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.

Summer Solstice

Today (Wednesday) marks the longest day of the year! That is a big deal up here because Alaskans who are here all winter have to deal with so much darkness in the winter months. But at this time of year everyone is used to daylight all of the time. I've gotten pretty used to no darkness, though it took a while to be ok with not having darkness as a cue to be tired and go to bed. I am tired enough every day from work and running that it isn't an issue to fall asleep.

To celebrate the solstice we are running in the Midnight Sun Run this Saturday in Fairbanks. It starts at 10 pm and there are over 3000 runners. It is a big deal every year and afterwards it is a big social event. To celebrate the solstice tonight we made a chocolate lava cake, yum! It was a great treat after a day of work. Once again, we experienced all types of weather in the field in the span of a few hours: started out in lots of layers because of rain, then it got sunny and super buggy, then windy and nice. Also, I soldered in the field for the second time - took a while but it was a success! And only burned myself once - some solder dropped from the iron onto my pants which really hurt and left a mark, but miraculously the pants didn't burn (thank you LL Bean)!

Here is the site for the Sun Run:

http://www.midnightsunrun.us/

Well, another week has gone by and it was very full and busy. I hope to write in more detail in the future, but for now I'll give another overview of the week. Monday through Wednesday was spent working in the field here in Healy. On Wednesday night we drove to Fairbanks and on Thursday and Friday morning we did errands around Fairbanks. We also went on a tour of the permafrost tunnel, a tunnel dug into a bluff by the Army Corps of Engineers. More on that to come! Elizabeth and I had a good run on part of the marathon course on Thursday night - it is a very long, constant uphill and I ran 3 miles up and 3 down. It's good to practice for what's to come in September, but it hurt! It was nice to get back to the quietness of Healy on Friday and we did some work in the field on Friday evening. On Saturday I went into Denali and saw a lot of wildlife and got some views of the mountain. It was a great day! Today was a nice day off - pancakes for breakfast, did some chores, ran 12 miles, and made granola. Here are some photos from my trip yesterday and soon I'll post more with a description of the trip.

lots of bear sightings! My favorite was seeing a mom and her two cubs running across a snow field

a view of Denali - we were lucky to see it - only 30% of people who visit the park see the mountain because it is usually socked in by clouds 

Here is an update on the end of the week. Yesterday afternoon the UF crew from Fairbanks came down to Healy - they are visiting for the weekend. For dinner we went
to a restaurant called the 49th State and then
we then drove down towards Denali to a place called Denali
Village. It is called "Glitter Gulch" by locals and is the tourist hub before entering the park. There was a
folk/bluegrass band playing and we knew some of the musicians. The drive from Healy to Denali Village is beautiful and on the drive home I was glad it was still light
because I don't know the road and it runs through a canyon with
steep walls and lots of curves. On the
drive home we saw a fox and a moose! It was cool to be in a new place
since being on the same road for a whole week and also weird to be in
public with people who are clean. Today I got to sleep in and we are planning to hike Mt Healy, which is just south of us. It should be fun! Tonight we are having a cookout. 

I'll give an overview of my first week in Alaska before I write about the details of life and the work. I flew to Fairbanks on May 30 (a long but amazingly delay-free 4 plane trek from Maine to Alaska). Fairbanks is the largest town in this part of Alaska and there is a UF Gainesville research team that is based there. We stay with that team when we go in to Fairbanks for groceries, etc. So when I arrived in Fairbanks I stayed in University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) apartments and did lots of errands for our projects. I also got to go on a run with Elizabeth in the really nice and extensive trail system of UAF. We also went out to dinner at a restaurant called the Pump House and sat outside on a patio next to a river, introducing me to the infamously dense mosquitoes of AK. We drove the hour southwest to Healy on Friday afternoon and settled in to the cabin. On Saturday we spent most of the day working at the two field sites we have (I'll talk more about those later). Sunday we did some work in the morning and I went for a run in the afternoon. Sundays will be my days off. We've been working in the field all week doing all sorts of things, from regular data collection to trouble shooting and replacing parts. I have already gotten more use out of my leatherman then I have since I got it for high school graduation (thanks Dad!). We have worked in all forms of weather and it changes very frequently. The views from the field site are amazing. Other than work, I have been running and have started to follow a running plan in hopes to do the Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks on September 15. Running here involves very long hills, awesome views, and being barked at often by sled dogs. I hope to write a more comprehensive post soon about what my days are filled with, but for now I'm going to bed. CJ

Here is my justification/goal for this blog:
It is hard to be in contact up here and I feel bad sending long email updates people might not want to receive, so with a blog I feel better because people can visit it only when they want to. I hope to give some description of the work I am helping with as well as an idea of the awesome things I am surrounded by (i.e. really big mountains!). I'll try to post photos and interesting stories about what we are up to.

With that, I'll soon try to post a recap of my first few days up here. Stay tuned.