PolarTREC teacher Jim Pottinger does the hokey-pokey at Summit Station. All photos: Jim Pottinger

“Sleeping in a tent in the Arctic was a new experience for me. Temperatures dipped below 0°F and the winds were consistently blowing against the tent.”– Jim Pottinger, 2010 PolarTREC teacher

Jim Pottinger enjoys cold weather, so living at Summit Station’s Tent City on the Greenland ice cap for a week was fine by him. Camping atop 3200 meters of ice was one of several new experiences for the Pennsylvania native who travelled to Greenland last summer as part of the PolarTREC Program. Pottinger’s team, which is led by PI Konrad Steffen (CIRES), travelled to Summit to maintain instrumentation for the NSF-funded BSRN – Compatible Irradiance Measurements and the Stable Boundary Layer

At Summit Station, Pottinger worked with Karl Schroff and Hansjoerg Frei (from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and Nikko Bayou (UC Boulder).

After a long day of shoveling snow Nikko Bayou reaches the APTU at last.

Their first task was to locate and retrieve an Automated Temperature Profiling Unit (APTU), which started its mission recording high altitude weather data in 2007.

“After a four-mile bone-chilling [snowmobile] ride, we arrived at the site. It was a beautiful location in the middle of the Greenland ice sheet. The sky was blue, the terrain was white and there was nothing as far as the eye could see,” Pottinger wrote in his August 14 journal.

They located the unit by GPS. Only two feet of the ten-foot tall APTU tripod was sticking up out of the snow. It took six hours and digging down about twenty feet before they freed the tripod and data logger using snowmobiles and ropes.

Elevating the Automatic Weather Station - turns out it looks tougher than it is.

The team’s next task was to elevate Summit’s AWS, one of eighteen such stations in Greenland. First, the scientists attached cable extensions to accommodate the station’s new height. Next, they erected a tripod over the station, attached a rope to the top of the AWS, and lifted the station ten feet while inserting an extension tube to the base. Once the station was secure, they removed the tripod and later verified data transmission. The entire data transmission process only took one hour!

Next, they dug a 140-centimeter deep snow pit next to the AWS. Pottinger recorded the pit’s snow structure, making notes of density, snow crystal shape and size, layer thickness and volume  every ten centimeters. These measurements will help ground-truth the AWS and ensure that sensors were working properly over the two previous years.

Pottinger becomes an old hand at snow pit measurements.

Pottinger also assisted in elevating and calibrating BSRN instrumentation and learned about ongoing NOAA weather experiments.

Pottinger’s visit coincided with Summit’s transition between seasonal crews. This meant a busy couple of days while winter preparations were made. Following a great end of season dinner, Pottinger spent his last night in the Big House and flew out with a jubilant summer crew the next morning.

Summer crew kicks back at the end of the season party at Lake Fergueson.

Pottinger, who has a background in geology, coordinates the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) program at Gateway High School in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. He acts as an academic advisor, making sure students are on an academic path consistent with their post-secondary goals, and as a science teacher, giving periodic guest lectures in science classes.

Pottinger hopes to return to Greenland’s Swiss Camp next May with Steffen. He will again be involved in systems maintenance and hopes to learn more about how the collected data is being used in various science projects. In the meantime, he’s keeping busy sharing his experience with students, teachers and community. Pottinger hopes he can begin to correct some of the misconceptions people have about climate change, the Arctic, and the people who live there.—Marcy Davis

Comments (0) Jan 20 2011

Sergey Zimov surveys his Pleistocene Park, mammoth bones at his side. Photo: Arthur Max, Associated Press

 
Due to the current shortage of mammoths, Sergey also periodically takes matters into his own hands: He drives his Soviet [era] personnel carrier, which he describes as the equivalent to two male mammoths, through the forest. His only complaint about this substitution is that it does not produce any excrement, an essential component.—joint blog post for the NSF-funded Polaris Project by Anya Suslova, student, Yakutsk State University; and Tyler Llewellyn, student, Western Washington University. (Max Holmes, Woods Hole, PI.)

During the Pleistocene Epoch between about 10,000 and 2,000,000 years ago, nearly half the world’s land mass was covered with tundra-steppe, a cold, dry grassland spanning the distance between forest and desert ecosystems. In these grasslands lived large herbivore populations—mammoth, bison, and musk oxen. These behemoths naturally maintained the landscape through grazing, fertilizing, and tilling the soil with their hooves.

Pleistocene fauna thrived in open grasslands. Image: Mauricio Anton

But as the Pleistocene reached its end, the animals died off and less productive forest ecosystems took hold. Scientists have long maintained that climate change caused the die-off, but Russian scientist Sergey Zimov believes otherwise.

Sergey Zimov, who founded and directs the Northeast Science Station in Cherskiy in northeastern Siberia, believes the animals were overhunted, which led to extinction.  Just as human actions may be responsible for the steppe transformation, Zimov hopes human actions will return the landscape to its prehistoric state.

Specifically, since 1989 he has worked to restore the grassland ecosystem that existed in Siberia during the Pleistocene by eradicating larch trees and reintroducing the animals that thrived during Pleistocene time. Zimov hopes to transform more than 40,000 acres of forest and shrub land along the Kolyma River to grassland steppe.

Located 25 miles from the Northeast Science Station and surrounded by 150,000 acres of Siberian wilderness, Pleistocene Park is accessible only by boat in summer and snow vehicles in winter. The limited Park infrastructure includes a small cabin that houses two caretakers, a couple of storage outbuildings, and a personnel carrier.

