Christmas in July

Last night, we celebrated Christmas in July here at Toolik. The community center was expertly decorated, with a “tree”, a fire projected onto a huge screen, lights, and of course eggnog. We even had Santa and an elf to hand out our presents from our “Secret Santa” gift exchange.

The gift exchange was great. The gifts were all things made from items found around the field station because we don’t have any stores. People received pressed plants, homemade bracelets, art from antlers or driftwood, and more. Cale made one of the guys up here who likes to fish a “hooks for her and hooks for him” box, which contained some flies for fishing, as well as some pretty hilarious pick-up lines for the ladies. For Case, who I had to make a gift for, I made a basket out of some dried grasses. I filled it with two mini-bottles of booze, a homemade “2-way bottle opener” for beer and wine, and a hangover kit containing band-aids, a hair tie, motrin, mints, and a plastic bag for ice. Kiki, my weatherport mate, made my gift. She gave me some “ginger” candy to go along with my hair, and she recorded herself reading a romance novel that we have been reading at girl’s night. So, now we could keep the nights going even though she left today. She recorded “the good parts” (approximately 25 min). Because we share a weatherport, she couldn’t record it in her room, so she had to sit and read the romance novel out loud in the lab. Quite the commitment, I must say. It definitely won’t be the same here without her.

The camp population is starting to dwindle down now, as people are leaving to go back home. It’s sad saying goodbye to all of the people that you become close with up here, not knowing if you’ll ever cross paths again. It’s also sad knowing that I have less than three weeks left!! Time has flown by. But, on the bright side, my old work buddy Jeremy May, who I worked with my very first summer in Barrow, is in Toolik for the next couple weeks! ๐Ÿ™‚ I am so happy to have him here.

Well, all of the science has been going great, so on that note it is back to work!ย 

Sorry for slacking…

I know it has been quite a while since my last post… and I have been trying to think of a good excuse to explain why I haven’t been writing, but I really don’t have one. So… oops.

Things at Toolik have been going pretty well. We are still having issues getting some of our equipment to function properly, which stinks. But, good thing this summer is a trial summer. Hopefully we can work out the kinks and get at least one solid month of good data before we head for home.

I have been spending most of my time reading papers and trying to brainstorm project ideas. I’ve also been working on my own little side project up here and I am really hoping to collect some good data and would like to be able to present my findings at AGU (a conference out in California) this year. We will see. So far, it’s working pretty well. Essentially I am measuring photosynthesis of a branch of birch near our autochambers over a 24 or 48 hour period. My hope is to be able to compare the leaf-level measurements that I am doing to the chamber-level measurements that the autochambers record. Even though I wrote a program that has the machine collecting data automatically during that time, I am probably still going to try to stay awake to make sure that the equipment doesn’t get crazy rained on. I will protect it from the elements the best that I can, but I am too paranoid to trust my tarp and ziploc bag combination. Anyway, I did a little trial-run the other day just on a landing outside of our lab. The trial only lasted 6 hours because I just wanted to make sure that my program was working and that I had my constants set appropriately.

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I clipped a branch from a nearby patch of birch and just used that for my trial run, as I am not actually going to be using any of the data. After the 6 hour test run, I downloaded the data and got a big spreadsheet filled with numbers. I am still trying to figure out what some of it means, but I think I’ve got it down pretty well. Since the machine measures photosynthesis, I have to determine the area of the leaves in the chamber in order to have an accurate measurement. This was probably my favorite part of the day, mainly because I got to play with some new software I downloaded. I removed the leaves from the branch in the chamber and took a picture of them.

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Then, using the software, I could edit this image and using the ruler in my photo, the software can calculate the area of each leaf.

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I thought it was fun, and really easy to figure out because there was a great youtube video to walk me through it. The glories of technology, I tell you what.

