The Northeast Science Station is bustling with science as the student projects are well under way. We are using this to introduce a new section of the website focusing on the science done on the Polaris Project.  The students are now into daily routines of sampling trips to locations near and far.  Our multiple science labs at the station are buzzing consistently into the wee hours of the morning, as samples from the previous field days are being processed and analyzed.  Among our undergraduates, there are eight distinct science projects. Each one is a critical piece of the puzzle of our overarching science questions: Where is carbon coming from, where is it going to, and how is it being transformed along the way?  These are significant questions for the Kolyma River basin because a massive pool of soil carbon exists here, which is now being warmed and released to adjacent ecosystems after tens of thousands of years locked in permafrost.  It is important for us to know where this carbon ends up because it may ultimately be released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane, two powerful greenhouse gases that could exacerbate our already warming climate.

When the Northeast Science Station was developed more than two decades ago, careful consideration was given to its geographic location.  It is strategically positioned within a day’s trip to a vast array of Arctic ecosystem types including boreal forests, tundra, mountainous uplands, wetlands, lakes, small streams, large rivers, estuaries, and even the coastal Arctic Ocean.  Our student projects span the entire range of these ecosystems, providing the overlap necessary to understand how carbon moves through the Kolyma River basin, from source to sink.  The student projects are bookended by projects focusing on upland permafrost and peatland soils (carbon sources) through to the Kolyma Estuary and Arctic Ocean (ultimate carbon sinks).  Additional studies investigating lake and small stream ecosystems (which also transport and modify carbon during this long journey to the ocean) provide an essential bridge for our understanding of the land-atmosphere and land-ocean linkages of carbon.

We are thrilled with the interdisciplinary and complementary nature of this year’s student projects.  Our students will leave Cherskiy with a different piece of the “carbon story” to tell about Northeast Siberia.  Recognizing that communicating scientific results to the general public is one of the most important parts of a researcher’s job, one student project even focuses on science education, media, and outreach.  Over time, we will mosaic our projects together to provide understanding of how climate warming is affecting this small, yet extraordinary corner of the planet.

—Karen Frey, Clark University