After using nuclear magnetic resonance to look beneath an Arctic lake, a Stanford-led team packs equipment during a ’warm’ afternoon on Alaska’s Caribou Lake.
Stanford Report, January 30, 2013 - In the snow of Alaska, a Stanford-led team of researchers has found a new way to determine if the soil beneath lakes, normally frozen, is thawing as a result of climate change. If so, the lakes could become a new source of methane, a global warming gas. The arctic permafrost is thawing, and not just at the surface. The frozen terrain conceals regions of liquid groundwater containing the right mix of conditions to pose a new risk to the global climate. Now a Stanford-led team has demonstrated a new way to map these expanding liquid regions. Its findings are being published online this month in Geophysical Research Letters. "These measurements go toward a better understanding of how permafrost thaw processes may impact future climate," said lead researcher and Stanford post-doctoral scholar in geophysics Andrew Parsekian.
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