Green Sky Over Greenland

September 27, 2011: Aurora and star trails over Summit Station, Greenland. Photo: Ed Stockard. Originally published on Spaceweather.com

Several folks sent a link to Spaceweather.com today because another image by Ed Stockard (long-time colleague and frequent field notes contributor) was featured on the site. Ed shot the image, republished above, earlier this week at Summit Station during a period of intense solar wind activity.

This image got me to thinking about the man behind the curtain. How’d he do that?

Ed says he used a Photoshop program that digitally “stacked” a group of photos into one image. He tinkered with the results, adjusting “contrast, levels, size, sharpening,” and so on.

“It did turn out pretty good,” Ed writes from Summit Station. “It was 133 photos of several hundred in a time-lapse I made that night. The time-lapse is really cool (in my opinion) but it is so large I can’t share that over the Internet. . . . I’ve done a few time-lapse, one last night at -40, the camera and timer survived but I’ve also been working on that aspect too—little tricks to keep batteries alive and equipment warm, etc. Fun stuff that keeps me out of trouble!”

Ed and four others are currently at Summit Station, up on the Greenland ice sheet, ushering the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded research station into the winter period.

Spaceweather.com says that Earth’s magnetic field (which responds to the charged particles emitted by the sun) will remain “unsettled” for the next few days. Keep that camera warm, Ed!—Kip Rithner

Comments (1) Sep 30 2011

"Aurora over Greenland." Arching over the Big Dipper and other familiar constellations, the aurora borealis flirts with the moon (right). Click on the image for a better view. Image: Juan Carlos Casado/TWAN - http://twanight.org

Have you seen the world at night?

The World at Night (TWAN) website offers images of the night sky captured from vantage points all over the world. The picture above, shown thanks to generous permission from the folks at The World at Night, recently was featured on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. It shows the aurora borealis rising over a late-summer Southern Greenland melt pool, where photographer Juan Carlos Casado, a regular TWAN contributor, took the image.

The World at Night features “landscape astrophotography”—that is, images that show celestial bodies and events framed in reference to the earthly context from which they were captured.  View the Milky Way, for example, above the Canary Islands, as background for a collection of crosses and statuary in a Hungarian churchyard, or over the shoulder of a stargazer in the Middle East. The website’s creators explain that the point is to show that “the eternally peaceful sky looks the same above symbols of all nations and regions, attesting to the truly unified nature of Earth as a planet rather than an amalgam of human-designated territories.”

Designated a Special Project of the International Year of Astronomy of 2009, The World at Night aims, in part, to educate the public about astronomy.  Interested visitors can scoot around and learn how to spot celestial bodies in the sky, or reduce their own input to light pollution—a big problem for astronomers and sky photographers anywhere near urban areas. Visit the polar regions page, where photographers have captured rare red auroral waves exploding over Fairbanks, Alaska, a full solar eclipse over Antarctica, and other enchantments.

In addition to seeing stars on TWAN, you can learn how to capture them in your own images by following links on the Education page. With darkness returning to the north, now’s a good time to brush up on your skills.—Kip Rithner

Visit The World at Night: http://twanight.org

To view other images by photographer Juan Carlos Casado: www.twanight.org/casado

Comments (0) Aug 28 2011

Impacts could have profound implications on atmospheric carbon and climate

The Anaktuvuk River Fire is the dark shape in the right-center of this NASA-MODIS image of the North Slope of Alaska, acquired June 14, 2008. The burned area is bordered by the Nanushuk River on the west and the Itkillik River on the east. Credit: Courtesy of Jim Laundre, MBL

In a study published in Nature, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) senior scientist Gauis Shaver and his colleagues, including lead author Michelle Mack of the University of Florida, describe the dramatic impacts of a massive Arctic wildfire on carbon releases to the atmosphere. The 2007 blaze on the North Slope of the Alaska’s Brooks Mountain Range released 20 times more carbon to the atmosphere than what is annually lost from undisturbed tundra.

As wildfires increase in frequency and size along Alaska’s North Slope, the team contends the disturbances may release large amounts of the greenhouse gas CO₂ to the atmosphere and accelerate the transformation of the frozen, treeless tundra of today into a different kind of ecosystem less capable of storing carbon. Together, the impacts could have profound implications on atmospheric carbon and climate.

