PolarisProject

Before I begin my blog, I’d like to warn you all that I have no prior experience with blogs whatsoever.  What does that mean, you may ask?  Well, that means that I may end up writing about very non-bloggish things.  For example, in a hypothetical blog reading context, I would assume readers would like some idea as to their writer.  Who is this person, what do they look like?    so I shall diverge slightly from climate science blog topics to describe myself fully.  I’m Brian.  I have brown hair and brown eyes.  I wear size 11 shoes, and i have a strong affinity for walnuts.

okay, now that you know just who i am, and what i’m like, i can commence my official blog:

So I, like many of you or your close relations, am preparing to go to siberia.  Currently I’m in California with my fellow St. Olaf student representative, Erin Seybold.  We’ve already left our homes in Minnesota, and, with our captain of operations John Schade,  have spent the last two weeks in northern california experimenting a bit with local streams.  More specifically, we’ve been studying nutrient spiraling in three local streams, to which we will compare previous stream experiments back at home in northfield, and upcoming experiments in Siberia.

Resource limitation is a concept widely understood throughout ecology.  In our work, however, we’re focusing on nutrient spiraling, a concept essential to understanding stream nutrient limitation.  Where some streams (like those we studied in northfield) are phosphorus limited, others, such those here in the reserve, are nitrogen limited.  Nutrients flowing through a stream are assimilated and mineralized again and again, conceptually spiralling in and out of the stream biota, or organic form.  Furthermore, limiting nutrients generally spiral quicker.  that is, limiting nutrients are taken up faster than nonlimiting nutrients.  What does that mean?  Why does it matter?  By investigating how fast nitrogen and phosphorus are taken up in a stream–how fast they cycle in and out of the biota–we can garner a better understanding of local influences and ecological processes.  For example, with nutrient spiraling research, we can begin to ask important questions as to how soil type, light abundance, and anthropogenic influences, among others, shape ecological processes.

Our upcoming work in Siberia will utilize this knowledge to investigate nutrient limitation in arctic streams.  As climate change thaws permafrost and releases many otherwise frozen sources of nutrients, stream dynamics will undoubtedly change, ushering forth nascent influences to climate change.  Understanding this, of course, is our goal.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog.  I’ll be back, no doubt.

–Brian

Some of the folks here at Polaris headquarters are betting on the minimum extent of arctic sea ice in 2009. We did this last year and then wrote about it again this year. We are not alone. Look here, here, and here. All Polaris folks are welcome to compete for the grand prize – being toted about during next year’s field course in a sedan chair (legal disclaimer – there is no prize except undying glory).

I’m actually very interested in this question and it touches on a great deal of the science we study in the Arctic. Most importantly, the question of whether the dramatic melt of 2007 and 2008 is the result of a forcing or a feedback is critical. It’s well known that the models of sea ice melt are more conservative than the actual melt. So, if the greater than expected melt is the result of a forcing it means that the forcings are wrong (not accounting for say, black carbon on the surface). If the melt is a result of a feedback (say, bottom-up ablation) then we need to be on the look out for a greater than expected and sooner than expected invocation of the ice-albedo feedback. Either way, the models are wrong (The great statistician George Box famously wrote that ‘…all models are wrong, but some are useful.’). Work by Julienne Stroeve and others have documented this well. E.g., here. I think Mark Serreze made a good case that 2007 melt record was in large part due to really good weather conditions for melting ice. in fact he has a very nice article on sea ice changes both in Nature from last year and an article in a newsletter from ARCUS called: Arctic Climate Change: Where Reality Exceeds Expectations. Look here. I especially like the Serreze is an inherently skeptical scientist.

But I digress….Putting these bets together is a good excuse to be thinking about this issue. Here are the bets for this year:

And a zoom to see the detail:

Max continues his doomsday ways from last year but several of us are predicting new record lows.  I continued my stat geekery but using a loess filter this year to make my guess. There is a lot of data out there to help making the forecast. I think the introduction of a possible El Nino this year and the warm water in the Bering Sea (here to compare 2008) are favorable to big melt but I’m sticking with a melt close to the 2007 level. You can click here to get the latest measurements from NSIDC or a report from ARCUS here.

Regardless of all our pontificating, the game is afoot!

-Andy Bunn

All 4 of us here at Clark are getting very excited to get to Cherskiy! We recently made a trip down to visit Max Holmes and Kate Bulygina in Woods Hole, Massachusetts where we got a tour of the research center and got to ask questions about the upcoming trip! We were also given some gear to bring there – cartons of water bottles for lake and stream samples, batteries for flashlights, etc. and field notebooks.