That’s enough science for now. My birthday was pretty awesome. My fellow Toolikers here in camp did their best to make sure it was special. I got to dinner and received some cards, a nice big bottle of gin, some flowers, and Cale even ordered me new sunglasses because I keep losing mine. I feel pretty lucky. ๐Ÿ™‚

As they say, a picture says a thousand words, so here’s some of the pics I have taken over the past week. Hopefully they will make up for my lack of blogging…

 

That’s all for now. The rain has stopped, so it’s back to work we go!

 

Flower Photos and the Fourth

I have been getting a little addicted to the macro setting on my camera… and we all know how much I love me some plants, so here’s some of the latest photos:

I know that it has been a while since my last post, but I have been kind of bored with writing about all of my tinkering with technology, and I am sure that you were all bored with it too. So, I decided to wait until I had some more exciting things to write about rather than drone on about wires and robots.

I was very excited the other day when Cale took me out to her research sites. Cale works with Gus Shaver, who is like a hero for some of us Arctic plant ecologists. We took a short bike ride up the road to her sites, then I helped Cale swap out a battery for her datalogger, and while she did some other site maintenance, I walked around and looked at the famous greenhouses.

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Some of the greenhouses have been fertilized, which explains those massive shrubs growing inside, trying to burst out the sides. It was really great to be able to actually see the sites that I have read so many papers based around.

After we spent a little over an hour out in the field, It was time to start to get ready for the Fourth of July festivities here in Toolik, which took place yesterday so that the work week wouldn’t be interrupted. The evening started off with a great dinner of crab legs and filet mignon, ย followed by a couple hours a prep for the night time festivities. Each lab at Toolik is responsible for putting on some sort of skit, which the staff then judge and give out awards like “Best Dance Number”. It was pretty hilarious to watch some of the performances. My lab wrote a skit about Russian communists attempting to take over the US via entering the north slope of Alaska. It would have been a great skit, had we not had some technical difficulties. I was a Russian. Our costumes were pretty stereotypical, but it was fun.

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Another lab did a skit making fun of the construction issues that we have to deal with up here. Whenever a group needs to drive down the road to access your research site, they generally have to wait a long time for the pilot car to come meet them and direct them down the road. It is a hassle that we all experience, so it was a pretty hilarious skit. They also had a great tap-dancing number at the end, which won the award for “Best Dance Number”.

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There was also a Monty Python type skit, a Dr. Suess skit, and a skit involving a giant dragon. The staff skit was probably my favorite, though. One of the staff members who has been around for several years is leaving Toolik this year for a different job opportunity, so the staff put on a tribute skit for him. They pulled up in a truck and three of the staff members (including the one leaving) played some music, while the rest of the staff dressed up like Shib (the guy leaving) and represented various years of his time in Toolik. It was really great. They definitely did way better than any of us.

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The rest of the night involved hanging out and socializing around a great bonfire. All and all, I would say it was a great fourth of July. I still missed camping back home and would have loved to do the Arctic plunge in Barrow with the old lab (well, maybe I would have just watched). But, it will be hard to have this much fun again next year.

Also, 5 days until my birthday. The big 22. Where has the time gone?

Loggers, LI-COR, and Laptops, OH MY!

Just a warning to all that this blog post is not going to be nearly as exciting as the last few. I’ve been putting off writing hoping that something thrilling would happen, but it hasn’t. The best part of my last couple days was finally getting to talk to my Dad on the phone yesterday. It’s odd how much you miss someone when you go from spending almost every day with them (even under not-so-great circumstances), to not seeing them for a week and a half. Glad we finally got to chat, Dad!

Anyway, my last couple days have been filled with more technology related things than most of the rest of my life combined. Not exaggerating. For those of you who know me well, you will know that I am not the super fond of technology, and I don’t necessarily have a knack for it like my brother, Kaleb, does. Despite this, I am starting to realize that for my new job I am going to need to become a little more tech savvy.

I’ve been getting up close and personal with the mechanisms running the automated flux chambers that I have been posting pictures and videos of.

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Essentally, the datalogger is programmed and sends certain information to the relay switches, and the relay controls the piston and valve switches. The pistons control when the chambers move up and down, and the valves control which chamber has gas going to the gas analyzer. Also, the gas analyzer sends data to the datalogger, which stores it in a nice ย table. It’s a neat little system. But, if the datalogger is having issues, the entire system is essentially useless, because things won’t move like they are supposed to, and we won’t have access to the data.

