I just got a satellite phone call from Chris Linder.  It was midnight July 11 for him in Siberia, and 8 am July 11 for me in Washington DC.  He reported that all is going great at the tundra research site.  They have been there ~3 days now and the students and others are getting up to full speed on the various research projects.  Permafrost bore holes are being drilled, streams, rivers, and lakes are being sampled, wildlife is being studied, carbon fluxes are being measured – basically most of the interacting parts of the Arctic System are being investigated.  After weathering a few cold days in Cherskiy, the group is now swelteringly hot in the Siberian tundra and is looking forward to some cooler days ahead.

Chris said that they are hoping to get some blog posts to Cherskiy in the next couple of days, where they will be transmitted to me for posting.  So hopefully we’ll all have direct reports from the tundra field site soon!  In the mean time, you can all rest assured that the group is doing fantastically well – working incredibly hard, learning a tremendous amount, and having an almost unbelievable experience.

Until later,

Max Holmes