Pleistocene Park grasslands. Photo: Erin Seybold

A potential benefit of grassland restoration across northern Siberia, Zimov says, is that it could prevent permafrost from thawing and the subsequent release of stored carbon dioxide, a primary greenhouse gas, due to a warming climate. To help test this hypothesis at Pleistocene Park, Zimov constructed a 105-foot tower with instrumentation that takes constant methane, carbon dioxide, and water vapor readings. In addition to Zimov’s own database, readings are fed into a global CO2 monitoring system maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Preventing this [global warming] scenario from happening could be facilitated by restoring Pleistocene-like conditions in which grasses and their root systems stabilize the soil. The albedo—or ability to reflect incoming sunlight skyward—of such ecosystems is high, so warming from solar radiation also is reduced,” Zimov wrote in a 2005 essay. “And with lots of herbivores present, much of the wintertime snow would be trampled, exposing the ground to colder temperatures that prevent ice from melting. All of this suggests that reconstructed grassland ecosystems, such as the ones we are working on in Pleistocene Park, could prevent permafrost from thawing and thereby mitigate some negative consequences of climate warming.”

It’s a gargantuan task. Using controlled burns and targeted bulldozing (simulating mammoths), Zimov clears larch trees and willow shrubs. The labor-intensive process allows sunlight and rainfall to reach grasses while returning nutrients to the poor soils.

Next come the megafauna – large animals typical of the Pleistocene Epoch. Large herbivores like mammoths, horses, moose, caribou, bison, and musk oxen kept grasslands healthy; when these animals devoured older grasses, new shoots could grow. These mammals deposited tons of dung, naturally fertilizing and reseeding the land throughout the year. They trampled trees and shrubs, stunting their growth, and cold winter months exposed the ground to the cold, which helped keep permafrost frozen.

Zimov has reintroduced species like the Yakutian horse, which is native to Siberia. Photo: Sergey Zimov

While some of the animals are extinct, Zimov has found the closest living relative to repopulate his emerging steppe. So far, he has successfully reintroduced small numbers of moose, musk ox, bison and Yakutian horses, a small, native breed well-adapted to harsh Siberian winters with the ability to locate vegetation under deep snow. Smaller mammals including hares, marmots, and squirrels have also been introduced.

Once populations stabilize, Zimov plans to bring in predators like wolves, bear, larynxes, and polar foxes to keep herbivore populations in check. Once the Park reaches proper animal densities, Zimov expects the ecosystem will maintain itself and flourish; the Russian will then begin expanding the park boundary.—Marcy Davis

Comments (0) Jan 18 2011

Alaska Marine Science Symposium

Marine scientists will meet in Anchorage to share results from research projects in the Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea, and Gulf of Alaska January 17-21, 2011. Through workshops, keynote speakers, luncheon events, and poster receptions and oral sessions, scientists will communicate a wide range of topics in ocean science including climate, marine birds and mammals, and socioeconomics.

The conference kicks off January 16 with the Alaska Marine Gala, a “blue tie” banquet and charity auction with a presentation by Joel Satore, National Geographic photographer, and music by Anchorage band H3.

Arctic Frontiers – Arctic Tipping Points

The Northern Research Forum (NRF) will hold their fifth annual Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromso, Norway, January 23-28, 2011. This year’s meeting, entitled “Arctic Tipping Points,” will be split into two two-day sections:  a policy section and a science section.

Launched by Iceland President Ólafur Ragnur Grimsson in 1998, the NRF’s primary objective is to provide a forum for an international and multidisciplinary group of researchers to communicate their science to educators, politicians, and policy-makers from the Circumpolar North. A second objective is to address issues and opportunities important to people living in the northern countries.

The NRF also provides several opportunities for young researchers, students, decision makers and students including the International Forum at the Arctic Circle as part of the Jokkmokk Winter Conference, January 31-February 3 in Jokkmokk, Sweden. This year’s theme:  “Pathway to Sustainable Northern Communities.”

Arctic Science Summit Week

ASSW will be held March 27 – April 1, 2011, in Seoul, Korea, hosted by the Korea Polar Research Institute. The meeting focuses on atmosphere, climate change, modeling, and ecosystem change.

During the meeting the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists will hold a one-day Career Development Workshop to help young researchers network and hone insights into Arctic Science organizations and programs as well as communication and publication skills.

Comments (0) Jan 16 2011

Aquatic Ecologist Linda Deegan of the Marine Biological Lab has been studying arctic grayling for more than two decades. Photo: Nancy Eve Cohen

Last spring,  biologists Linda Deegan (Marine Biological Laboratory) and Alex Huryn (University of Alabama) began a three-year, National Science Foundation-funded study of arctic graylings (Thymallus arcticus), the only fish found in the Kuparuk River near Toolik Field Station. Grayling serve as food for lake trout, birds, and humans, and the biologists are examining how changing climate affects the migration and life-cycle of grayling populations and, consequently, other facets of the ecosystem like insect populations.

Deegan believes there is an urgency to understanding the relationship between tundra lakes and streams and how they function as a system, given the rapid pace and grand scale of climate change. To that end, this project aims to  address 4 questions:

1) How are seasonality, rate and distance of grayling migration affected by climate change?

2) Are the seasonality of life-cycles, life-history and attributes of stream insect populations changing in response to climate change?

3) How does changing seasonality of river discharge interact with insect production to affect availability and transfer of stream production to grayling?

4) What is the effect of climate-driven disruption of the migratory link on the structure and function of winter refugia?

Specifically, the scientists will devote their field work to studying the graylings during downstream migration from Green Cabin Lake at the head of the Kuparuk River. In June and July they will tag fish along a 50 km stretch of Kuparuk. At summer’s end, they will study the graylings as they migrate back upstream for the winter.

This summer, the project was featured on the radio show, Pulse of the Planet, in a series of three field interviews with Heidi Golden, research assistant to Linda Deegan. Follow this link to access the audio reports.  —Marcy Davis

Comments (0) Dec 09 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