August update

Well, the past few weeks have been challenging and tiring on many levels. We seemed to be lucky earlier in the summer, with not too many problems cropping up with the research equipment. But alas, the problems were just waiting until now! But rather than complain about that, I'll give a bit of a description of my living situation. This is probably something I should have done earlier this summer, oops!

the cabin - our side of the cabin is entered from the porch on the right

Our research team rents a cabin in Healy from some really nice people named Mike and Corinne. There are actually two cabins, attached to each other but not connected. We live on one side and they live on the other. Mike and Corinne have 26 sled dogs and the dog yard is about 20 feet from the cabin. The cabin, like most in northern Alaska, is dry - no running water because putting a well in permafrost is very tricky. We go to a community well down the road and fill up 8 x 5-gallon jugs about once a week to use for drinking, cooking, and dishes. We have a bucket with a spigot set up in the kitchen (next to a sink - the faucet just doesn't work) so we get our water from that. There is an outhouse down a path outside and an outdoor shower that I haven't tried yet (we shower when we go to Fairbanks).

Both the cabin and our field sites are located off of Stampede Rd in Healy. This road is pretty interesting for a number of reasons. First, it is surrounded on 3 sides by Denali National Park. You can look on a map of the park and see that in the northeast corner, there is a chunk taken out - that is the Stampede. A lot of activity that can't been done on park land happens on Stampede. There are houses along the road, but it is also used for atv and jeep tours as well as berry picking and hunting. The Stampede is a big tourist destination because it is free to drive down the road (unlike the Park Rd in Denali where you have to pay after a certain point). You can see Denali (aka Mt. Mckinley) from the end of our road on a clear day! The other reason why Stampede is an interesting road is because of it's connection to the story of Christopher McCandless, which was made famous by the John Krakauer book "Into the Wild". McCandless set out from the end of the Stampede Rd and lived in an abandoned bus about 20 miles from the road until he passed away. Some people try to hike out to the bus but there are some river crossings that make that difficult.

the dog yard

Sky - look at that face!

the end of July?

Time is flying by and it is high time I wrote another blog post. We had a busy past few weeks with visitors to Healy, many many hours of field work (including early mornings and late nights), and a trip to Fairbanks. In the field, we spent the last two weeks doing something called point framing, which is a way to estimate plant biomass. John, a middle school teach who is partnered with our study, does a nice job explaining point framing and has photos, so you can read more about it on his blog here:

http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/carbon-balance-in-warming-and-drying-tundra-2012/journals/2012-07-16

John's blog is great to look at and he has some amazing photos of a few days he spent in Denali!

Other news from the past weeks is that I got to go to Fairbanks last weekend - we hadn't been in 4 weeks! It was great to shower, do laundry, grocery shop, and hang out. I saw the Batman movie and watched some of the World Eskimo Indian Olympics, which were cool. We saw an event called the Two Feet Kick - amazing! Watch this video to see the 2011 event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kb9-1FZmQU

I also did my long run for the week in Fairbanks - 17 miles on Sunday. It felt good and I ran on some of the marathon course. I took the last two days off, which was much needed, and ran 6 miles today. Today was probably the nicest day weather-wise we've had all July! It was 75 and clear skies. I ran to a lake down the road and met Elizabeth there. It was a very refreshing swim! The water is probably as cold as most Maine lakes are in May, but it felt great today.

Tomorrow we are giving a site tour to some employees of Denali National Park, and then having a potluck dinner. Should be fun.

Toklat Glacier trip

Last weekend we were able to go on a backpacking trip in Denali National Park to the Toklat River glacier. We were invited to join Rob Burrows, one of the park glaciologists, to help him prepare for a field course he is leading later on in the summer. The field course is part of a series of courses people can sign up for through the organization Alaska Geographic. Here is the link to the course Rob will be leading (note the price!). 

http://www.alaskageographic.org/static/1174/glaciology-backcountry-citizen-science

The purpose of our trip was to scope out good camp sites and think about things like whether the participants would need crampons. We also did some mapping of the glacier and other landmarks. We were so lucky and grateful to be invited to join Rob (as well as his wife Kimber and a park intern named Larry who'll help lead the trip) and it was definitely a success!

looking south form the Park Road at the Toklat River

On Friday morning I woke up early because I had to run 4 miles, then we ate a big meal of sourdough pancakes and left for the park. Before visitors go in to the backcountry of the park they are required to watch a video that talks about safety, etc. I watched that and learned things like how to cross rivers (we did a lot of that!) and how far from wildlife you should be. Here are some general rules about bears: 

1. you should be at least 300 yards away from a bear

2. Never surprise a bear - this means that if you are walking through dense woods or anywhere that has low visibility, you should talk loudly or yell (i.e. "Hey Bear, coming through!") every so often. It may sound silly but human voices are very distinct and it is way better than surprising a bear that might be protective of young or a food source.

