Long-term Measurements and Observations for the International Arctic Research Community on the Kuparuk River Basin, Alaska, 1985-2017

High latitude regions of the world are very sensitive to the climate and this is reflected in the hydrologic response of watersheds. Because of increasing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, it is predicted that climate dynamics will change for these arctic regions. We already know that there are seasonal extremes in climate (no solar radiation/24 hour solar radiation, -40/+20, snow/rain), we do not know if there are long-term trends or where these trends are going to take us (although the evidence is starting to amass). It is also known that phase change in many forms dominates the system: sublimation, evaporation, transpiration, freezing of water bodies and soils, thawing of soils and decay of ice on water bodies. It is also known that the winter season dominates the annual cycle by lasting eight to nine months. The overall goal of this project is to concentrate our research effort on an index watershed so that the International Research Community has quality, long-term data available to improve our understanding of hydrological processes, to detect and quantify climate induced change, to enable the development of new models to extrapolate hydrologically related processes in time and space and to verify remote sensing techniques. The watershed to be studied is the Kuparuk River on the North Slope of Alaska. This watershed is in an area of continuous permafrost, essentially treeless, the most accessible arctic watershed in Alaska, the most studied watershed in the Arctic presently, sufficiently large enough to allow atmospheric and surface processes to be coupled and data already exist for 11 years. The hydrologic cycle is the arteries, veins, and capillaries of the air-ice-land system of the Arctic; without an excellent understanding of the hydrologic cycle there is little hope for integrating biologic, chemical and physical processes across systems.

全球高纬度区域对气候变化极为敏感，这一点可通过流域（watershed）的水文响应（hydrologic response）体现出来。
由于大气中温室气体（greenhouse gases）浓度持续上升，预计这些北极区域的气候动力学（climate dynamics）过程将发生改变。我们已知该区域气候存在显著季节极端特征：无太阳辐射（solar radiation）/24小时日照、-40℃至+20℃的气温波动、降雪与降雨交替。但我们仍不清楚是否存在长期气候趋势，也无法预判这些趋势将带来何种影响（尽管相关证据正逐渐积累）。
同时，该生态系统的核心过程以多种形式的相变（phase change）为主，包括升华（sublimation）、蒸发（evaporation）、蒸腾（transpiration）、水体与土壤冻结（freezing of water bodies and soils）、土壤解冻（thawing of soils）以及水体冰层消融（decay of ice on water bodies）。
此外，冬季每年持续8至9个月，占据全年年循环（annual cycle）的主导地位。
本项目的总体目标是聚焦于一处指标流域（index watershed）开展研究，以期为国际研究共同体（International Research Community）提供高质量的长期观测数据，从而深化学界对水文过程（hydrological processes）的认知，实现气候诱导变化（climate induced change）的探测与量化，支撑开发能够在时间与空间尺度上外推水文相关过程的新型模型，并验证遥感技术（remote sensing techniques）的应用效果。
本次研究选定的流域为位于阿拉斯加北坡（North Slope of Alaska）的库帕鲁克河（Kuparuk River）流域。
该流域地处连续永久冻土（permafrost）分布区，基本无林木覆盖，是阿拉斯加境内最易抵达的北极流域，也是目前北极地区研究程度最高的流域；其规模足够大，可实现大气过程与地表过程的耦合，且已积累了长达11年的观测数据。
水文循环（hydrologic cycle）堪称北极气-冰-陆系统（air-ice-land system）的动静脉与毛细血管网络；若无法充分认知水文循环，便难以实现跨系统的生物、化学与物理过程的整合研究。