Arctic tundra landscapes store huge amounts of carbon in cool, wet soils that are insulated by a layer of permanently frozen ground, or permafrost. Fire has been almost nonexistent in Alaska’s North Slope for thousands of years and the effect of fires on the carbon balance of tundra ecosystems is largely unknown. However, with warming temperatures over the past half-century, the climate in the region is in transition, spurring more thunderstorms, lightning, and wildfires.

In 2007 the Anaktuvuk River fire ravaged a 40-by-10 mile swath of tundra about 24 miles north of Toolik Field Station, where Shaver is the principal investigator of the NSF’s Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research project. The blaze was the largest ever recorded in the region.

While the Anaktuvuk River fire scorched only upper soil layers that are about 50 years old, it caused the release of more than two million metric tons of CO₂ to the atmosphere. This amount is similar in magnitude to the annual carbon sink for the entire Arctic tundra biome averaged over the last quarter of the twentieth century. According to Shaver and his colleagues, an Arctic regularly disturbed by fire could mean massive releases of CO₂ into the atmosphere, a decrease in carbon stocks on land, and a rapid impact on climate.

Shaver has been studying the Arctic tundra since the mid-1970s, and he knows how to look for gradual shifts in a landscape that is changing, but very slowly. Large disturbances such as fire—which leave the land open to rapid re-growth—have been rare. As the tundra rebounds from the Anaktuvuk River fire, Shaver and his colleagues are watching closely to see if the fire will nudge a major transformation of the North Slope groundcover that is already slowly underway.

MBL Ecosystems Center scientist Chris Neill inspects burned tussocks at the Anaktuvuk River fire site, July 2008. Credit: Jason Orfanon, MBL Logan Science Journalism Program

More shrubs are expected to appear in the Arctic landscape as the climate warms, a trend that may be accelerated by the advent of fires. “Satellites tell us there has clearly been a greening of the Arctic over the past 30 years,” Shaver says. Many observations point to a warmer landscape that will be dominated by shrubs, rather than the grasses and mosses of today. Some scientists forecast that large parts of the Arctic tundra will eventually become forest. “A key question is whether the conditions on these burn sites are more favorable for the establishment of new seeds, new species,” Shaver says.

Moreover, the burn, because it is darker, absorbs more solar radiation than undisturbed land. “You have much higher rates of permafrost thawing, and depth of thaw, on the burn,” Shaver says. All of these immediate consequences of the Anaktuvuk River fire reinforce the effects of a warming climate on the Arctic tundra. And the scientists don’t yet know if the land can recover the carbon and energy balance of its pre-burn state, or if they are looking at a “new normal,” Shaver says.

This research was supported by the NSF Division of Environmental Biology, the Division of Biological Infrastructure, and Office of Polar Programs, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and the Bureau of Land Management Alaska Fire Service and Arctic Field Office.

Source: Marine Biological Laboratory

Comments (0) Aug 06 2011

As seen by Tracy Sheeley

Being seen on the scene: Rich Joss and Tracy Sheeley at Sundance Film Festival January, 2010.

Tracy Sheeley’s been watching movies (ahem, “attending screenings”) at the Sundance Film Festival, that week-long parade of celebrities in Yeti boots which is held in her hometown, Park City, Utah, each winter.  “I fit right in,” she jokes.

She and beau Rich Joss caught the world premiere of  On the Ice the other day. It’s the first feature-length offering by Iñupiat filmmaker Andrew Okpeaha MacLean. MacLean’s film takes place in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost community in the U.S., and MacLean’s hometown. On the film’s website, MacLean describes Barrow as “a place of limitless expanses of land, sky, and ice that paradoxically can evoke a crushingly claustrophobic sense of isolation.”

(We imagine Tracy may very well feel the same way wandering around Park City with the glitterati this week).

The plot of On the Ice involves two boys, teenagers, one of whom accidentally shoots a third friend during a seal hunt when a disagreement turns into a fight. The boys try to keep the truth of their friend’s murder from the community, which spins up all kinds of other trouble. As much as it’s a coming-of-age story, it’s ”a story of how a village and a people react to tragedy,” writes MacLean. 