I spent the day on Sunday editing our program for the datalogger so that we could change the times that our chambers were going up and down. I actually really enjoy writing programs, and the one for the datalogger is pretty simple.

Yesterday, I got my morning cup of coffee and went out to my automated chambers to check on them and update the program, but of course they were not working. I instantly assumed that there was a power issue, because that’s what the problem has been with this system in the past. Low and behold, I was right. If the datalogger isn’t getting enough power to function properly, I can’t exactly test if the program that I wrote is working. So, rather than spend the day getting eaten alive by mosquitoes attempting to fix the power issues outside, my boss suggested that I ย just unhook everything and take the datalogger and relay into the lab to test the program. This required removing A LOT of wires, as you can see from the picture above. Luckily I labeled everything with some nice red tape before removing anything.ย Then I brought the system into the lab, and hooked everything up to test the program.

The program worked on the first try. SO, now I just need to solve the power issues outside and we will be up and running.

Once I was done messing around with the datalogger, my next mission is to learn how to use the LI-6400, a “portable” photosyntesis/respiration measuring system. I put portable in quotes because this thing is a beast. I would not want to carry it around the field with me, that is for sure.

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I still don’t know how it works. Yesterday I spent the majority of the day reading the manual and some protocols that fellow scientists emailed me, and taking vigorous notes.

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Once my brain was sufficiently melted from all of that, I spent the rest of the day using a program on our small work laptop that contains all of our data to convert files into different formats so that my boss back at Notre Dame can access them. He can actually access the work laptop we have here from Indiana. So, as I was working on it, the screen flickered, and the mouse started moving around like someone else was controlling the computer (which my boss was, from all the way across the country). Technology never ceases to amaze me. He proceeded to open Notepad on the computer, and write me a ย note letting me know he was going to use the laptop for a minute. It was quite comical to me… like those NCIS episodes when you see the persons computer get hacked. At least now I know to never use that laptop for Facebook or Email…

From all the tech the last couple days, my brain is fried, and I would give anything just to have a ruler and a clicker to go measure some grass and count flowers like the good ol’ days.

Where does the time go?

The past couple days have been very, very busy in Toolik. With that, time is flying by! It doesn’t even feel like I have been up here a few days… let alone a week! This summer is going to go by very quickly.

On Wednesday, I took an “Arctic Field Safety” course offered here at Toolik for free! It was a full day, 8AM to 3PM. We covered topics such as what to do in an emergency situation if someone is injured, risk management, packing and prepping for the field, field survival, and bear safety.

The course was fun and actually very educational. I now think a lot more before packing my field bag in the morning, just to make sure that I have everything I could possibly need if I get stuck out in the field or caught in a storm.

Yesterday was also a long day. I volunteered to help a couple of guys here, Sam and Ryan, collect some data out at their stream sites. We left for the field around 8:30AM, and got back to camp just after 9PM. It was a full day, starting and ending with a 3km hike through tussock tundra. It was a really fun day though. I learned how to use the GPS, which has been a goal of mine for a while. Also, I helped them collect data on stream uptake, water chemistry, and some land surveying. Luckily the weather was beautiful and the bugs weren’t so bad until the very end of the day. I also got to see a lot of cool plants along the river, so of course I took pictures of them.

I was literally on my feet all day, then the 3km hike uphill on the way in nearly killed me. I didn’t think I would be able to walk for weeks. But, I woke up this morning feeling great… maybe my body is in shock.

Today I have been troubleshooting our automated flux chambers, and I believe all of our issues have finally been solved! Now I can actually start collecting and potentially analyzing some of that data. I am very, very excited.

Well, break’s over, back to work!

Complications, Carbon flux, and Close-Ups

Today was an extremely warm, sunny, and beautiful Toolik day.

