A Study of Climate-Impacted Lakes and their Impact on Climate

As the mythic Ouroboro eats its tail, a changing climate impacts freeze-thaw cycles in Arctic and SubArctic regions, increasing methane emissions, which then accelerate the climate processes that are leading to thaw in the first place.  

Arctic and subarctic regions contain over 40% of the planet’s lakes. Those lakes, as they bubble and belch, and as their freeze-thaw patterns shift, can be a significant source of methane gas emissions. But understanding arctic lake ice phenology in order to quantify methane release from this region as a whole, is extremely challenging; these lakes span vast, inhospitable geographies that are difficult to access, let alone study. And methane emissions vary based on the type and size of a lake: while some lakes feature a slow leak offset by plant life, others, like thermokarst lakes (typically small sinks of melted ice water that exacerbate the thaw rate of permafrost), can cause conspicuous plumes of methane to bubble up and release into the atmosphere. 

Dr. Ardeshir Ebtehaj is a hydrologist who uses any tools necessary to get at these incomprehensibly large questions (geographically and existentially) about the relationship between water and climate. To study this question of methane emissions in Arctic lakes, Ebtehaj has received a new .5M Grant from NASA. 

He, his students, and co-collaborators from the University of Alaska Fairbanks will work to more accurately estimate the fluctuations in methane ebullition. The newest member of  NASA’s  Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP) mission, Dr. Ebtehaj will be using the SMAP dataset to locate and better understand methane emission from thermokarst lakes and their ice-phenology.

At the Saint Anthony Falls Lab, the team will utilize machine learning, as well as field experiments using in-situ sampling and L-band radiometry, to aid their investigations, towards ultimately decreasing the uncertainty in Arctic lake methane emissions estimates. Using the most advanced scientific technologies at their disposal, this project gets at the heart of the compounding nature of climate change and its consequences.