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172 463 By Anonymous 8 years 6 months ago
IceBridge, a six-year NASA mission, is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever conducted. The research team will experience first-hand the excitement of flying a large research aircraft over the Greenland Ice Sheet. While in the air they will record data on the thickness, depth and movement of ice features, resulting in an unprecedented three-dimensional view of Arctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice.
 52 109 By Tim Spuck 12 years 7 months ago
IceBridge, a six-year NASA mission, is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever conducted. IceBridge uses a highly specialized fleet of research aircraft and the most sophisticated science instruments ever assembled to characterize yearly changes in thickness of sea ice, glaciers, and ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic.
 32 76 By Anonymous 8 years 8 months ago
53 128 By Anonymous 4 years 10 months ago
The goal of this project is to reconstruct the behavior of atmospheric circulation, specifically the Aleutian Low pressure system, over the past 10,000 years and to assess how its variability relates to past shifts in climate.
 22 37 By Lollie Garay 15 years 4 months ago
56 124 By Anonymous 13 years 10 months ago
223 420 By Anonymous 11 years ago
77 160 By Anonymous 12 years 11 months ago
38 87 By Anonymous 5 years 7 months ago
58 143 By Anonymous 8 years 8 months ago
83 192 By Anonymous 5 years 4 months ago
The research team will continue to explore remote regions of the seafloor around McMurdo Station, Antarctica with a recently developed remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for underwater research.
136 526 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
227 533 By Anonymous 4 years 8 months ago
The current study will investigate the circadian rhythms in arctic ground squirrels during the continuous daylight present during the active summer season and continuous dark of the 6-8 months of hibernation spent sequestered in a burrow. The team wants to understand why arctic ground squirrels, unlike other arctic vertebrates, appear to maintain 24-hour rhythms during the active season.
14 31 By Anonymous 11 years 2 months ago
The research team is trying to understanding exactly how sunlight and bacteria degrade dissolved organic matter (DOM) by determining how fast these processes convert newly released DOM to carbon dioxide, compared to DOM already in surface waters.
 77 167 By Anonymous 11 years 3 months ago
76 170 By Anonymous 8 years 8 months ago
292 695 By Anonymous 5 years 5 months ago
This project examines the poorly-understood interaction of climate change and microbial methane production in wetland soils in the Lapland region of Finland. The research team is conducting field and lab experiments to determine the role of arctic wetlands in global carbon cycling.
 27 50 By Janet Warburton 11 years 6 months ago
23 50 By Anonymous 12 years 1 month ago
Post questions and comments for Mr. Kasemodel and the team.
 116 225 By Anonymous 5 years 1 month ago
0 0 n/a
Ask questions or post comments for Ms. Davenport here.
 39 79 By Anonymous 11 years 10 months ago
Ask questions or post comments for Ms. Prevenas here.
 58 137 By Anonymous 13 years 7 months ago
Ask questions or post comments for Ms. Staup here.
 43 91 By Katie Breen 11 years 10 months ago
64 173 By Anonymous 13 years 7 months ago
28 50 By Anonymous 15 years 9 months ago
14 28 By Anonymous 15 years 8 months ago
115 232 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
Overall, the team's research is aimed at understanding the unique physiological and biochemical traits that have arisen in fishes during their evolution in the chronically cold waters of the Southern Ocean.
 15 23 By Paula Dell 11 years 5 months ago
A small team of earth scientists and engineers will be using a specialized drill to reach buried ice deposits in the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica. Stagnant and/or slow moving debris-covered glaciers may contain ice several million years in age. By comparison, the oldest ice yet cored from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is approximately 1 million years old. As a result, these buried ice deposits hold an ancient archive of Earth’s past atmospheric conditions. Each ice core will enable the research team to gain access to a reliable record of atmospheric and climatic change extending back for many millions of years, making it by far the oldest ice yet known on this planet.
 16 40 By Anonymous 11 years 11 months ago
535 1202 By Anonymous 5 years 2 months ago
The carbon cycle is the means by which carbon is moved between the world’s soils, oceans, atmosphere, and living organisms. Northern tundra ecosystems play a key role in the carbon cycle because the cold, moist, and frozen soils trap rotting organic material in the soils. This very slowly decaying organic material has caused carbon to build up in the Arctic during the past thousands of years. Now warming in the Arctic is slowly causing the tundra to become warmer and dryer. As a result, the trapped carbon leaves the soil as carbon dioxide and goes into the atmosphere.
 721 1516 By Anonymous 5 years 2 months ago
The carbon cycle is the means by which carbon is moved between the world’s soils, oceans, atmosphere, and living organisms. Northern tundra ecosystems play a key role in the carbon cycle because the cold, moist, and frozen soils trap rotting organic material in the soils. This very slowly decaying organic material has caused carbon to build up in the Arctic during the past thousands of years. Now warming in the Arctic is slowly causing the tundra to become warmer and dryer. As a result, the trapped carbon leaves the soil as carbon dioxide and goes into the atmosphere.
 44 110 By Anonymous 11 years 2 months ago
19 42 By Anonymous 14 years 10 months ago
This project attempts to understand the role of carbon resources to the food webs of the Chukchi Sea, off the northwest coast of Alaska.
 17 34 By Anonymous 11 years 1 month ago
13 23 By Anonymous 8 years 8 months ago
A team of researchers and technicians from the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) spent two months documenting conditions at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) divide using a variety of techniques, including weather observations, GPS, ice coring, radar, and seismic sensing.
91 303 By Janet Warburton 11 years 10 months ago
19 39 By Anonymous 12 years 1 month ago
58 133 By Sarah Diers 14 years 10 months ago
95 191 By Anonymous 12 years 11 months ago
This project seeks to understand the formation of drumlins, some of the most mysterious and poorly understood of glacial landforms.
