Arctic Thriller

When the Science Journalists weren’t busy in the field or interviewing the researchers at Toolik Field Station, they had some time for fun. Here they are helping a group of Toolik scientists, research assistants, and others in an Arctic tribute to Michael Jackson. This is claimed to be the northernmost performance of Thriller… Enjoy!

Observing the scars of the Arctic thaw

Jane Qiu has written a Q & A with Breck Bowdon, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Vermont, Burlington for Nature.

Last week marked the start of a US$5 million project to study the effects of thawing permafrost on ecosystems in the Arctic. Based at the Toolik Field Station in northern Alaska and sponsored by the US National Science Foundation, the project will look at the impact of thermokarsts — the scars and pits left behind as melt water from permanently frozen ground leaks away, and soil and rock collapses in its wake.

Read the full article here.

On the Aufeis

Lisa Jarvis summits the aufeis.

Over at The Perch, I put up a post about our trip to an aufeis—a vast ice formation with layers of white and aqua. We climbed on top, traced the tunnels that run through it now that it’s melting, and even ducked beneath it.

ANWAR Along the Atigun

Went to the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge on a hike—saw sheep, a wolf (from far away) a golden eagle (flew over my head, was nice enough not to drop a missive) and we just missed having a bunch of rocks slide on our heads. And two of us hiked a couple of kilometres past the van. Oops. Sorry to everyone waiting and wondering….

Postcards from Toolik

Over at Field Notes, the Polar Field Services Newsletter, Emily Stone writes about Linda Deegan’s research of Arctic Graylings on the Kuparuk River.

Linda Deegan, a senior scientist at MBL who studies an arctic fish called the grayling, doesn’t need to see temperature stats to know that the climate around Lake Toolik is changing. She just has to check her travel calendar.

Click here to read the full article.