Altogether, our INTERACT-trip to Arctic Station was very successful. Thanks a lot to everybody who made this become possible! We managed to obtain the targeted samples and moreover had very nice impressions of the unique nature around Disko Bay. The overwhelming impressions I got certainly made appetite for a revisit. Consequently, I am curious to […]

The day we left from Qeqertarsuaq the sun came back. The nice weather and calm sea made our boat-trip back to Ilulissat almost feel like a touristic trip. We passed several small villages, spotted a group of humpback whales, and finally sailed through the vast ice-berg field of Kangia. A group of humpback whales in […]

As predicted the weather was quite misty and moist on our last day on Disko. Since we had to post-process the remaining samples, we were not bothered much by this anyhow. In the evening, I went for a short walk to a relatively large valley close-by the station. Niviarsiaq – the ‘national flower’ of Greenland […]

The weather steadily improved, so that we managed to accomplish our field-work – the last 20 control shrubs on the little plateau. Since we still had one day left for post-processing these samples and the weather forecast predicted rain for Saturday 11th, we decided to use the remaining few hours with sunshine to inspect another […]

Since our boots still were wet from the day before, we decided to start post-processing the samples before lunch. This means, that we had to cut the harvested stems into small stem-disks, applying the so-called serial sectioning technique. The idea of this technique is to sample each one stem-disk at certain distances along the stem, […]

Unfortunately, the rain continued on our first day with actual field-work. Nevertheless, we managed to sample each the longest stem of altogether forty willow dwarf-shrubs, i.e. half of our scheduled sample size. Soaked by the rain, we finally came back to Arctic station. I felt as cold as one of the many ice-bergs which were […]

After slowly getting settled at Artic Station (the scientific research station within the INTERACT network), we started exploring the environment for potential field-sites. Our task was to identify 80 suitable dwarf-shrubs which fulfill specific conditions. That is, the main research question within our proposal relates to homothermic springs, which provide 7-8 °C warm groundwater all […]

Our travel from Berlin to Qeqertarsuaq went relatively smoothly. After a short stop in Keflavik, we flew over the Greenland Ice-Sheet to Ilulissat. Luckily, the sight was fantastic, though relatively dark since flying around midnight. Nunataks sticking out from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Meltwater lakes on top of the Ice Sheet. Huge crevasses in the […]

After my INTERACT research stay in the Tatra Mountains last year, I this year am heading for Disko Island in Greenland. This year, I’m investigating the ecology of arctic willow shrubs to extend our shrub-ecophysiological understanding and thereby improve shrub-parameter based reconstructions of local climate and environmental conditions. In the following I will share my […]

At half past six the alarm got me awake. After a quick breakfast, Zofia and I went to sample Mountain pines at the first field-site., i.e. a Southeast facing slope at 1700 m elevation. The sampling itself was quite cumbersome, since Mountain pine forms relatively dense patches which were hard to access. By early afternoon […]