MoMuCAMS stands for Modular, Multiplatform-Compatible Air Measurement System. Behind what at first seems like a mouthful, lies what may appear as a simple box carrying a set of instruments (Fig. 2). The truth is more complex than that… It all started in May 2020 in the Extreme Environments Research Lab […]
Read MoreFieldnotes
Impressions, anecdotes and experiences from the field. Authors are beneficiaries of SPI funding. The posts present the authors’ reflections of their field experiences.
Mackenzie Delta Lake sediments – Records of recent permafrost thaw? – Lisa Bröder
Arctic rivers and their deltas are increasingly impacted by the rapid changes the Northern regions are currently facing. The Canadian Northwest Territories have witnessed dramatic increases in temperature and precipitation over the last decade, leading to widespread thawing of previously frozen soils (permafrost). To investigate whether this changing climate has […]
Read MoreDetecting new persistent organic pollutants in the Arctic Atmosphere – Myriam Guillevic
Atmospheric pollution in the Arctic caused by newly emitted, anthropogenic persistent pollutants is a matter of growing concern. Due to the remoteness of the Arctic and Antarctic from most known sources, the poles are a location of choice to determine if specific chemicals are persistent and prone to long-range transport. […]
Read MoreSUMITER: SUrveying and MonItoring mounTain vEgetation in the aRctic – Christophe Randin
High-elevation and high-latitude ecosystems are, and will be, particularly affected by the rapid and unprecedent climate warming our planet is currently experiencing, with rates of temperature increase two to four times higher than the global average since the 1980s. In line with these warming trends over recent decades, most plant […]
Read MoreTeaching robots to fly on ice – Michael Pantic, Thomas Stastny
Despite their beauty, glaciers can be very hostile environments for us scientists. Crevasses, seracs and other non-traversable terrain renders data sampling for glacier research difficult and dangerous, if not impossible. We believe that unmanned aerial vehicles (“UAVs”, commonly named drones) are key to mitigate this risk and to reach these […]
Read MoreGetting to the root of tundra vegetation dynamics under climate change – Konstantin Gavazov
Tundra ecosystems are characterized by low stature vegetation, which covers the cold polar and alpine soils with dense mats of cryptogams, grasses and dwarf shrubs. Tundra is the area extending beyond the thermal limits of tree growth and reaching up until the permanent snow and glacier fields of the nival […]
Read MoreConsistent water and glacier mass balance measurements in Central Asia (CoWaG) – Eric Pohl
Numerical models for glacier hydrology rely on sound input data for calibration and validation. In particular when upscaling these models for regional-scale assessments of water availability in glacierised catchments, this is of great importance and includes data on various hydrological components, such as rain, snow, ice and permafrost. Understanding which […]
Read MoreExploring evolutionary adaptations during colonisation of freshwater by south Greenland Stickleback – Cameron Hudson
This little fish is what we came here for. All the way from Switzerland to Greenland. I say little, but she is actually rather large for a stickleback. Most are only about 5 cm long and weigh 1.5 g, so at 8 cm this one is a Leviathan. Gasterosteus aculeatus, […]
Read MoreErratic reminiscences of glacial history on Disko Island, Greenland – Gerald Raab
Glaciers and ice sheets are observed to rapidly change under the current global climate conditions. This is particularly the case for those in Greenland. For future projections of change, a long-term, multi-millennial perspective on changes of Greenland ice sheet drainage and local glaciers are of key importance. For example, the […]
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