The film has gotten a bit of traction as a result of Sundance, as has MacLean. Read a short interview with him posted to a Wall Street Journal blog.  Still, other than the Sundance screenings, we see no release dates associated with the film, which means that On the Ice may not yet have a distributer. Keep a lookout out for release information (let us know if you find any), and support this young filmmaker when the movie opens near you.–Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Jan 26 2011

A female polar bear walks along the shore of Canada's Hudson Bay, waiting for ice to form. Photo: Steven Amstrup, Polar Bears International

A significant reduction in greenhouse gases could preserve enough Arctic ice to promote polar bear survival, according to the results of a study published in the journal Nature in December. Polar bears were designated as “threatened species” three years ago by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service in part because rapid melting of arctic ice threatens polar bear habitat.

Fewer Greenhouse Gases Means More Arctic Ice

Greenhouse gas mitigation can reduce the loss of Arctic sea-ice--and polar bears. Photo: NOAA

In the study, scientists from several institutions, including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the University of Washington, found that if humans reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly in the next decade or two, enough Arctic ice is likely to remain intact during late summer and early autumn for polar bears to survive.

“What we projected in 2007 was based solely on the business-as-usual greenhouse gas scenario,” said Steven Amstrup, an emeritus researcher at the USGS and senior scientist at the Montana-based organization Polar Bears International. “That was a pretty dire outlook, but it didn’t consider the possibility of greenhouse gas mitigation.”

Arctic sea-ice continues to melt. Year by year, its extent is shrinking. Photo: NASA

Amstrup is the lead author of this week’s Nature paper. Co-authors are Eric DeWeaver of NSF, David Douglas and George Durner of the USGS Alaska Science Center, Bruce Marcot of the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon, Cecilia Bitz of the University of Washington and David Bailey of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Polar Bears Listed as Threatened in 2007

Two male polar bears playfully spar near Hudson Bay, where sea ice melts in summer and reforms in autumn. The bears need the ice to reach their prey, such as seals. Photo: Steven Amstrup, Polar Bears International

In 2007, scientists projected that only about one-third of the world’s 22,000 polar bears might survive to the middle of the century if dramatic ice decline continued in the Arctic. Eventually, they concluded, polar bears could disappear completely. However, slowing or reducing emissions could result in a better outcome, said Dr. DeWeaver.

The Tipping Point

Arctic "pancake" ice consists of round pieces ranging from inches to feet in diameter. Photo: NOAA

“We looked for Arctic sea ice tipping points in a climate model in which sea ice is known to be very sensitive to global warming, and we didn’t find any,” said DeWeaver.

Specifically, the scientists looked at whether there’s a tipping point beyond which seasonal ice could not recover. Not finding a tipping point indicates that the ultimate outcome for the bears “depends on how much greenhouse gas we add to the atmosphere in the future,” said Blitz.

Higher Temps, Increased Emisions Spell Trouble for Ice, Polar Bears

Previous work by Bitz and others showed that unchecked temperature increases, along with natural environmental volatility, could result in the loss of vast areas of Arctic ice in less than a decade. It also showed that with continued business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, the ice did not recover and largely disappeared altogether in following decades.

Solution: Reduce Emissions

Last of the polar bears? According to new research, the answer may be no. Photo: Environment Canada

However, the new Nature paper indicates that if greenhouse gas emissions were reduced substantially in the near future, rapid ice losses would be followed by substantial retention of the remaining ice through this century–and partial recovery of the ice that disappeared during the rapid ice loss.

Polar bears depend on sea ice for access to ringed and bearded seals, their primary food source. During seasons when they can’t reach ice, the bears mostly go without food and can lose about two pounds a day.

The periods when they don’t have ice access have increased, and are expected to continue to do so with the current level of greenhouse gas emissions.

The study’s results indicate that increased retention of sea-ice habitat because of greenhouse gas mitigation would allow polar bears to survive in greater numbers throughout this century, and in more areas of the Arctic, than would happen with no mitigation.

