomanov model to identify Arctic areas that might be threatened by the thawing of ice-rich permafrost.
Shiklomanov said he developed an interest in cold climates when he was a Russian Army engineer serving in Siberia. He has been studying in the U.S. since 1993, when he was an exchange student at Rutgers University. He received his master's degree from State University of New York then came to UD to do graduate work with Nelson. He plans to complete his Ph.D. in climatology in the summer of 2000.
-Barbara Garrison
