I met Jamie Hollingsworth the Site Manager for BNZ LTER when he and Brian Charlton (Field Tech. for BNZ LTER) came down to CiPEHR to test a tracked four-wheeler with snowblower attachment near the On-plot Experiment sites.
Jamie Hollingsworth Site Manager for BNZ LTER at the enclosure in the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest (BCEF).
The Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research was established in 1987. It’s part of the National Science Foundations (NSF’s) Long-Term Ecological Research Network. BNZ LTER is co-managed by University of Alaska-Fairbanks and USDA Forest Service. It’s concentrating on two areas, the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest and Caribou Poker Creek Research Watershed.
Maps showing locations of Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research areas of interest.
http://www.lter.uaf.edu/about_us.cfm
BNZ LTER focuses on improving our understanding of the long-term consequences of changing climate and disturbance regimes in the Alaskan boreal forest. The central research question is: How are boreal ecosystems responding, both gradually and abruptly, to climate warming, and what new landscape patterns are emerging?
http://www.lter.uaf.edu/
After I indicated I was interested in learning more about this Research Site based out of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Jamie invited me along to spend the day at the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest a 12,487 acre area est. in 1963 south of Fairbanks along the Tanana River.
http://www.lter.uaf.edu/bnz_bcef.cfm
View of part of the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest from a bluff overlooking the Tanana River south of Fairbanks.
http://www.lter.uaf.edu/site.cfm?site_pkey=30
I met Jamie at the access road between mile 338 and 339 on the George Parks Highway Monday morning. We unloaded a couple of snowmachines then proceeded to head into the Research Site.
View of the entry road from the George Parks Highway to the BCEF. Note the information sign on the right hand side.
Unloading snowmachines at the entrance to Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest with Jamie Hollingsworth in preparation for spending the day working and touring the area.
We stopped along the way and conducted a snow survey at a designated site. These surveys involve measuring the depth of the snow and calculating its density. This information is used by the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Survey. The NRCS Snow Survey Program provides mountain snowpack data and streamflow forecasts for the western United States. Common applications of snow survey products include water supply management, flood control, climate modeling, recreation, and conservation planning.
Jamie slides an aluminum tube into the snow to measure snow depth and collect a core sample of snow.
Here Jamie weighs the aluminum tube with a core sample of snow inside to compute the density of the snow.
Later further into the Research Site we stopped at a fenced area containing a series of instruments used by BNZ LTER to monitor the weather, atmospheric moisture, snow cover and photosynthetically active radiation.
This tower located in the enclosure in the BCEF contains instruments that monitor the weather as well as a snow depth sensor on the lower right of tower. At the base is a container to collect precipitation. It is ringed by a series of blades that minimize air currents.
Jamie had brought a replacement antenna and a sun photometer for installation on the site. The sun photometer collects data on atmospheric aerosol properties and is part of the NASA Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET).
Jamie is shown installing the sun photometer in the enclosure at BCSF. We weren't able to get it calibrated because of lack of sunlight.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/aeronet-network.html
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It was interesting to see the regrowth after the large Rosie Creek wildfire. 30 years ago as an undergraduate student at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks I had ridden my bicycle 10 miles south on the George Parks Highway to watch the forest fire burn right up to the road. In 1983 the Rosie Creek Burn ultimately consumed about 8500 acres of forest and burned about 1/3rd of the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest.
View of the area around the enclosure at BCEF. Notice the difference in vegetation. The young aspen to the left show where the 1983 Rosie Creek Fire burned. The mature boreal forest to the right didn’t get burned.
We finished by riding to a bluff overlooking the Tanana River with a good view of the area of the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest.
I'm standing on a bluff overlooking the Tanana River in the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest. The handle of a wrench I was using to help Jamie install the sun photometer in the BCEF enclosure is sticking out of my front pocket.