Blaize was extremely excited for the trip, but after her visit to Woods Hole and going over the trip in more detail she wishes she could leave that day! Since the visit to Woods Hole she has been preparing for the trip by reading some interesting articles about research already being done in the arctic and getting necessary gear for the trip.

Claire is both very, very excited for the trip to Russia and just a little bit nervous. She’s never been out of the country before, so this is quite a big trip to be her first foray abroad. In prep for the research we’ll be doing in Siberia, she’s been looking at some satellite imagery of the Cherskiy Region and Kolyma River basin. She can’t wait to see what’s happening on the ground, not just from the remote sensing!

Boyd, like the other Clarkies, is excited to finally get there. He’s excited to reconnect with the PIs and the Zimov’s and continue his research of alas basins in the Kolyma region. He’s been working on a different approach to assess lake drainage rates and is anxious to be back in the field to utilize this new approach. He’s also excited to meet the other students!!

We wish all the other students/professors well in their preparation for the trip and safe travels next week. See you in Chicago on the 2nd!

The Clarkies

The distance between my home in Bellingham, WA and the Northeast Science Station in Cherskiy is about 3,000 miles. That’s a long way but astute readers will notice that the field course participants end up traveling a long, long way to get to Cherskiy. For folks coming from Bellingham:

(The map is a schematic – the pilots are aware the Earth is round – orthodromic distance and all that.)

Bellingham to Seattle: 93 mi, 39min
Seattle to Chicago: 1723 mi, 3hr 59mn
Chicago to Moscow: 4983 mi, 10hr 10mn
Moscow to Novosibirsk: ~1700 mi, ~4hr
Novosibirsk to Yakutsk: ~1700 mi, ~4hr
Yakutsk to Cherskiy: ~1000 mi, ~3hr

That means we’ll fly about 11,200 miles (1.8E4km)  and be in the air for about 26 hours. Fortunately, we break it up over about four days of travel.

Why do we fly so far? The simple answer is that we are adhering to Title 49 of the United States Code, Subtitle VII, Part A, subpart I, Chapter 401, 40118. This is better known at the Fly America Act. Look here. The only way to fly to Russia on a US flag carrier is through Moscow – the only problem with that is that Moscow is a staggering 8 time zones from Cherskiy. We could likely convince somebody at NSF that this arrangement is a bad idea and we should fly another way – but alas there aren’t a lot of other good ways to do this (Flying from Seattle to Seoul to Vladivostok to Yakutsk to Cherskiy is one – but in the end you don’t save much time). There used to be an Alaska Airlines flight to Provideniya but it’s been defunct for years – alas. There is a chance that in future years the Polaris Project might be able to fly via Provideniya on a charter. Look here.

In the meantime, we’ll enjoy the look on people’s faces when we explain the 19 time zones and 11 thousands miles we travel – one way.

All the new students have blog accts. Adding 11 new folks made me realize that this will be a different trip. Last year we had only 7! #fb

and have met with some success! #fb

Still trying to integrate all the web 2.0 silliness – blog, twitter, and facebook #fb

I recently traveled back home to Bangkok, Thailand to visit family and thought this would be a great opportunity to share my research interests, experiences in Siberia, and thoughts on arctic science with the international community in Bangkok. I gave two presentations, one to the entire high school discussing the importance of arctic science in the realm of climate change and then I held a second more specialized seminar/lecture on my specific research topic in Cherskiy. For those that do not know, I’ve found a keen interest on monitoring lake drainage rates through the use of satellite imagery and tree ring proxies. The lectures were both very successful and I acquired a lot of positive feedback from several high school students that were interested in arctic research. This was an awesome opportunity for me to share my interests and experiences with students entering the collegiate world and a great way to educate them on the significance of hands-on research as it pertains to a ‘hot’ topic such as climate change science. I had a great time reconnecting with students from my high school, many of whom are from all over the world, and listening to their viewpoints and hearing their perspectives. All-in-all a great time!

An extraordinary new team member will be joining the Polaris Project field course this summer. Chris Linder is an award winning photographer and scientist who has traveled all over the world documenting scientific fieldwork. Chris has worked in Siberia before, traveling with Max Holmes and Kate Bulygina to the Far East a few winters back. Read and look here. One of his images of reindeer herding from that trip won an prestigious international award. We are  honored and thrilled to have Chris along on this year’s trip. Chris will be doing more than snapping pictures but will be working on an ambitious new plan for multimedia documentation of the science and education for the Polaris Project.