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But with the sun and heat comes the bugs, which definitely is not fun. Particularly because I am way too stubborn to wear a bug jacket. I coated myself with 40% deet bug spray, which seemed to work for at least a little while.

Today was a very busy day, so thank goodness for the good weather. Frank leaves tomorrow, so he is trying to help me learn everything I need to know and get all set-up before he leaves. Our main focus this morning was setting up our automated carbon flux chambers. They are actually really cool… when they work.

There are two chambers (dark and light) so that we can tease apart the amount of carbon released/taken-up during respiration and photosynthesis. We also have lights in the dark chambers. I believe these are to test for any circadian rhythms.

So, ever since yesterday, Frank and I have been setting up these chambers, cutting the tubes for air, and wiring this crazy contraption. We have run into SO many snags with our set up. First, just carrying everything over to where our testing area is located was insanely laborious. That air compressor is HEAVY! ย Second, setting up that little plastic shed that the compressor is housed in: NOT as easy as it looks. Frank and I would have the thing almost completely put together, go to snap in the last piece, and the whole thing would either fall apart, or we would realize we did something wrong, and we would have to start all over. I guess we could have read the instructions… but who does that? We seriously probably looked like a couple cartoon characters. Third, getting the two chambers to line up and seal exactly over the collar in the ground is a challenge. We had to repeatedly adjust the mechanism due to the unevenness of the ground. As soon as one chamber would be lined up, we would test the other and it would be way off. So we would adjust for that one, and then the first one we had ready would be off, and so forth. FINALLY, we had the chambers lined up and moving the way that they are supposed to. Check out the video link below:

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So, we had the thing capable of running… for the most part. However, when we came back to finalize everything after dinner, we ran into yet another a snag. ๐Ÿ˜ฆ We noticed that the LI-COR, the part that actually measures the concentrations of the gases, wasn’t turning on. As it turns out, there isn’t enough power to run everything that we need to run (the datalogger, the LI-COR, the lights, etc.). This is an issue, because if everything isn’t working, the data is either not accessible or useless. So, that is a problem that I will have to sort out once Frank is gone, or wait until he comes back.

Other than working on the automated carbon flux chambers, Frank and I had to head out to Imnaviat (another one of our site locations about 20 minutes outside of the Toolik camp).

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At this site, we just have to take measurements with the ASD. If you don’t remember, the ASD is the spectrometer that we use that is in the big pack with the Ghostbuster’s sticker on it. Today Frank taught me how to use it so that I can take the measurements while he is gone. The part of the ASD that houses the fiber while we take measurements has a label that says “Pistol Grip” on it, which I thought was pretty hilarious. But, maybe that is the lack of sleep talking.

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On the way out to Imnaviat, there was a fly sitting on my window while we were stopped waiting for our “pilot car” to lead us through the construction. So, I decided to take some close up shots of the fly… which I was calling a “bee fly”, because of its coloration. Anyway, these photos inspired me to take some other close up shots of plants when I was out at Imnaviat, so here are today’s “close-ups”.

Well, after the long day of being hot, sweaty, and eaten alive by mosquitoes, I am ready for one of my bi-weekly 2 minute showers and some relaxation. Tomorrow I will be doing a full-day “Arctic Safety” training course held here at the camp for free, so you can look forward to pictures of that in my next post!

The Oregon Trail and a Mountain Trail

Every Saturday night in Toolik is fire night. Last night was a little special, as we were celebrating the solstice (yes, we scientists like to celebrate these things). ย The theme of the fire was “Oregon Trail”, and costumes were highly encouraged. I was lazy and just wore a flannel in hopes that would pass as “Western”. However, several people pulled off some pretty amazing costumes that they made with supplies they found around the camp.

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A couple people showed up in covered wagons made from wagons, bed sheets, and cardboard or wire. Cale (below) dressed up like a bison, making her costume out of tinfoil and some sort of ย mask. Cale and I share a lab up here, and she is part of the same research crew.

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Not only were people dressed for the occasion, but even the fire fit the theme.