Arctic Ecoregions

Amstrup divided the Arctic into four separate ecoregions according to the nature of ice typically found there.

The 2007 study showed a very high likelihood that polar bears would become extinct in two of those regions given current trends in greenhouse gas emissions.

“There’s still a fairly high probability in both those regions that polar bears could disappear,” Amstrup said. “But with mitigation and aggressive management of hunting and other direct bear-human interactions, the probability of extinction would now be lower than the probability that polar bear numbers will simply be reduced.”

“With mitigation, conditions for polar bears might even improve in the other two ecoregions,” he said. “The benefit of mitigation to polar bears is substantial.”

Funding for the research was provided by the USGS, with additional funding from the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Energy and NSF. — Rachel Walker

Comments (0) Jan 12 2011

For Christmas I received a new-to-me iPhone 3G. It’s my first smart phone and I love it. This morning I went way down the bunny hole of apps at the iTunes Store where I downloaded weather, currency converter, and requisite ‘best restaurants around’ apps. But, I wanted more – what apps out there are available and relevant to those of us who live in and/or work in the circumarctic? Below is a brief summary of some that look useful…or at least fun and interesting. Disclaimer: these apps are as new to me as they are to you – I’m not reviewing or recommending, just sharing. If you try these out or have any favorite polar apps to share, let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Arctic Science

Arctic Watch

Arctic Watch allows users to access sea ice maps for the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Coverage maps updated daily by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Center for Environmental Prediction show daily sea ice coverage extent. Real-time satellite data is also accessible and users can compare current readings to data for the last thirty years. The arctic utility is free while the antarctic utility requires a one-time $.99 fee which supports other real-time app development. Download

Skeptical Science

This App and its developer have received a lot of press. Below is a review published by the Guardian’s Green Living Blog (February, 17, 2010) as one of the top 10 green iPhone apps. It’s also free.

“Based on information from an Australian blog that puts climate s[k]eptics under the microscope, this app is the ideal tool to counter pub bores when they tell you solar radiation, a spot of snow or the hacked climate science emails are proof that climate change isn’t happening. It lays out the most common arguments by s[k]eptics and then offers you both a succinct and in-depth counterargument, the latter often complete with graphs and links to science papers. Well-designed, it offers dozens of responses to statements you’ll have heard many times, from ‘the ice age was predicted in the 70s’ and ‘the models are unreliable,’ to ‘Greenland was green.’ The genius touch is a reporting feature that enables you to feed back arguments when confronted with them, helping the team behind the app to build up a picture of the most common arguments.” Download

Google Earth

The desktop application we know and love on the iPhone. Download

Arctic Wildlife

Project Noah

Project Noah makes you a citizen scientist. The free app allows users to record wildlife and plant sightings with map, note, and photo formats. Observations are networked so you can see the critters other people in your area have catalogued in the Noah Field Guide. Visit the Project Noah website for global exploration. Join a Mission for science like the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Impact which asks people to contribute photos and observation notes. Download

The Sibley eGuide to the Birds of North America

You can have the entire Sibley Guide complete with bird sounds! The guide isn’t cheap at $29.99, but if you’re into birds, it’s worth it according to this review from The Birder’s Library. Download

Fun and Games

Aurora Borealis Jigsaw

This app creates digital jigsaw puzzles from beautiful photographs of the Northern Lights. The app is well worth the $.99, especially when you find yourself stranded in an airport. Download

Amazing Alaska iSlider Puzzles

I love this app! Photos of Alaska glaciers are made into 29-piece slider puzzles. Truly a fantastic time-waster. Download

North Pole – iSoundboard

Ever wonder what a narwhal sounds like? For $.99 this simple utility allows the user to see and hear a handful of Arctic animals and birds. It’s a fun app for adults for a few minutes, but it’s really geared toward the kiddos. Critters include:

• Whale (sounds like a Humpback to me)
• Wolf
• Reindeer
• Narwhal
• Snowy owl
• Polar Bear
• Husky
• Seal
• Walrus
• Arctic hare
• Musk Ox
• Puffin
• Harp Seal
• Beluga
• Moose
• Penguin (shouldn’t this one be on the South Pole iSoundboard?)

