Posts tagged #permafrost degradation

Cli·mate Change

"This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, soundtracks, cartoons, photographs—to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance." - George Orwell - 1984

Wednesday Thoughts

The past few days has made me sick to my stomach over and over again. It makes me so sad that a person with no interest of the environment, now is the leader of such a large country as USA. It makes me upset when people don't seem to understand the consequences with this man in power, a man who over and over again tweets out nonsense and put gags on agencies that studies and/or supports climate science. Human caused climate change IS TRUE, it's not an alternative fact, IT IS A FACT. There is no debate in it when 97% of the per reviewed articles on climate change states that the change in climate is caused by humans. There is something fundamentally wrong when tweeting climate facts is called "going rogue" at the same time as choosing alternative facts as the truth is completely ok.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

Want to get regular updates? Click here to follow Ann Olsson on Bloglovin'

Do you have any thoughts?

Dirty Paws and Furry Coat, and the Forest of Talking Trees pt.1

Flashback Friday

Forest of Talking Trees

Today I will take you to one of my absolute favorite places in the whole world. My field site, called CPCRW, short for Caribou-Poker Creek Research Watershed.

The watershed is mainly black spruce, but also quite an abundance of deciduous vegetation, and have a lot of different small and big creatures. We start going out already in May (sometimes even late April), even though most of the snow hasn't even melted yet. Early in the season most of the watershed is brown and you could still see leftover dead plants from last years summer.

The fieldwork doesn't come for free, and if you by chance forget to use mosquito spray you will most likely end up like the pictures below will show. Another thing about mosquitos a lot of people don't understand, if you think there are a lot of mosquitos in the interior and north of Alaska, multiply that by 100 and that is probably closer to the reality. You can not survive without mosquito repellant.

We hike in rubber boots because yeah, we follow rivers. Mosquito spray or a bug shirt is needed.

We Follow Rivers

I have a poster I printed with tons of small pictures I have taken in the watershed through the years and through the seasons. I call it "We follow rivers", because that is what we do. We sample water and try to understand how changes in the landscape affect the streamwater chemistry. Alaska is underlained by permafrost, both continuous and discointinuous, and of course the most southern part is permafrost free. Few people comprehend how large Alaska actually is. Like Sweden it's pretty long, but longer of course (1420 miles; 2285km). Permafrost stores a lot of carbon, old carbon, since it's literally ground that has been frozen (and still is to certain extent) for hundreds and thousands of years. One of the important questions is "How much carbon is being released when permafrost thaws?", because permafrost throughout Alaska is thawing due to the increase in temperature. And of course, we also have the increase in fires and how that actually affects the landscape and stream water chemistry.

We follow rivers and investigate our own research questions and the underlying question about how thawing permafrost affect streamwater chemistry.

Follow ann olsson at bloglovin'

If I could make a soundtrack for my fieldsite, the lead song would definetely be: Of Monsters and Men - "Dirty Paws"

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under The great wide open, Alaska, Flashback Friday, Science and tagged Permafrost permafrost degradation Alaska science stream chemistry Boreal Forest Black Spruce birch tracks wolf tracks 2016 Adventure Spring field Fieldwork Life in Alaska.

Friday Theme, One picture is worth more than one thousand words

I have written about thermokarsts before here and I will do it again when this Friday theme seems very appropriate for this natural creation.

Thermokarsts are huge, and are the result of permafrost (soil that remains continuously frozen for at least two consecutive years) degradation. Permafrost degradation is connected to climate, since the term permafrost is connected to frozen ground. With increase in temperature these features may increase in numbers over large areas in the permafrost zone. But temperature itself is not the only driver and there are other factors that may trigger the degradation of permafrost.

One of the key parts in research about thermokarsts and permafrost right now is to figure out what effect this degradation has on the global carbon budget. The permafrost zone contains more than 50% of the estimated GLOBAL belowground carbon storage, even though it only accounts for about 16% of the global soil area.

Up on the north slope (and also in the boreal forest) there are not only thermokarst, there are also mosquitoes, many many mosquitoes.

This winter break me and W went to canyon lands in Utah, specifically island in the sky. An amazing place and if you haven't been there yet, I suggest you go. These canyons that have been shaped through time have so much history stored in them, and it's amazing that we can hike, and see such an undeveloped place that has been fairly untouched by humans, but completely modified by mother nature.