[News] 20 Best Brains Under 40

[Michaelangelica]

Arctic ecologist Katey Walter in the field.

Photo: Dmitri Drakluk

 

Katey Walter

Ecologist, University of Alaska

 

Examining the effect of greenhouse gases on local ecology and global climate keeps Katey Walter, 32, chasing the methane that bubbles up from seeps in Arctic lakes. As temperatures warm, the Arctic permafrost thaws and pools into lakes, where bacteria feast on its carbon-rich material—much of it animal remains, food, and feces from before the Ice Age—and churn out methane, a heat trapper 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. More methane leads to warmer temperatures and even more thawing permafrost.

 

“That means you’re opening the freezer door and you’re going to defrost everything that’s there,” Walter says. In Alaska and eastern Siberia, she and her colleagues are cataloging the Arctic freezer’s carbon contents, trying to understand how much will be converted to methane as the ice melts. In 2006 she and her team discovered that nearly five times as much of the gas was being released as previously reported. —S. W.

 

20 Best Brains Under 40 | Alternative Energy | DISCOVER Magazine