3. Never run from a bear. Grizzlies can run up to 40 mph for short distances (we looked it up and the fastest humans can sprint a 100 m dash in about 27 mph. 

a lone caribou with one antler

After getting the low down on backcountry safety, we were able to pick up our permit for hiking and camping in the area of the park that Rob had reserved for us. There are "units" that you can reserve to use and there are limits to how many parties can be in each. We also picked up our bear barrels, which are issued by the park and used to stow any food, etc items that might attract animals. We would fill those at night and put them 100 yards from our tent and cooking areas. We rode a bus and had a 2 hour ride to where we were dropped off next to the Toklat River. From there we hiked south from the road in the bed of the Toklat River, enjoying sun, blue skies, and a slight breeze! I could definitely get used to backpacking along a river bed; it was easy going but still interesting because of the mountains surrounding us and the many small rivers we had to cross. 

on the bed of the Toklat River

Grizzly eating on the bank (the brown thing) - had to hike around him

camp on the first night (setting up around 10:30 pm)

We hiked from about 3 pm till 8pm (the beauty of having constant daylight) and then stopped to make dinner when we found some freshwater. After dinner we continued to hike in search of a good place to camp for the night. We had turned from the main branch of the Toklat on to the east branch, where the glacier is. The river cut too close to the bank for us to continue hiking so we hiked up to the bluffs above the river and made camp on a ridge overlooking the river bed. What a view!


On Saturday we hiked around on the ridges overlooking the east branch of the river and found an old survey marker that we marked with a Trimble GPS. There was a light rain early on, then clear skies around noon, and then the skies opened up on us for the afternoon, just in time to get to the glacier. But even in the heavy rain it was awesome. Walking on the glacier, you can see how blue the ice is and many rivers where melt is flowing in to the Toklat. The ice was not slick because of lots of small melt holes, caused by either debris or radiation. We walked up the glacier, from the end (called the terminus) to about a mile up, where we took some GPS points and photos. After hearing a few very loud claps of thunder we turned around and headed for camp.

While hiking on Saturday we came upon this part of the ridge (which is old ice covered in debris) melting away. Hiking on this was dangerous at times! Very steep and unstable... my ankles are sore!

looking up the Toklat Glacier

looking down the glacier towards the river

hiking in a blizzard on Sunday morning

We cooked dinner and were in bed by 8 pm. I should note that, though I usually sleep extremely well in tents, this trip was an exception. I am used to sleeping in the light by now but the tent acted like a light bulb. It was also really cold and on Saturday night it was extremely rainy and windy! We were buffeted around all night and when we got up at 7 it was hailing and snowing. A blizzard in July! Making breakfast and breaking down camp was uncomfortable (cold!!!) but once we started hiking it got better. The wind was blowing the snow completely horizontally and we were hiking on some very steep slopes covered in scree - exciting! Saw one lonely snow bunting getting buffeted by the wind. After a few miles of hiking the weather calmed down and we had a nice but cold hike down the river bed because of the strong wind at our backs. By midday we were hiking in blue sky but we could look back and see the snow still covering the peaks behind us. Pretty incredible. When we got to the road we got a ride on a bus out of the park. It was overall and amazing trip!

Elizabeth and Verity - so positive!

a fox who came upon us on a snack break. He wanted shelter from the wind too.

looking back at the weather we had on Sunday morning

Now it is back to work. We are beginning to point frame, which is a way to estimate plant biomass. I'll write about that soon. In other news, I ran 15 miles this morning! Marathon training is going well and I am thrilled to be taking tomorrow off!

busy week and Denali trips!

Well, another week has gone by and this one was packed. Last weekend we worked on Saturday and then my friend Chris (fellow Bowdoin '12 grad who is now coaching xc skiing in Fairbanks) came down to Healy to visit! Elizabeth and I treated Chris to a very special and enjoyable  day on Sunday - we ran 15 miles. Sundays are our long days for running (I'm training for a marathon on Sept. 15 and Elizabeth is running one on August 12) because we usually don't work on Sundays so get to run and then laze around. So Chris joined us for a 9 mile run on Stampede road with a few sled dogs on Sunday morning and then we went to the Healy coal mine (called the Usibelli Coal Mine) because we had signed up for a 10k. The race was along mine roads and we saw some huge dump trucks, etc. Chris did very well (placed 4th I think!) and made running after taking an hour break look easy. I struggled up the hills at first but eventually felt ok. The best part of the race was the free food at the finish and being able to shower in the mine facilities! Definitely worth it. On Monday Chris and I went into Denali and hiked around the Savage River. There are only a few maintained trails in the park because they want to keep it very wild, so we chose a ridge to hike to and just picked our own route. We saw some arctic ground squirrels, caribou, and a Northern Wheatear. The Wheatear migrates to summer in Alaska from as far as Saudi Arabia, crossing Asia and the Bering Sea! It was a great day and really fun to see Chris and remember Bowdoin my life! Here are some photos of the hike:

