Toolik Lake...

Scientists from around the world know the significant role that the Toolik Lake Field Station has played in the study of Arctic ecosystems. Research began here in 1975 with Toolik Lake formally joining the Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) network in 1987. There are many LTER stations in the United States; two LTER sites are located in Alaska with the second site located outside Fairbanks. The overarching goal of the Arctic LTER on the North Slope is to gain a predictive understanding of land, streams, lakes and their many interactions. More recently this has involved investigations that target controls on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by physical, climatic, and biotic factors.

 

 

Rich and I arrived at Toolik Lake last night and immediately received a safety and operations briefing by the station camp co-manager. We were assigned lodging for the three nights that we will be here. We will occupy Tan Dome #6 which sleeps six. These are simple Weatherport structures that can be easily set-up and moved between locations (e.g., remote deployments). There are many of these wooden floor tents at Toolik Lake, along with a few conventional trailer-style dormitories. In picking a roommate it helps to know who snores. Fortunately it was pretty quiet last night.

 

 

In addition to housing there are a number of other supporting facilities at Toolik Lake. For example, shipping and receiving, maintenance, computing and data services, community meeting space, bathrooms and showers, a helicopter landing zone, and a dining hall. The dining hall offers around the clock food service, as well as a gathering space for scientists throughout the day. If breakfast this morning is any example of the interactions that occur among faculty and students, life and scientific exchange of information at Toolik Lake is an exciting one.

 

 

Gus Shaver and others are giving us a great overview of research being conducted at Toolik Lake. Long-term observations and experiments abound; Gus and his colleagues have invested time and energy in setting up ecosystem warming and nitrogen fertilization studies. We will visit some of those experiments after lunch today. It will be great to have this background information as Gus accompanies Rich and me to our NGEE Arctic sites in Barrow later in the week.

Down the Dalton Highway...

The mid-afternoon flight from Anchorage to Deadhorse was, from my perspective, an outstanding flight. I was fortunate to have a window seat. I learned several years ago that a good way to witness ecosystem diversity in the Arctic is to first see it transition before your eyes. The boreal black spruce forest that surrounds much of Anchorage and Fairbanks gave way to open shrub lands. We went up and over the Brooks range, and then onto the ice-rich tundra as we neared the town of Deadhorse. Much of the later stages of the flight paralleled the Alaskan pipeline. Surprisingly, despite traversing more than 600 miles of wild Alaska landscape, the flight took only 90 minutes.

 

 

Molly, from the Toolik Lake Field Research Station, picked five of us up at the airport. Luggage was packed, snacks were distributed, and we headed south on the Dalton Highway. The van bounced along the largely gravel road for roughly 130 miles. Molly has worked at Toolik Lake for 3 years and knew the road well. We passed various sign posts that I had read about; Franklin Bluff, Happy Valley, Imnavait Creek, and finally after three hours, Toolik Lake. In that time we saw several red foxes, a dozen muskox, and several hundred Caribou. We also drove alongside the Alaska pipeline at several spots along the way. It helped that Rich brought along his copy of a just published "Land of Extremes" book that serves as a natural history of the North Slope. It also helped that one of the co-authors, Alex Huryn, was in the back seat of our van. John Hobbie, the other co-author is staying in the Weatherport tent with Rich and I at Toolik Lake.

 

 

Among Arctic scientists the Toolik Lake Field Station is legendary. This is where many, many scientists and their students have pursued their careers. Toolik Lake is managed by the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The terrestrial ecosystems here are classified as dry heath and wet sedge tundra with enough topography to have streams, larger rivers, and lakes. All are studied in one way or another by hundreds of scientists each year. We will learn more about the research conducted here over the next few days.

 

 

Anchorage today, Toolik Lake tomorrow...

Rich and I arrived in Anchorage last night just after mid-night. It was an uneventful flight from Knoxville to Minneapolis and then to our first stop in Alaska. Rich and I both commented that although it was dark when we left the Twin Cities, it got progressively lighter as we flew north. Anchorage was bathed in dim sunlight at the time we landed...

 

I woke early and went for a run along one of Anchorage's many greenways. I was warned to keep an eye open for moose, but didn't see one. It was, nonetheless, a beautiful morning with temperatures in the high sixties at 6:00am and a predicted high of 85F for the day. We were told that temperatures this high were unusual for this time of the year.

Rich and I walked to a near-by sporting goods store to pick up a few last minute items, including mosquito spray. We were told that although it would get progressively cooler as we traveled north, the mosquitoes were bound to be active by the time we arrived in Toolik Lake. Better safe than sorry!

We are now at the airport waiting for our flight to Prudhoe Bay. There, Rich and I will catch a shuttle to Toolik Lake where we will stay until Thursday. My understanding is that the drive down the Dalton Highway to Toolik Lake from Phudhoe Bay is spectacular so looking forward to that.

 

Time to travel...

