| 英文摘要: | This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 14-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum. The Belmont Forum is a high level group of the world?s major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international environmental research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions.
Working together in this Collaborative Research Action, the partner agencies have provided support for research projects that utilize existing Arctic observing systems, datasets and models to evaluate key sustainability challenges and opportunities in the Arctic region, to innovate new sustainability science theory and approaches to these challenges and opportunities, and support decision-making towards a sustainable Arctic environment. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and end users (e.g., policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry).
The eastern Siberian ecosystem is established on the largest and deepest permafrost region in the world, where much of the earth?s carbon dioxide is sequestrated. This unique permafrost-based ecosystem is currently threatened by global warming. In addition to the direct effects of this warming, permafrost degradation may cause further change in vegetation and carbon budget and greenhouse gas emission that may then feedback to the climate system. In this vulnerable region, considerable economic and demographic change is taking place as populations within the cities of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) expand and increase their carbon emissions, while smaller settlements decline and struggle to afford heating fuel due to rising costs associated with the urban demands for energy. The environmental impacts of population and emission growth in this environmentally vulnerable region and the need for viable low carbon energy solutions for Arctic residents drive the COPERA project. The collaborative research team from the US, Russia, and Japan will establish a permafrost, hydrological, and meteorological observing network in cooperation with local communities to estimate CO2 sequestration by the permafrost ecosystem (tundra and taiga) and CO2 emission form cities and villages. In this study, the carbon budget (CO2 sequestration by ecosystem and CO2 emission through human activity) is estimated as a measure of two different points of view. One is a measure of impact on climate and environment, and the other is that of living cost because more fuel combustion means higher cost for energy. Both of these measures have impacts well beyond the local effects in the Sakha region. Data gathered during this project will be translated into publicly accessible materials and shared with local residents and government to inform municipal, regional, or Republic governmental committees and/or council meetings. |