Long Term Ecological Research site outside Fairbanks, Alaska measuring how soil respiration in relation to changing temperatures.

The Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site outside Fairbanks, AK provides a research platform for scientists documenting long-term trends in ecological response to environmental change. In this photo, researchers are measuring the how the soil “breathes” (i.e., soil respiration), in relation to changing temperature regimes. Findings from this research indicate that global warming is exacerbated at high latitudes by energy and trace-gas feedbacks resulting from wildfire, “melting of sea ice and glaciers, lengthening of the snow-free season, and atmospheric losses of previously frozen permafrost carbon as carbon dioxide and methane.” (Bonanza Creek LTER Site).