Almost two months ago, I traveled to Alaska with ORNL's David Graham and other scientists from UAF and LBNL to collect permafrost cores from the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO). That was a very successful trip thanks to good weather and even better planning that allowed us to acquire more than 30 quality cores. For those of you who don't know, the BEO is a 7,450 acre research reserve outside of Barrow, Alaska and it is there that the DOE-sponsored NGEE Arctic project is conducting research to understand the many facets of climate change in the Arctic and to incorporate acquired knowledge into climate models. We are entering the second year of our studies having established our first research site on the North Slope of Alaska.

This afternoon, Rich Norby and I left Knoxville on a sunny Father's Day for Anchorage where we will embark on a two week trip that will take us to Toolik Lake in Interior Alaska; to Barrow; and to Nome on the Seward Peninsula. Our research objectives at each of these destinations are different and I'll be sharing those with you as the days progress.

This trip, unlike previous visits to Alaska, will introduce us to areas of the state that we have either not seen before, like Toolik Lake and the Brooks Range, or will allow us to expand our experience in areas that we have visited before, but not explored in any depth. For example,  we visited Nome and Council on the Seward Peninsula in August 2011 during a site selection trip as our team prepared for Phase 1 activities for the NGEE Arctic project. This trip we will stay in Nome, but rather than revisit Council, we will explore potential field sites along the road that leads out of town to Kougarok via the Taylor road. Our Chief Scientist, Larry Hinzman, has worked along this road before and we are anxious to see this area ourselves. These may be sites that we want to consider for Phase 2 activities for our project. Time and discussions within our team and with sponsors at DOE will decide future directions.

First things first, however; a safe trip to Anchorage, a flight to Prudhoe Bay, and then a pre-arranged shuttle to Toolik Lake on Monday evening.

 

1,2,3,4...

Keeping hundreds of samples organized isn't trivial.  Many groups are using barcodes to aid sample tracking, and based on trials last year we're also fully embracing barcodes for 2013.

Going, going, but not quite gone…

The snowpack on the tundra diminished quickly from May 29^th through June 1^st with temperatures soaring into the 40s. Nearly complete snowpack coverage on the 29th turned to slush by mid-day on the 31^st and was mostly standing water except in a few troughs, by June 1st. The major drainages were flowing, and we were able to collect discharge data at areas A, B and C at NGEE intensive site 1, as well as the old biocomplexity experiment weir. Even on the warmest day with water everywhere, the low topographic gradient of the site led to very low flow velocities in that were a challenge to measure.
 
Then it got very cold again. On June 2^nd temperatures dropped overnight and the watery landscape froze. Throughout the day the ice in troughs and polygons got progressively thicker and runoff in the troughs stopped. Unfortunately, this also meant that our new water level transducers were in danger of freezing and breaking, so we mounted a midnight transducer rescue mission which involved camp stoves, hot plates, boiling water and funnels. Cathy boiled water, Andy Chamberlain (UAF student) drilled 1.5inch holes in the side of the wells at the level of the newly formed ice, and Marvin funneled hot water onto the ice plug in the well to extricate the transducer. It worked! We were able to raise nearly all of the transducers out of harm’s way.

Below freezing temperatures are due to persist until the weekend when runoff is expected to start up again. Today we are working on data, instrument configuration and performing inventories of materials required for upcoming hydro-geochemistry and ET partitioning campaigns. We are also resting our legs and backs from packing into and out of the BEO and walking around the NGEE site through deep snow, slush and ice for the past week. We are looking forward to getting out of the 20’s and back into the 40s later this week.

 

Snowmelt is underway…

The snow is melting in Barrow and the hydrology team has been working hard to characterize the changes in the snow pack and patterns of inundation in the lead-up to runoff generation on the tundra. Water is flowing in the larger drainages around the Barrow Environmental Observatory. The troughs between polygons and the polygon centers themselves at the NGEE intensive monitoring site are full of standing water and slushy snow, with barely discernible runoff velocity. That is expected to change this weekend with higher temperatures.

 

Over the last two weeks Larry, Hiroki and Patrick (UAF) worked hard to make sure major runoff troughs were cleared of snow and snowpack “snow water equivalent “, SWE, data were collected in preparation for runoff. This week was a handoff of work duties to new research crews from LANL and UAF. Garrett, Lily and Marvin (LANL) began the week shoveling runoff troughs at sites A and B. Yesterday Garrett and Cathy (LANL) practiced using the flowmate velocity probe in low flow conditions in snow-banked troughs at sites A, B and C and collected water samples for isotope work.

We said goodbye to Hiroki (UAF) last night, but before he left he trained Marvin to perform the snow surveys. New student Andy (UAF) trained new student Lily (LANL) in the programing, installation and downloading of water level probes. Now we are ready to capture the runoff event once the temperature rises.
 

The site characterization team, John and Craig (LBNL) joined forces with Alex from UAF to take cores in the region of the proposed deep unfrozen saline layer. Yesterday they found the layer and last night the whole crew celebrated with a spicy taco dinner prepared by Garrett and Lily!