Our flight to Nome was uneventful and we arrived as planned
just before noon. The scenery was amazing as our plane descended along the
coast of the Norton Sound, skimming the Bering Sea, and then landing at the
Nome Airport. We could not check in to our hotel until later in the afternoon
so everyone spent time gathering last minute items around town and purchasing
food for lunches in the field. I spent time doing the same, but also preparing
for a public presentation at the UAF Northwest Campus as part of their Strait
Science Series. Several colleagues from the project and I arrived a few minutes
before the scheduled presentation time and made sure that everything was
working properly. The UAF campus was well-equipped and it was just a matter of
time before the room was filling up and everyone was ready for my talk. I spoke
about how we in the NGEE Arctic project go about improving climate models
through accelerated migration of knowledge from field and laboratory studies
into plot, landscape, and global models. The talk was well received and
afterwards there was good discussion of how local residents could help us
identify candidate sites on the Seward Peninsula. Two men in particular had
extensive outdoor experience in the area and were very helpful. So helpful that
we pulled up Google Earth and they graciously spent time pointing out several
locations where we could look for thermokarst formations, shrub expansion, and
other areas where the landscape might be responding to rapid environmental
change. This proved to be very useful information that we will refer back to their
advice as we drive out the Kougarok road tomorrow.
