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Carson A Baughman

Landscape modeling via GIS; Restoration Ecology; Great Basin, Boreal, and Arctic ecosystems; Terrestrial plant ecology; Population/community ecology; Wildlife management; Species/habitat conservation

 

Professional Experience

  • 2014 - Present   Geographer, USGS, Alaska Science Center, Anchorage

  • 2010 - 2014     Graduate Research Assistant with Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

  • 2009 - 2010     Research Technician with Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

  • 2008 - 2009    Research Technician for Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana

  • 2004 - 2008    Research Technician, Bureau of Land Management and The Nature Conservancy - Ely, NV

Education and Certifications

  • M.S.     2013    University of Alaska Fairbanks           Natural Resource Management

  • B.A.     2008    University of Montana, Missoula       Biology/Ecology

Affiliations and Memberships*

  • American Geophysical Union

Honors and Awards

  • 2012 - Otto William Geist Research Fellowship

  • 2011 - Dave and Rachel Hopkins Fellowship

  • 2008 - University of Montana Golden Key

  • 2008 - University of Montana President’s Outstanding Senior Award - Most outstanding graduate in Ecology

  • 2008 - University of Montana Honors Graduate

Science and Products

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A tributary of the Salmon River located in the Kobuk River National Park, Alaska. The tributary is orange in color.

The Rusting of Arctic Rivers: Freshwater Ecosystems Respond to Rapidly Uptaking Metals

The water quality of streams and rivers in the Arctic is sensitive to rapid climate change and altered disturbance regimes.
By
Alaska Science Center
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The Rusting of Arctic Rivers: Freshwater Ecosystems Respond to Rapidly Uptaking Metals

The water quality of streams and rivers in the Arctic is sensitive to rapid climate change and altered disturbance regimes.
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Yukon River near Eagle, Alaska

Q&A: Arctic Rivers Project

Alaska is home to numerous cultural and linguistic Indigenous groups and the largest number of Federally Recognized Tribes in the United States. Indigenous Alaskans, often living in rural remote communities, are facing multiple impacts due to climate change. As infrastructure, landscapes, and subsistence resources continue to be impacted by warming temperatures, the safety, well-being, and...
By
Alaska Science Center
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Q&A: Arctic Rivers Project

Alaska is home to numerous cultural and linguistic Indigenous groups and the largest number of Federally Recognized Tribes in the United States. Indigenous Alaskans, often living in rural remote communities, are facing multiple impacts due to climate change. As infrastructure, landscapes, and subsistence resources continue to be impacted by warming temperatures, the safety, well-being, and...
Learn More
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Image Collage of Landsat, pollinator, and volcanologist

Compilation of Historical Water Temperature Data for Large Rivers in Alaska using the Landsat Satellite Archive

Water temperature is one of the key elements of freshwater ecosystems and is a critical element within natural resources monitoring programs. In Arctic and sub-Arctic rivers, water temperature especially relates to the physical and biological features of a river, as it affects how rivers interact with portions of the landscape and the life cycles and composition of stream life and ecosystems. This
By
Climate Adaptation Science Centers
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Compilation of Historical Water Temperature Data for Large Rivers in Alaska using the Landsat Satellite Archive

Water temperature is one of the key elements of freshwater ecosystems and is a critical element within natural resources monitoring programs. In Arctic and sub-Arctic rivers, water temperature especially relates to the physical and biological features of a river, as it affects how rivers interact with portions of the landscape and the life cycles and composition of stream life and ecosystems. This
Learn More
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Flames consume woody fuels in a managed wildfire, New Mexico

Ecosystems on the Edge: Landscape and Fire Ecology of Forests, Deserts, and Tundra

Climate changes and interacting disturbances such as wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, and erosion and flooding can perturb and reorganize ecosystems.
By
Land Change Science Program, Land Management Research Program, Alaska Science Center
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Ecosystems on the Edge: Landscape and Fire Ecology of Forests, Deserts, and Tundra

Climate changes and interacting disturbances such as wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, and erosion and flooding can perturb and reorganize ecosystems.
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Land Cover Estimates for the Kenai Peninsula Lowlands; 1973, 2002, and 2017

These raster images represent continuous surfaces of estimated land cover types and probabilities for the western Kenai Peninsula circa 1973, circa 2002, and circa 2017.
By
Alaska Science Center
Map of Arctic rivers study sites with six stars marking sites. Three aerial images with orange streams below map.
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A stony islet in an Icy Point pond
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An ice worm on the tip of a finger
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Comparison of historical water temperature measurements with landsat analysis ready data provisional surface temperature estimates for the Yukon River in Alaska

Water temperature is a key element of freshwater ecological systems and a critical element within natural resource monitoring programs. In the absence of in situ measurements, remote sensing platforms can indirectly measure water temperature over time and space. The Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center has processed archived Landsat imagery into analysis ready data (ARD), includin
Authors
Carson Baughman, Jeff Conaway
By
Alaska Science Center

