SPOTLIGHT

IARC Graduate Student Receives Large Grant Award

May 17, 2007

Anna Liljedahl, a Ph.D. student at the International Arctic Research Center, recently received a prestigious award in the amount of $21,400 for her proposal to measure soil moisture in a Barrow watershed in order to validate her hydrological model simulations.

In the proposal Liljedahl said that she “pushed the importance of soil moisture for future climate scenario estimations, since the type of carbon released from soil is dependent on the soil water content (i.e., the magnitude of a possible positive feedback in a climate change scenario).”

Liljedahl is one of ten recipients that include Ph.D. students, post-doctoral fellows and other researchers who will share the $190,000 (1,350,000 SWEKr) award amount for the 2007-2008 academic year. The grant was established in Sweden in 1963 by the Sixten Gemzéus foundation (managed by Gålöstiftelsen) for young Swedish academics doing theoretical or practical research abroad in subjects of broad public interest.

She has been invited to Stockholm in June to receive the award from the governor of Stockholm, Per Nuder. Her Ph.D. advisor is Dr. Larry Hinzman, IARC Director.

Contact:
Anna Liljedahl
ftakl@uaf.edu
474-1951

Photo shows the north part of the watershed that Anna is working on (Nunavak Cr) with Barrow in the background. Photo by Rena Bryan and
Rommel Zulueta.

Unfrozen soil moisture, presented as percent saturation, before and after the 2002 fire at a fixed location, Seward Peninsula, Alaska [Liljedahl et al., 2007*]

*Liljedahl, A., L. Hinzman, R. Busey, and M. Yoshikawa. 2007. Physical short-term changes after a tundra fire, Seward Peninsula, Alaska. J.Geophys. Res., in press.

Visual output from TopoFlow, the hydrological model, showing water table elevation (depth below surface) at the Nunavak Creek watershed with Freshwater Lake in the middle.