Kevin Schaefer
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Permafrost, the frozen ground of the far north, holds a large store of mercury bound to frozen organic matter. The Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the global average.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
mercury
Hg
permafrost thaw
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Quantify how different environmental conditions affect mercury accumulation in permafrost-region soils, with uncertainty estimates, by linking mercury pathways to existing models of the land carbon cycle.
- Simulate mercury release from thawing permafrost from 1400 to 2300 CE using the SiBCASA land-surface model, enhanced with new pools such as soil water and processes such as fire.
- Determine how mercury released from thawing permafrost affects the global mercury cycle using the Global Terrestrial Mercury Model coupled to 3-D atmospheric transport and ocean circulation models.
- Estimate uncertainty in permafrost mercury projections with Monte Carlo simulations in a simple global biogeochemical box model.
More about the research
As permafrost thaws, microbes will resume breaking down this organic matter and release the mercury into the environment. Mercury is a toxic element, yet scientists lack process-based models of mercury on land. Such models are needed to predict what thawing permafrost means for the Arctic and global mercury cycles. This collaborative project builds those models by adapting existing models of the land carbon cycle. It treats the carbon and mercury cycles as two linked parts of the Arctic system.
Why it matters
Mercury released from thawing permafrost could add a significant new source of this toxic element to the Arctic and the global environment. Model-based projections of how much mercury may be released, and where it goes, could inform assessments of environmental and human exposure in a warming climate. A public emissions dataset, the models and a visualization tool will give other researchers and decision-makers access to these estimates.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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Support the IASC President and US delegates in running the International Arctic Science Committee's activities and responsibilities among its 22 member countries.
Alexandra Konings
Stanford University, CA·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Use the CARDAMOM data assimilation framework, which combines a simple ecosystem model, satellite data and Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling, to map optimal plant and ecosystem parameters for each pixel across the globe.
The school
University of Colorado Boulder: 36 labs on PI Pages, $718M a year on research, 447 research doctorates a year.
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