Download

Now, if I could just find an ARMAP app…hint, hint. –Marcy Davis

Comments (1) Dec 31 2010

It's not what you said; it's how you said it. This PFS 2.0 staffer is not impressed. Photo: Chico Perales

Tone Matters When Talking about Global Warming  

A new study from Robb Willer, UC Berkeley social psychologist, that’s slated for publication in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science, shows that the majority of people tune out or become skeptical when faced with dire or emotionally charged warnings about the consequences of global warming. Individuals are less amenable to reducing their carbon footprint when the impacts of global warming are cast in “scary messages,” according to a release from the University of California, Berkeley.  

“The scarier the message, the more people who are committed to viewing the world as fundamentally stable and fair are motivated to deny it,” said Matthew Feinberg, a doctoral student in psychology and coauthor of the study.  

However, the researchers found that if scientists and advocates can communicate their findings in less apocalyptic ways and present solutions to global warming, most people can get past their skepticism. 

Armed With Cigarette Lighter and Knife, Russian Scientist Tries to Quantify Methane Release From Melting Ice 

Russian scientist Sergey Zimov walks on a Siberian lake near the town of Chersky, Russia, where methane bubbles are trapped under the ice. Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the last few decades, as the Earth has gradually warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane—a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Photo: AP/Arthur Max

The Associated Press reports on Sergey Zimov, a Russian scientist who, like the University of Alaska’s Katey Walter, studies methane locked inside Siberia’s permafrost. The article opens with Zimov as he “shuffles across the frozen lake, scuffing aside ankle-deep snow until he finds a cluster of bubbles trapped under the ice. With a cigarette lighter in one hand and a knife in the other, he lances the ice like a blister. Methane whooshes out and bursts into a thin blue flame.”  

Gas locked inside Siberia’s frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane – a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.  Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere. (To gauge the efficacy of that last metaphor, see previous news item.) 

Rising Arctic Temperatures Correlate with Increase in Tundra Fires  

The massive Anaktuvuk fire scorched more than 1,000 square kilometers of tundra in northern Alaska. Researchers have found a correlation between warmer temperatures and larger, more damaging fires. Photo: Woods Hole Marine Biological Lab

An article published in the October 2010 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research presents data that correlate even moderate increases in warm-season temperatures on Alaska’s North Slope with the increased likelihood of catastrophic conflagrations. The study’s lead author, Feng Sheng Hu of the University of Illinois, sought to understand if dramatic fires like the Anaktuvuk, which burned 1,000 square kilometers of tundra on Alaska’s North Slope (doubling the area burned in that region since record keeping began in 1950) are anomalies or a regular occurance. After analyzing sediment cores from the burned area for charcoal to assess the ages of the sediment layers, Hu and his team found no evidence of a fire of similar scale and intensity in sediments representing roughly 5,000 years at that locale. So the researchers studied 60 years of fire, temperature and precipitation records from the Alaskan tundra to determine whether specific climate conditions prevailed in years with significant tundra fires. They discovered a “dramatic, nonlinear relationship between climate conditions and tundra fires, and what one may call a tipping point,” Hu said in a press release from the University of Illinois. 

For the past 60 years, annual mean temperatures during this warm season have fluctuated between about 6 and 9 degrees Celsius (42.8 to 48.2 degrees Fahrenheit), with temperatures trending upward since 1995. In 2007, the year of the historic fire, the mean temperature was a record 11.1 degrees Celsius, while precipitation and soil moisture dipped to an all-time low. 

The study team also included researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Neptune and Company, and the University of Washington. The National Science Foundation provided grant funds for Hu’s research; CH2M HILL Polar Services (in which PFS is a partner) supported the field work. 

Comments (0) Nov 23 2010

This map of Greenland shows the location of earthquakes, the boundaries between Greenland's ice drainage basins and the speed of ice (2005-2006). Graphic by Jonathan Corum and Xaquin G.V. / The New York Times.

