Understanding Methane and Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the Mackenzie Delta Region

Dr. June Skeeter [they/them/theirs]

Introduction: My Background

I specialize in measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) exchange in permafrost environments.

• PhD in Geography from UBC in 2023
• I started as a research scientists with the GSC in summer 2024
  • “Cross posted” between GSC Northern and Pacific

2024 Swiss Cheese Lake Field Campaign

Framing the Problem

The Arctic is warming ~3x faster than the global average.

Image source: Skeeter 2022

Carbon-Climate Feedback

Climate change is shifting the carbon balance of the Arctic, which has far reaching global implications.

• Extended growing seasons
  • ↑ Carbon uptake
• Permafrost degradation
  • ↑ Carbon emission
• Flooding & coastal erosion
  • ↑ Carbon emission

Niglintgak thaw slump

Importance of Methane

Natural methane emissions are not well understood but they impact our climate policy decisions.

Source: GRID-Arendal, 2020

A Methane Hot-spot

The Mackenzie River Delta is hot-spot for methane in the Canadian Arctic. Aircraft and satellite have detected significant methane emissions.

Source: Kohnert et al. (2017)

Biologic Emissions

The limited field based measurements available suggest of substantial growing season emissions over where permafrost is continuous.

Source: Skeeter 2023

Geologic Methane

In thin/discontinuous permafrost, some gas seeps are visible to the naked eye!

• More work is needed:
  • Map sources
  • Quantify emissions
  • Identify potential remediation strategies

How do we measure emissions?

Eddy covariance (EC) is a principal method to monitor landscape-scale fluxes (rate of emission/uptake).

• Measures wind velocity and gas concentration at high frequency (20 Hz)
• Gives a semi-continuous time series of half-hourly fluxes

Limited Observations

EC systems are expensive, difficult to operate in remote environments, and require meticulous analysis.

• Bias towards accessible sites
• Canadian Arctic is under-represented

Source: Skeeter 2023

Swiss Cheese Lake

Established in summer 2024 to study the discontinuous permafrost zone.

In a sedge wetland ecosystem “typical” of the outer delta.

Swiss Cheese Lake

Objective is to help understand biologic and diffuse geologic emissions in thin permafrost.

• What drives fluxes?
• How important are non-growing season emissions?
• What impact will permafrost degradation have?

Analysis

Eddy covariance produces large volumes of data which are requires complex, computationally expensive processing.

• This poses a significant challenge to researchers
  • Only ~10% of EC sites in Canada have published open-access datasets
• I am working on an open-source processing pipeline
  • Standardize and streamline procedures
  • Help other Canadian researchers process their data

Next steps

Installing upgraded sensors and upgrading the power system to support non-growing season measurements.

• 2024 was an exploratory campaign conducted using borrowed sensors
• 2025 will be run using GSC sensors

Further work

Swiss Cheese Lake can serve as an “anchor point” for more spatially targeted investigations.

• Flux chambers to investigate fine-scale patterns
• Use drone to target hot-spots in the surrounding area
• Temporary EC systems in natural and disturbed areas

Thank you

Questions?