Friday, October 16, 2015

New Techniques on the Tundra…



Earlier this summer we featured a short blog on a new approach to ecosystem warming that was being developed by Keith Lewin and Alistair Rogers from Brookhaven National Laboratory. Keith and Alistair recognized the challenges of ecosystem warming experiments in the Arctic given lack of electrical power and requirements for remote operation. They designed a zero-power warming (ZPW) chamber that can, using a pair of passively activated louvers, warm air to 4 oC above ambient. One ZPW chamber and a corresponding control chamber were deployed on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) earlier this summer and have successfully operated throughout the summer, fall, and now into the winter. I have not yet seen all the data collected on chamber performance, but Alistair and others will be here in a few days to assess performance and then disassemble chambers for the winter. If the results look encouraging the ZPW design gives us a viable option for continued testing and possible deployment of a technique that could help our NGEE Arctic team better understand growth and physiological acclimation of plants to warming temperatures. Stay tuned…