Dr. Katey Walter Anthony
Dr. Katey Walter Anthony
Katey Walter’s research focuses on methane and carbon dioxide emissions from arctic and temperate lakes and wetlands in Alaska and Siberia, and the processes involved in greenhouse gas emissions from lakes, including thermokarst (permafrost thaw), industrial plant emissions, geology, and changes in lake area. By using environmental gradients, isotopes, and remote sensing as tools, she hopes for an improved understanding of the basic processes in lake ecosystems. Many newly formed Arctic lakes have bacteria feeding on plant detritus previously frozen underground and producing methane as a waste product. Methane’s contribution to the greenhouse effect is considerably more than that of carbon dioxide. Global warming extrapolations could be grossly underestimated if methane contributions from lakes have not been properly studied and are not taken into account. Studies of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica have shown that in the early Holocene Period, between 14 000 and 11 500 years ago, methane concentration in theatmosphere spiked and was from a northern source. These spikes would be cyclic, coinciding with and aggravating global warming.
View her current research projects on Permafrost in the High Arctic: http://ine.uaf.edu/werc/people/katey-walter-anthony/projects-kwa/
