Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 04/18/2013 - 02:32
Forums
Carbon Balance in Warming and Drying Tundra 2013

Hello Mr. Tom,

  1. How much daylight is there at your team's site?

  2. How much has it changed since your team arrived for the study period?

  3. Is the (presumed) lengthening sunlight providing warmth and melting the snow? Is the 'quality' of sunlight (heat that it holds) the same as would be here near Cincinnati?

  4. If the ground were covered with a black plastic tarp, would the snow melt faster?

Thank you to you and your team!!

Thu, 04/18/2013 - 08:05

Anonymous

Thanks for the questions.1. The sun rose this morning at about 7am. It was light at 5:30am. The sun set last night at about 9:30pm. It was still light enough to see (barely) at 11pm. We have almost 17.5 hours of light. Actual heating light is more like 12 hours or so.
2. The site has not changed at all since I arrived other than the addition of a few inches of snow and the changes we've made. We've shoveled off the "warming" side of the fences on the CiPEHR plots and then the wooden walkways over the tundra throughout the plots.
3. The lengthening day so far has not provided us with additional warmth. However, the potential is there, the ambient temperature just needs to be higher. This morning for example it is -5F, I'm hoping with no wind and it being bright and clear we might today get above freezing for the 1st time since I've been here.
4. Yes, if we covered the ground with black plastic I believe the top of the snow would have begun melting in places due to contact with the plastic and protection from the wind. Our sleds that we use to haul snow off the research site are black plastic. I noticed last Friday in the sun the snow was sticking to the insides of the sleds because the sleds were absorbing quite a bit of heat.