John and I woke up early (or at least it was still dark),
had breakfast, and then organized everything that had been in storage. Several
boxes of equipment had not yet arrived, so we also stopped by Northern Air Cargo
(NAC) in hopes of locating them. We quickly found one, but will have to wait
until tomorrow to retrieve the other. Bryan, Ori, and Keith arrived at the
airport about 10:30am and we soon had everyone checked in, organized, equipped,
and dressed for the field, thanks to our logistical provider UMIAQ.
Snow machines made getting to our research site quick and
easy. Each year we receive a safety briefing on the proper use and operation of
snow machines and today was no exception. However, that took less than 30 minutes
and we were on our way just after lunch. Bryan and Keith examined the tram and all it
sensors. We will let it collect another day of data before beginning the
disassembly. John got the dGPS up and
running and guided Ori and I to each of our locations where we will measure CO2
and CH4 flux using static chambers beginning tomorrow. Most of these were under
snow so it took a few hours of careful excavation to get them ready to measure.
Ori and Naama (arriving tonight) should be able to start measurements early
tomorrow morning. This set of measurements will be the end of what has been a
season-long effort to get estimates of CO2 and CH4 flux before snowmelt,
throughout the summer, and now into the winter. This should be a great dataset
of model development, validation, and for comparison against larger-scale
estimates of carbon cycle processes with the eddy covariance system. More about
that tomorrow…