Four decades of land-cover change on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska: Detecting disturbance-influenced vegetation shifts using landsat legacy data

Across Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, disturbance events have removed large areas of forest over the last half century. Simultaneously, succession and landscape evolution have facilitated forest regrowth and expansion. Detecting forest loss within known pulse disturbance events is often straightforward given that reduction in tree cover is a readily detectable and measurable land-cover change. Land-cov
Authors
Carson Baughman, Rachel A. Loehman, Dawn R. Magness, Lisa Saperstein, Rosemary L. Sherriff
By
Alaska Science Center

A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic

Eroding permafrost coasts are indicators and integrators of changes in the Arctic System as they are susceptible to the combined effects of declining sea ice extent, increases in open water duration, more frequent and impactful storms, sea-level rise, and warming permafrost. However, few observation sites in the Arctic have yet to link decadal-scale erosion rates with changing environmental condit
Authors
Benjamin M. Jones, Louise M. Farquharson, Carson Baughman, Richard M. Buzard, Christopher D. Arp, Guido Grosse, Diana L. Bull, Frank Günther, Ingmar Nitze, Frank Urban, Jeremy L. Kasper, Jennifer M. Frederick, Matthew A. Thomas, Craig Jones, Alejandro Mota, Scott Dallimore, Craig E. Tweedie, Christopher V. Maio, Daniel H. Mann, Bruce M. Richmond, Ann E. Gibbs, Ming Xiao, Torsten Sachs, Go Iwahana, Mikhail Z. Kanevskiy, Vladimir E. Romanovsky
By
Alaska Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Remotely sensing the morphometrics and dynamics of a cold region dune field using historical aerial photography and airborne LiDAR data

This study uses an airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) survey, historical aerial photography and historical climate data to describe the character and dynamics of the Nogahabara Sand Dunes, a sub-Arctic dune field in interior Alaska’s discontinuous permafrost zone. The Nogahabara Sand Dunes consist of a 43-km2 area of active transverse and barchanoid dunes within a 3200-km2 area of vegeta
Authors
Carson Baughman, Benjamin M. Jones, Karin L. Bodony, Daniel H. Mann, Christopher F. Larsen, Emily A. Himmelstoss, Jeremy Smith
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Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Alaska Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Younger-Dryas cooling and sea-ice feedbacks were prominent features of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in Arctic Alaska

Declining sea-ice extent is currently amplifying climate warming in the Arctic. Instrumental records at high latitudes are too short-term to provide sufficient historical context for these trends, so paleoclimate archives are needed to better understand the functioning of the sea ice-albedo feedback. Here we use the oxygen isotope values of wood cellulose in living and sub-fossil willow shrubs (δ1
Authors
Benjamin V. Gaglioti, Daniel H. Mann, Matthew J. Wooller, Benjamin M. Jones, Gregory C. Wiles, Pamela Groves, Michael L. Kunz, Carson Baughman, Richard E. Reanier
By
Alaska Science Center

Presence of rapidly degrading permafrost plateaus in south-central Alaska

Permafrost presence is determined by a complex interaction of climatic, topographic, and ecological conditions operating over long time scales. In particular, vegetation and organic layer characteristics may act to protect permafrost in regions with a mean annual air temperature (MAAT) above 0 °C. In this study, we document the presence of residual permafrost plateaus in the western Kenai Peninsul
Authors
Benjamin M. Jones, Carson Baughman, Vladimir E. Romanovsky, Andrew D. Parsekian, Esther Babcock, Eva Stephani, Miriam C. Jones, Guido Grosse, Edward E Berg
By
Alaska Science Center

Reconstructing turbidity in a glacially influenced lake using the Landsat TM and ETM+ surface reflectance climate data record archive, Lake Clark, Alaska

Lake Clark is an important nursery lake for sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska, the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world. Reductions in water clarity within Alaska lake systems as a result of increased glacial runoff have been shown to reduce salmon production via reduced abundance of zooplankton and macroinvertebrates. In this study, we recons
Authors
Carson Baughman, Benjamin M. Jones, Krista K. Bartz, Daniel B. Young, Christian E. Zimmerman
By
Alaska Science Center

Soil surface organic layers in Arctic Alaska: spatial distribution, rates of formation, and microclimatic effects

Organic layers of living and dead vegetation cover the ground surface in many permafrost landscapes and play important roles in ecosystem processes. These soil surface organic layers (SSOLs) store large amounts of carbon and buffer the underlying permafrost and its contained carbon from changes in aboveground climate. Understanding the dynamics of SSOLs is a prerequisite for predicting how permafr
Authors
Carson Baughman, Daniel H. Mann, David L. Verbyla, Michael L. Kunz
By
Alaska Science Center

Science and Products

*Disclaimer: Listing outside positions with professional scientific organizations on this Staff Profile are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement of those professional scientific organizations or their activities by the USGS, Department of the Interior, or U.S. Government