Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Boulder, then Barrow

My travel plans usually call for me to fly from Knoxville to Anchorage and then onto Barrow. This week, my travel plans include a detour to Boulder, Colorado where I will represent the NGEE Arctic project at a NASA ABoVE workshop.  The Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) is led by Eric Kasischke, Scott Goetz, John Kimball, Michele Mack, and others.  Research carried out as part of ABoVE would provide the opportunity to not only focus on key process associated with the land surface, but on key interfaces between the land, coastal oceans, and atmospheric boundary layer as they interact with climate-mediated terrestrial processes. There are strong connections between the DOE-sponsored NGEE Arctic project and ABoVE, so I am looking forward to interacting with this group to understand their goals and how our field studies can contribute.  NGEE Arctic and ABoVE are both consistent with the recently released Interagency IARPC Arctic Research Plan (http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/arctic/iarpc/arc_res_plan_index.jsp) which calls for interagency collaboration in the study of Arctic systems.

During the workshop, later this morning in fact, I have the opportunity to present a "speed talk" that will highlight the NGEE Arctic project.  A 5-minute snippet of our team, our goal and scientific approach, and how others can become engaged in the project.  My four slides include:




We have already had multiple requests from university faculty and national laboratory staff who have expressed an interest in collaborations.  We have had a few inquiries from potential international collaborators as well.

My poster will be similar to the one presented recently at the DOE Terrestrial Ecosystem Science (TES) PI Meeting, April 23-24 in Washington, DC.
  
A copy of this poster and two others that our team presented at the PI meeting can be downloaded at the NGEE Arctic web site (http://ngee.ornl.gov/).