Katherine Lininger

Katherine Lininger photo

Sustainability Leadership Fellow Cohort: 2016-2017

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geosciences

Research Summary: Understanding the global carbon cycle is important for fully understanding climate change. One aspect of the carbon cycle that isn’t well studied is how much carbon is stored in rivers and floodplains, particularly in the high latitudes where permafrost is melting due to climate change. As rivers transport sediment and organic matter, they deposit those materials in floodplains, storing carbon. There may be more carbon stored in floodplains than we previously thought, and physical differences between river systems influence the storage and fluxes of carbon. I am investigating floodplain carbon dynamics in the central Yukon River basin in interior Alaska.