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…