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The bearded man, Justin, is one of the camp managers. The sign on the fire had some sayings from the original “Oregon Trail” game. The fire was constructed very well and the wagon went up in flames rather quickly, despite the wet wood from the very rainy day we had.

Today a group of nine of us decided to go on a hike to “slope mountain”. The hike was amazing, but it was very steep up the mountain side.

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We got to walk right under the pipeline on our way to the mountain, which was cool. I have never actually been this close to it before. Usually it is not that high off the ground, but you can see from the photo just how big the thing is. The pipeline extends about 800 miles from Valdez to Prudhoe Bay. I can’t even fathom how much it must have cost and the time it must have taken to get all of those supplies this far north in the sometimes harsh Arctic conditions. The construction of the pipeline took over three years (1974-1977) and cost more than $8 billion dollars. As of 2010, the pipeline had shipped almost 16 billion barrels of oil.

We hit a snag on our way to the mountain when we were trying to cross a river. We decided just to strip down to our bare feet and walk across.

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The water was pretty cold and the rocks were slimy, but luckily none of us fell and got wet. The water was actually moving pretty quickly so it was nerve-racking, butย it was fun. Once we crossed the river, the hike continued.

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Cale and I (being as out of shape as we are and attempting to conserve our legs for field work tomorrow) decided to stop about half way up the mountain and just relax. We figured the view was nice enough.

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The rest of the crew, in much better shape than us, proceeded up the mountain. Cale and I sat on a big rock on the side of the slope for about an hour, then decided to work our way back down, which took just about as long as getting up. We wandered around a little bit while waiting for everyone else, and we got to see some cool things.

First, we saw a wolf spider carrying its egg sack, which is bright blue.

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Some researchers up here are studying parasitic wasps (“spider wasps”) that kill these spiders. One of the researchers up here told me that the wasps actually lay their eggs in the spider’s egg sac, and then the wasp larvae hatch before the spiders and eat all of the spider eggs. The wasps are very tiny compared to the spiders. Check out this article for more info:ย http://arthropodecology.com/2013/01/24/egg-sac-parasitism-in-arctic-wolf-spiders/

We also got to see some really cool ice features. The ground at one point had slumped off, and we crawled down by the ledge to see and touch the ice wedge below.

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So, even though we didn’t do the entire hike, I’m still very pleased with everything that Cale and I got to see. Plus, we got to take a break and lay in the nice soft tundra and smell the evergreens for a while.

All and all, it has been a good couple days here in the Arctic.

First Flight

Today, my friends, was an awesome day.

Today I got to fly in a helicopter for my first time. We fly from the pad at Toolik out to our research sites in a tiny little chopper that makes you feel like a dragonfly in flight (or what I imagine a dragonfly might feel like).

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Apparently helicopter pilots fly from the right side of the chopper, so the opposite of airplanes and cars. Of course, me being the genius that I am, I climbed into the pilots seat first. The pilot climbed into the passengers seat, and proceeded to watch me to put on my seat belt. Then he said, “Are you ready? Go ahead and start it up.” After a moment of hesitation, I realized what I had done, turned a shade of red probably close to my hair color, then laughed it off and climbed out of the seat. What a good start to my day. At least I knew that the pilot would be fun.

***Warning: the next few sections of this post are pretty sciency, sorry if it bores some of you***

Once aboard the chopper, the team (me, Frank, and Kale) flew out to our research sites. We have three sites: Severely burned, moderately burned, and unburned. At each site, we had several things to do. First, we had to download data off of our eddy covariance tower (below).

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The tower measures the exchange of carbon dioxide between the ground (vegetation) and the atmosphere. It also measures radiation, PAR (photosynthetically active radiation), temperature, and humidity. There is also a time-lapse camera on the tower. We will be using data from the tower to observe how burn severity impacts carbon cycling.

The second thing that we had to do was use an ASD spectrometer to determine what wavelengths of light are being reflected off of the vegetation. This was Frank’s job because I do not know how to use the equipment yet. I will be learning though. Personally, I think the decoration on the pack that houses the main part of the sensor is quite fitting.Image

I am still learning a bit about the data from this type of equipment. To put it simply, we can see from the data when the plants start to green up, and potentially other phenological events.

