In between our other activities,
I had the opportunity to troubleshoot some communication issues with the energy
tram and our micrometeorology tower that includes CO2 and CH4
flux measurement capabilities. It has been a few years since I last worked with
data transmission systems, but Dave and Bryan spent a couple hours on the
telephone with me and we sorted out the troubles. It turns out that while the
two systems were designed as standalone units, interference was generated between
the two communication links. This introduced sporadic problems, mostly for the eddy
covariance tower. By the end of the day, however, both systems were working as
designed and data were being collected, stored, and transmitted to the
University of Nebraska and LBNL.
Given that it was my last day in
the field I took a break, propped my feet up on my backpack, and gazed off some
1300 miles towards the North Pole. Three years ago when our team first visited
this area it seemed like a strange and foreign, albeit exciting environment.
Now, our team seems quite comfortable coming and going from the field site, and
living for weeks at a time in Barrow. We all agree that the research we are
doing – that of conducting field and laboratory studies to improve climate
models – is a worthwhile and challenging endeavor. Regardless of your
scientific discipline, and we have scientists studying everything from to
genomics to geophysics, the North Slope of Alaska is a great place to be
conducting research.
Finally, and before heading to
the airport, Go and I wanted to stop by the Barrow Arctic Research Center
(BARC) where we are fortunate to have a modern laboratory space to use in our
science. We had asked Karl Newyear, Chief Scientist for UMIAQ, to meet us there
so we could check out a freezer that had been purchased and delivered to the
BARC in May. Karl was able to locate a secure space for the freezer. It is
already being put to good use as it was full of permafrost cores from our
sampling trip in April and early May. These cores, many of them extending to 2
meters into the subsurface, were collected by our geophysics colleagues from
LBNL and will be shipped to California in the near future for analysis.
After saying goodbye to Karl, I
had just enough time to take a shower, toss my field clothes into my duffel
bag, and head for the airport. Check-in and boarding is fairly painless in
Barrow and within 30 minutes of the flight, I was taking off for Anchorage to
connecting flights in Chicago and then to Knoxville. It was a successful trip
with all signs pointing to a productive field season. I will return later in
July when our plant physiology team including Alistair Rogers and Shawn Serbin
from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) should be in Barrow conducting
photosynthesis measurements on tundra vegetation. I am already looking forward
to that…