At Polar Field Services, we are fortunate to assist in important scientific research that takes place in some of the world’s most beautiful places, and we aim to report on much of that research here in our blog. And while we know we have some dedicated readers, we’d hazard to guess the New York Times has a more robust readership. So we were glad to see some of the scientists we support on the front page of last Sunday’s issue in Reading Earth’s Future in Glacial Ice. Situated above the fold, this thoroughly-reported article on National Science Foundation-funded research outlined ongoing studies that aim to understand glacial dynamics.

The article, written by Justin Gillis and with a Tasilaq, Greenland, dateline, transports the reader immediately to the Greenland ice fields in a helicopter where two scientists drop a measuring device deep into water in an ice-choked fjord. The temperature registers at 40 degrees, a “troubling measurement showing that the water was warm enough to belt glaciers rapidly from below.” This information, says Gillis, will be used to help answer “one of the most urgent—and most widely debated—questions facing humanity: How fast is the world’s ice going to melt?”
The article continues to state that glaciology and ice dynamic studies are still in their infancy, and as scientists better understand the relationship between warming sea temperatures and earthquakes and glacial melt, it appears that sea levels will likely rise to a higher level more quickly than previously thought.

For decades, common scientific wisdom believed it would take thousands of years for Arctic and Antarctic ice to melt. Sea levels were predicted to rise possibly seven inches in this century. According to the article, sea level could rise as much as three feet by 2100, and glacial dynamics are much more complex than previously thought.

The article includes information about the Helheim Glacier, located in southeastern Greenland. This glacier has rapidly lost ice in previous years and is the subject of myriad research projects. Sea water flowing underneath the glacier could be contributing to rapid melting and scientists want to understand the impacts of that accelerated melting.

The issue of increased melting extends to many of Greenland’s glaciers. According to the article, “satellite and other measurements suggest that through the 1990s, Greenland was gaining about as much ice through snowfall as it lost to the sea every year. But since then, warmer water has invaded the fjords, and air temperatures in Greenland have increased markedly. The overall loss of ice seems to be accelerating, an ominous sign given that the island contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by more than 20 feet.”

Gillis’s article poses tough questions about the cause of the melting increase. Most scientists concur it is, in part, due to warmer temperatures. He writes, “to a majority of climate scientists, the question is not whether the earth’s land ice will melt in response to the greenhouse gases those people are generating, but whether it will happen too fast for society to adjust.”

He writes about budget issues that have hampered climate research and says a shortage of satellites has decreased the amount of data scientists can collect data about the ice sheets.

Finally, much remains unknown about the earth’s land ice, he writes. Although ongoing studies are critical, scientists need more resources to gather more data. The article quotes Harvard geochemist Daniel Schrag as praising scientists who study ice but commenting, “The scale of what they can do, given the resources available, is just completely out of whack with what is required.”

At Polar Field Services, we’ll continue to assist scientists with polar research and look forward to sharing that with you. –Rachel Walker

Comments (0) Nov 16 2010

Perks of the job - Encounters Producer, Lisa Busch, records a Humpback whale in Southeast Alaska. Photo: Lisa Busch

“Want to visit Alaska, but don’t have money for gas?”—College newspaper ad for Encounters podcasts served up at the Encounters website.

Lisa Busch wears many hats. She’s the co-founder of Sitka Trail Works, an organization which develops and maintains trails near Sitka, Alaska, volunteer for the Sitka Fine Arts Camp for K-12 students, and member and founder of the Sitka Tree and Landscape Committee—and that’s in her “free time” (did I mention she’s also a wife and mother of two).

Busch’s day job?  She has two.

When it comes to science in Southeast Alaska, Busch has your back. She is the Executive Director of the Sitka Sound Science Center, a hatchery and aquarium with a strong focus on community education and research on the Gulf of Alaska. Busch also produces Encounters: Experiences in the North, a radio program based at Sitka’s public station, KCAW-FM (Raven Radio). Now broadcast on the XM Satellite Channel, Remix Radio, the Alaska Public Radio Network, and on thirty college stations nationwide, Encounters brings the natural sounds of Alaska’s wild country (and beyond) to urbanites all over the world.

In the last few years, Busch has expanded the program to include more of the world’s wild places. Now in its eighth year of production, Encounters airs weekly half-hour segments that engage listeners with lively and wondrous field audio of calving glaciers, screeching bald eagles, and the associated sounds of the social dynamics of Humpback whales. Pre-production research keeps the listener educated with relevant scientific and cultural tidbits to accompany a cacophony of wild sounds.

