Our NGEE Arctic team has spent three exciting days in Nome
with trips out the Kougarok and Council Roads. Today we met to begin our trip
out the Teller Road that goes 75 miles north and to the west of Nome. Everyone gathered
in the parking area of the Dredge No. 7 Inn and we had a safety briefing for
the day. This is something we do to ensure that we are all aware of what we
will be doing and to discuss any logistical or safety concerns. Keeping
everyone safe while we drive mile after mile of remote dirt roads is always a
priority.
With the exception of Larry, no one on our team had traveled
out the Teller Road so this was going to be a new experience. We knew of
research that had been conducted along the Council and Kougarok Road, but knew
relatively little about research in this particular area of the Seward
Peninsula. Our hopes were high, however, and we were not disappointed with our
first stop of the day that included a large area of tundra undergoing
considerable thaw and degradation. There was ample evidence that this area of
the Seward Peninsula was once covered with active polygons and here we saw how
degradation of the underlying permafrost was transforming the landscape to one
of hummocks and hollows, or high-center polygons. It was quite striking. Our
team spent a considerable amount of time here. And once our eye was accustomed
to seeing evidence of degradation, it was something that we saw consistently
along the road for 20 to 25 miles.
Members of the team enjoyed their time at this degrading
site with a lot of discussion about what might be controlling such a dramatic
change in the landscape. Larry and I commented that working with the NGEE
Arctic team, especially because of the multidisciplinary background of all the
investigators, the conversations could be quite varied. Small groups tended to
form and talk about how hydrology was impacted by a change in landscape
topography and, in turn, how that might drive vegetation dynamics and
biogeochemistry across these areas. We saw this again in a second area when we
stopped to look at solifluction lobes that had formed on a moderate slope.
There was a lot of really great discussion as we stood
around the field today and looked at one feature or another. It was rewarding
to listen in on all the discussions. What I did not expect was that this
conversation continued within individual vehicles, and between the vehicles.
The discussion between vehicles occurred because Larry had purchased hand-held
radios for the trip. His purchase was primarily motivated as a safety measure
and for what we thought would be just minimal exchange of information as we
drove. To our surprise what happened this afternoon over the radios was a full
scale discussion of the mechanisms controlling shrub expansion at the sites we
had visited. A person in one car would make a comment, followed by another and
another. We kept our discussion going for several hours. It was pretty
fascinating and really exciting as we laid out a framework for shrub dynamics
and the controls and consequences of shrubs increasing moving into tundra. Never
under-estimate the value of discussion and the willingness of researchers to
share their ideas. Larry - thanks for purchasing the radios!