We also had to measure thaw depth at 80 points at each site. At each point, we determine how much of the active layer has thawed using a thaw depth probe (below). We push it into the ground until we hit frozen soil (which is too hard to push through) and record the measurement.

Other than collecting the data, I got to walk around the sites and see the differences in plants at each one. The difference was pretty astounding.

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At the severely burned site, there is hardly any moss between the tussocks (the giant balls ofย Eriophorum vaginatum,ย or cotton grass, in the photo). This is very strange, as moss is a common ground cover in the tundra (as you can see in the photo of the unburned site). Moss helps to insulate the ground, keeping it cool and slowing the thaw of the active layer. Without it, the soil may thaw more quickly.

*****End of sciency things*****

So, today was a day filled with science and adventure, and it was really fun. It felt ย great to be back out in the field working again. To be honest, I was very nervous about how I would feel not working out at the ITEX sites in Barrow and Atqasuk, but once I set foot on the tundra, everything just clicked and I couldn’t help but smile. It feels so good to be back in the Arctic.

I promised I would elaborate a little bit on my living conditions here in Toolik, so here we go:

This is my “weatherport”. I like to call it a glorified tent, but my Mom says it’s like a high tunnel (that you see on farms) with a floor, which is pretty accurate.

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Notice the box of wine in the corner and the box I am using to hide the sun at night. The two staples of my summer. Keeping it classy here in Toolik.

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Most of the researchers are housed in these. I have mine to myself right now, but I bet when it gets busy at the end of July I will have a roommate for a bit.

Also, in order to conserve water, we are supposed to minimize the amount of toilet flushing. Outhouses like these (below) are placed around the camp in a few places.

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Also, as a water saver, we are limited to 2 showers per week, each under two minutes long. There is a “shower module” with a girls section and a boys section for us to use. We also have laundry facilities that we can use once every two weeks. It costs 1$ per gallon of waste water being shipped out of camp, so we have to do our part to help the camp save money that can be used on other fun things, like the community center:

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This is our ping pong table. Note the sawhorses being used as legs.

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There is also a couch, drum set, and Foosballย table. There is also another building that is all set up for watching movies.

Finally, here’s our lab space:

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It’s pretty messy right now as we are working on setting up the automated carbon-flux chambers that you can kind of see in the photo. But, pretty soon we will move those out to the field for testing and that will free up some space.

Well, I feel like this post is sufficiently long. It’s time for me to get off my computer and go wander around camp for a bit. I’ll write again soon, otherwise Timothy Botting will be disappointed, and I just can’t have that.

Arrival

Well, it’s that time of year again. I am here in the North Slope of Alaska for the summer. However, this time I am with a new team and in a new location. I graduated from GVSU in April, and since then I have accepted a graduate student position at the University of Notre Dame with Dr. Adrian Rocha as my adviser. I am very sad to leave Bob Hollister and the GV team, but I am excited about my new research project and about being part of the Rocha Ecosystem Ecology lab.

My new project involves observing how tundra fires (caused by lightning strikes) impact carbon cycling in the tundra. In 2007 there was a huge fire on the north slope:

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This burn released enough carbon into the atmosphere to offset the carbon intake of the entire tundra biome for that year. Data has been collected on the burn scar over the last several years, and I will be using this data, as well as some that I collect, to determine the long term impacts of tundra fires on carbon cycling.

The location I am working out of is “Toolik Field Station”. It isn’t a city, just a bunch of researchers and the people who run the camp.