Hence the show's title: PI Richard Nelson encounters a polar bear. Photo source: Encounters Facebook

Richard ‘Nels’ Nelson, a cultural anthropologist and author originally from Madison, Wisconsin, began Encounters in 2004. Before moving to Sitka, Nels lived in the Alaskan wilderness recording the cultural history and traditions of Alaska’s native peoples.  With funding from a National Science Foundation grant for the last three years, Nels has been wandering around the Alaskan bush with a microphone recording all kinds of natural sounds to share with listeners. Nelson recently teamed with the University of San Francisco’s Cultural Anthropology department in his creation of the Encounters Down Under series. In the wild lands of Tasmania and Australia, he explores the human and physical connections, like the migration of birds and animals, between the northern and southern hemispheres

Award-winning journalist Elizabeth Arnold also contributes to Encounters as a senior reporter. Arnold began her career at Juneau’s KTOO in 1985 then moved to Washington D.C. where she has been a national correspondent for NPR for 15 years. Now on faculty with the University of Alaska in Anchorage, Arnold expands Encounters programming to the circumpolar Arctic, particularly the Berengia region (the Aleutian chain and Russia’s Commander Islands, for example) and Canada—wild lands not usually in the media’s limelight. A background in political coverage gives Arnold the unique ability to consider Alaskan issues in the context of national perspective as she explores such topics as Steller’s Curse (in development).

Busch is also bringing her own voice to the show these days along with twenty years of freelance writing and producing experience. An east coast native, Busch majored in Geology and Environmental Science at Tufts University. Following graduation, she acquired a taste for public radio and the West while working at KUAC in Colorado. Next was a big move to Sitka to work for KCAW and launch a career specializing in Alaskan science. After a blip back in D.C working for U.S. News and World Report, Busch returned to Sitka, married Davey Lubin, captain of the Esther G. Sea Taxi, and made Southeast Alaska her home.  Listen to Busch’s recent program on Frontierism in which she thoughtfully considers the state motto from Coldfoot, Alaska, -40F, population 10.

Stop by the Encounters website to listen online. Visit the ‘new educational wing’ (under development) where teachers, students, and armchair adventurers can learn more about Alaska and beyond. –Marcy Davis

Comments (0) Nov 14 2010

Summit Station Lunar Optics Oct 26, 2010. Photo: Ed Stockard

Ed Stockard sent the above picture of night-time light works at Summit Station, Greenland, to the folks at Atmospheric Optics, a site devoted to the study of how light bends (not to put too fine a point on it). Several of Ed’s photos showing “multi-ringed glories, coronae and ghostly fogbows” (as they are so lyrically described on the Web site’s “About” page) were selected as the Optics Picture of the Day.

The really cool thing about this site is that Les Cowley, site administrator, actually annotates the pictures to identify the phenomena and explain how they are likely formed. Check it out!

Meanwhile, Ed is preparing to leave Summit Station in about a week or so, once he and the rest of the winter phase one staff turn over their tasking to the fresh staff of phase two. That team of five is now in Kangerlussuaq, waiting to fly tomorrow by Twin Otter over the ice sheet and into the U.S. National Science Foundation-managed station.

When Ed sent his last batch of photos, he reflected on the time he’s spent at Summit this fall, and how the photo ops exceeded even his wildest dreams: “This season has been an optical delight. The Summit skies have tossed more at us than I expected or hoped for. I had hoped for auroras at night and halos, arcs and sun dogs during daylight. We got it and got it good! What I hadn’t expected were moon related arcs, halos and moon dogs. I hadn’t expected moon related fog bows. In fact I decided to dedicate a whole set on my flickr page which I call Ed’s Optics!”

You can view Ed’s Optics on his CoastalEddy flickr site . Meanwhile, enjoy one more peak through Ed’s viewfinder of the kaleidoscope over Summit Station. –Kip Rithner

Big House with Aurora, Summit Station, Greenland. Photo: Ed Stockard

Comments (1) Oct 28 2010