Northern Wheatear

The rest of the week was spent working, until Friday when we left for a backpacking trip in Denali! I'll write a post about that soon! In short, it was amazing and exciting - had sunny weather Friday and woke up to hail and a blizzard this morning! I had a great time but very happy to be back to a bed in a sturdy cabin.

week overview

Another week has gone by, fast as usual! This week seemed to go particularly fast because each day was pretty much the same weather-wise. Rainy, cloudy, and no warmer than the 60's. We miss the sun! We are working today and then will take tomorrow off. We are signed up to run a 10k road race put on by the Healy Coal Mine. We run on the roads in the mine. Both Elizabeth and I do our long runs on Sundays so we'll have to run extra beforehand. I need to do 14 miles in all so will run 8 in the morning before the race. The most exciting thing is that we can shower in the mine facilities after the race! And there is free food.

In other news, Elizabeth walked me through how to use the yogurt maker last night and this morning I woke up to yogurt! Making yogurt is really simple and just depends on doing things at the correct temperature. Elizabeth's yogurt maker came with a thermometer but she has been skeptical about its accuracy so we tested it out by using a temperature probe related to our field work (the perks of living and working in the same place). Turns out the yogurt thermometer can be as much as 10 degrees C off. Now we know to use the science equipment!

This is a second post that will give some explanation of the work I am doing up here in AK.

First off, when I say that we "worked in the field", I am most usually referring to a site in the tundra that is 3 miles down the road from our cabin. This site is called CiPEHR, which stands for the Carbon in Permafrost Experimental Heating Research project. When you walk the half mile out to the site from the road, you first encounter a bunch of board walks that we walk on to avoid trampling what we are trying to study. Board walks lead to 3 different areas that we call "A", "B", and "C" - these are all replicates of the study. Below is a photo of what one of the areas looks like. 

As I said in the last post, this research project is concerned with how plants and carbon will be impacted by climate change. Warming and drying are the two variables associated with climate change that we measure, so we have different areas set up that impose those conditions, as well as control areas so that we can compare. I'll save talking about the approach we take warming and/or drying our plots for another post. 

To measure the impact of the warming experiment on plants, we use clear, glass chambers that are placed on top of square plots. These chambers have probes and sensors that record things like temperature and how much CO2 is present in the chamber. When it is time to take a measurement, doors on the top of the chambers close, so that plants in the plot are effectively enclosed in a tiny microclimate. After a minute and a half, in which the plants are still respiring and photosynthesizing, the doors open again and the measurements have been automatically stored to a data logger. All of this is automated and powered by solar and batteries.

We call the glass chambers "flux chambers" because the most important measurement that they take is carbon flux, aka how much CO2 is taken in by plants for photosynthesis while the doors are closed. But these chambers are just one aspect of the the data collection that goes on at CiPEHR. I'll save a discussion of those other things for later, but I hope this gives an idea of how a climate study in the tundra works.

some background, finally!

It has been a very busy start to my time here in Alaska but things are calming down. I have been waiting to find time to write some posts that lay out what I am doing up here. In this post I want to give a broad overview of the research topics of the project I am a part of. This one will be short, but after this I'll be able to talk about how we go about studying things and then can describe my day-to-day tasks. Here goes...

Permafrost, which is ground that remains frozen for two consecutive years, contains more than twice as much carbon than is found in the atmosphere. If permafrost thaws, carbon stored in the soil as organic matter (i.e. decomposing plant material) becomes available for breakdown by microbes. This means that this carbon is available to go into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. You can see how there is the potential for a positive feedback with permafrost thaw and increase carbon release... But nothing in nature is that simple. Warmer temperatures can promote increased plant growth, and plants take up CO2 to do photosynthesis. So maybe increased plant growth can offset carbon losses due to respiration by microbes in the soil. This is a very basic framework to begin thinking about the questions our research project looks at concerning permafrost and plants.

If you want to read more about the science of permafrost, here is a link to a NY Times article from the winter that talk a lot about current concerns (and quotes the UF professors I work under at the end!).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/science/earth/warming-arctic-permafrost-fuels-climate-change-worries.html?pagewanted=all 

Next time I write it'll be about how we go about studying permafrost and what questions we are hoping to answer. For now I am going to bed - it was a long and sunny afternoon in the field and I am beat.