science – Arctic Research

Yellow alert for extreme weather – April visit at Sudurnes and Reykjanes Geopark, Iceland

It is now the third storm in a row, told my EU-Interact-BLACK project host Hanna María Kristjánsdóttir, Director of the Sudurnes Science and Learning Center (SSLC) in Iceland. But this is unusual April weather. Today we have yellow alert for extreme weather in many (most) parts of Iceland. People are adviced to stay indoors. In […]

by lembrechtsjonas

Catching the Arctic summer

This post first appeared on lembrechtsjonas.wordpress.com. When summer treats you kindly in the Arctic, there is no better place to be. Summers are short up in the north, however, so you’ll need to be lucky to catch them. We were very lucky this year, and were offered countless beautiful summer days up in the north. […]

by lembrechtsjonas

SoilTemp: towards a global map and database of soil temperature and climate

Short: we are looking for soil temperature data from the Arctic and all over the world for inclusion in our global database. This post was published first on lembrechtsjonas.wordpress.com. Many questions in ecology revolve around climate: what climatic requirements do organisms have, how do they survive in extreme climatic conditions, and – increasingly relevant – […]

by Willem van der Bilt

Taking the pulse of natural Arctic climate change using Iceland lake sediments

All field equipment has been assembled, strapped onto pallets and shipped out. In other words, preparations for our upcoming INTERACT TA adventure in northern Iceland are in full swing. High time for a quick introduction of the GLACTIC team and our field plans. Where and why It is no secret that the Arctic is one […]

by lembrechtsjonas

You’ll never hike alone

This post first appeared on lembrechtsjonas.wordpress.com. It can be quiet lonely out in the mountains: the open vastness of the alpine tundra, the kilometers of rolling mountains in the distance without a soul in sight, or the silence that resonates through the rustling of leaves and the splattering of streams tumbling down a water slide. […]

by lembrechtsjonas

FEASTing in Abisko

It promised to be a windy day with some scattered rain clouds, when we head out to mount Nuolja to join the FEAST-project. FEAST stands for Functional Ecology of Alpine SysTems, a large-scale project to assess soil conditions in mountains worldwide. Such a noble joined effort I find hard to resist, so we signed up […]

by yaelteff

Sleepless in Hyytiälä – Part 3

Logistics and Planning I thought long and hard about what I would want to read if I were reading a research blog. One thing would be to learn about how it felt to be a scientist in another country, and see how the writer dealt with all the difficulties and uncertainties that came with that, […]

by yaelteff

Sleepless in Hyytiälä – part 2

More about the station: A Forest lab, a Sauna and a Lake The grounds boasts an impressive lab within a forest within a lab. Yes, the facility actually has its own forest in which it lets scientists perform a variety of experiments in an authentic, in-home forestry lab. It includes wooden bridges to walk on […]

by yaelteff

Sleepless in Hyytiälä, Finland

Desert, Dunes, Forests Sand. I take off my shoes and there’s still some sand falling out of them. It comes from the Dutch Island of Texel, where – just a short week ago – I walked with people and interviewed them about their experience of nature in the dunes. A few months earlier, it was […]

by omeinander

Here’s why and how we plan to find BLACK particles (H2020 EU-Interact-BLACK-project)

Snow that appears white-to-eye can actually contain tiny black particles in amounts that can be important to climate change. This we have learned from our work on aerosols in snow and ice. We have found that small amounts of such particles can induce snow and ice melt, but we have also shown that very large […]