Researchers are encouraged to submit abstracts to a special session,
Snow Cover and Biogeochemical Cycling, at the
AGU Fall Meeting 2003
8-12 December 2003
Moscone Center West
San Francisco, California
For more information see: http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm03/
Deadline for electronic online abstract submissions:
4 September 2003, 1400 UT
C05 Snow Cover and Biogeochemical Cycling
Seasonal snow covers approximately one third of the land surface of
Earth during some part of each year, but until recently this period was
considered biologically unimportant. A wealth of recent findings have
shown that many critical biological and biogeochemical processes
continue through the winter, having a large impact on annual fluxes of
nutrients and carbon and influencing a wide range of biological and
biogeochemical processes both during the winter and in the following
growing season. The impact goes both ways, with plants and animals
affecting the accumulation, distribution, and melt of the snow. The
nature of the impact changes with the season, producing quite different
interactions in autumn versus spring, and these impacts are manifest at
many different scales. While interactive processes tend to be local in
nature, the outcome of these snow-biota interactions at landscape and
regional scales can affect whole ecosystems and the climate. The purpose
of this session is to bring together researchers working on the
interactions between the winter environment, particularly snow, and
biological processes at scales ranging from individual organisms to
regional biogeochemical fluxes.
Conveners:
Matthew Sturm, USA-CRREL-Alaska, USA, email: msturm [at] crrel.usace.army.mil
Paul D Brooks, University of Arizona, USA, email: brooks [at] hwr.arizona.edu