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In order to get to Toolik, I have had quite the travel experience the last two days. I left Michigan on Wednesday at 4PM Eastern time, and arrived in Fairbanks at 11:30 PM Alaska time (3:30AM Michigan time). So, that was almost 12 hours of traveling. My flight from Denver to Fairbanks was terrible. In case you didn’t know, I suffer from motion sickness pretty badly, and my flight from Fairbanks was full of so much turbulence, it was like a 4 hour roller coaster ride. I got all sweaty and clammy and felt nauseous for the entire flight. Not to mention the seat that I was in couldn’t recline, so I couldn’t even try to sleep through it. By the time I got settled in my hotel, I didn’t get to sleep until almost 2AM (6AM Michigan time). This morning I woke up bright and early, took a taxi to the UAF campus, and then hopped in a truck with 4 other researchers (a tight squeeze, as I’m sure you can imagine), and drove over 9 hours up to Toolik on the Dalton Highway. The drive was beautiful, but sadly I didn’t get any good pictures because ย I was sitting in the middle of the back seat. We saw three moose on the way up, so that was great. The road follows the Alaskan Pipeline, which is a pretty phenomenal work of engineering. ย Note: I didn’t take this photo. I found it on the internet.

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I also got to see the transition from boreal forest to tundra as we drove north, which is definitely something every Arctic researcher should see.

Toolik is pretty awesome. There is great scenery and an AMAZING cafeteria. I mean, AMAZING. The food is ridiculous, and the cafeteria is open 24/7, so I can go eat whenever I want to, which is pretty awesome. Today I arrived after dinner hours had ended, and they had leftover seafood risotto and fresh steamed broccoli in the fridge from dinner. Needless to say, I ate too much. Also, the fridge is always stocked with Mt. Dew, so that is perfect for me.ย On the downside, I don’t really know anyone here yet, and I am feeling a little secluded and alone. Hopefully things will start to get better as the season goes on…

Well, that’s all I have for today. I will post pictures of the field station tomorrow. It’s raining now, so I am going to fall asleep to the sound of raindrops on my weatherport (essentially a glorified tent). Night, all.

Still the same old story… but there’s a baby walrus!

Sorry for the delay between posts! Things have been extremely busy, and by the time we are in from the field I am just too tired to write. Also, nothing really interesting has been happening. Jenny and I are still pointframing daily, and I already talked about that. We are currently just a little bit under 2/3 of the way done with the plots we need to complete before the end of the season. We are optimistic that we will finish in time. Soon we will head back to Atqasuk to keep working there.

I have been delaying writing for a while because I just haven’t had anything worth writing about… until two nights ago! I got to witness the fish and wildlife service, with the help of some natives, rescue a baby walrus here in Barrow! ๐Ÿ™‚ The mother either left the baby or was killed, and without its mother the baby would have died. It is so young that it still depends on its mother for food. So, it swam up to the beach. The fish and wildlife service took it to give it some food, and hope to find a home for it. I heard rumors that they would be sending it to the sea life center in Seward, AK. That is a great place, so I hope it ends up there. Here are some photos I was able to take:

The Fish and Wildlife crew pulling the baby walrus up the beach to get it away from the ocean so that it didn’t swim away. It would die in the wild without its mother at this age.

Finally made it far enough away from the ocean. Shortly after this, the baby turned and tried to bite one of the workers. It was actually pretty cute, but I felt sorry for it because it seemed so scared. But, it was for a good reason.

Trying to make an escape up the beach…

The rescue team, some locals, and some people taking pictures after the walrus was in the kennel. Shortly after, the walrus was loaded into a truck and taken away to be fed.

Seriously so cute. Such an amazing animal. Hopefully it lives a long and happy life. ๐Ÿ™‚

In other news, a photographer came out and took some pictures of Jenny and I working yesterday. He is from the California Press. Hopefully I will get some copies of his pictures once they are edited to add on to here. We also had a worker from BASC come out and make a video about our project and talk to us about our sites. So, we were in the spotlight yesterday. Even with all of the distraction, we finally managed to finish pointframing on the Barrow ARCSS grid. That leaves us with 106 plots left to complete! Getting closer…

Also, today we are taking some 2nd graders out to a fake ITEX site that we made to talk to them about the Arctic, plants, and let them run around in the tundra for a while. Hopefully it goes well. Maybe that will be the subject of my next post.

Three weeks left here on the top of the world… as much as I really miss home, I know I am going to be sad to leave. Time to make the most of the rest of my time here!