 32 63 By Anonymous 11 years 3 months ago
25 130 By Anonymous 4 years 8 months ago
16 28 By Susy Ellison 12 years 10 months ago
The team will be excavating portions of the Raven Bluff archaeological site, the remains of a prehistoric camp that date to the very end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. The site in Northwestern Alaska is important because it contains the oldest well-preserved collection of archaeological animal bone in the American Arctic. The goal of this research is to gather information at the site that can teach us about what the people who occupied the Raven Bluff site ate; how they obtained, processed and stored their food; and how they manufactured their tools, clothing and housing.
6 21 By Wendy Gorton 12 years 4 months ago
A diverse team of researchers will participate in the first of three research cruises this season in support of the Bering Sea Ecosystem Study (BEST) and the Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (BSIERP).
40 88 By Anonymous 13 years 8 months ago
The northern Chukchi Shelf receives large inputs of organic matter from the highly productive shelf regions of the North Pacific and from local sources of primary production, including algae in the ice and sediment and phytoplankton in the water column. As a result, highly productive biological "hotspots" have been documented in the vicinity of Hanna Shoal. Because of the biological significance of this region and its importance for oil and gas exploration and development, the team is planning a multi-disciplinary investigation to examine the biological, chemical and physical properties that define this ecosystem.
 33 80 By Deanna Wheeler 12 years 3 months ago
224 613 By Anonymous 9 years 4 months ago
The research team will be based at McMurdo Station, and travel daily by helicopter to the research site on Byrd Glacier, about 250 miles (400 km) from the station. Byrd Glacier is one of Earth’s largest glaciers, starting in East Antarctica and flowing through the Transantarctic Mountains and into the Ross Ice Shelf. It is about 84 miles (136 km) long and about 15 miles (24 km) wide—an area greater than most U.S. cities!
 8 13 By Anonymous 8 years 8 months ago
12 27 By Anonymous 12 years 10 months ago
0 0 n/a
54 154 By Anonymous 14 years 7 months ago
48 94 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
204 617 By Anonymous 13 years 7 months ago
68 226 By Anonymous 12 years 2 months ago
8 8 By Anonymous 16 years 1 month ago
5 6 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
11 17 By Jennifer Thompson 15 years 5 months ago
The expedition members will visit several research sites in Greenland as part of an initiative to foster enhanced international scientific cooperation between the countries. The expedition members will spend several days learning about the research conducted in Greenland, the logistics involved in supporting the research, and gain first-hand experience conducting experiments and developing inquiry-based educational activities. This year's work builds on the 2007, 2008, and 2009 expeditions and is supported by the National Science Foundation. The project was developed through cooperation with the U.S.-Denmark-Greenland Joint Committee, which was established in 2004 to broaden and deepen cooperation among the United States, the Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland.
3 4 By Marti Canipe 14 years 5 months ago
15 24 By John Wood 13 years 5 months ago
The expedition members will visit several research sites in Greenland as part of an initiative to foster enhanced international scientific cooperation between the countries. The expedition members will spend several days learning about the research conducted in Greenland, the logistics involved in supporting the research, and gain first-hand experience conducting experiments and developing inquiry-based educational activities.
 15 32 By Anonymous 11 years 11 months ago
52 105 By Anonymous 5 years 4 months ago
59 120 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
0 0 n/a
35 70 By Anonymous 15 years 9 months ago
The research team, which includes undergraduate geoscience students participating in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program, will travel to Svalbard, Norway, to investigate how climate change affects sediment transport and deposition associated with the tidewater glaciers, icebergs, meltwater streams, and marine currents. Tidewater glaciers are among the fastest changing systems in the Arctic, offering the team the opportunity to monitor rapidly changing and dynamic systems.
 30 82 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
36 64 By Anonymous 13 years 7 months ago
241 348 By Anonymous 13 years 3 months ago
The research team of undergraduate geoscience students participating in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program, will travel to Svalbard to conduct independent research projects. Research focuses on how climate influences the modern glacial, river and lake systems in order to better interpret the sediment record of past climate change.
 22 57 By Anonymous 12 years 4 months ago
Historical ecology is an applied research program that focuses on interactions of people and their environments.
 6 11 By Hollis Yenna 11 years 5 months ago
36 65 By Anonymous 14 years 2 months ago
66 174 By Michelle Brown 9 years ago
31 57 By Anonymous 14 years 10 months ago
Using a large hollow drill, the WAIS Divide Ice Core Drilling team aims to collect a 3,500-meter-long ice core, or sample of ice, from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Because of the weight of the overlying snowpack, snow that falls and accumulates on ice sheets re-crystallizes and forms annual layers over time. The ice core recovered during the project will have annual resolution, or distinct yearly markings, for the past 40,000 years! In ice sheets, the compression of snow traps small bubbles of air in the layers of ice. By measuring concentrations of greenhouse gasses and non-greenhouse gasses and their isotopes trapped within bubbles in the ice, the team aims to develop climate records dating back to 100,000 years before present. This ice core will provide the first Southern Hemisphere climate and greenhouse gas records of comparable time, resolution, and duration to ice cores previously recovered in Greenland. The ice core will enable scientists to make detailed comparisons of greenhouse gas concentrations and environmental conditions between the Northern and Southern hemispheres with a greater level of detail than previously possible. The biology of the ice collected will also be investigated.
 24 52 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
How do you find something that isn't directly visible? The in-ice particle detector at the South Pole records the interactions of neutrinos which are nearly massless sub-atomic messenger particles. Neutrinos are incredibly common (about 100 trillion pass through your body as you read this) subatomic particles that have no electric charge and almost no mass.
9 14 By Anonymous 11 years ago
A large international team of scientists and drilling technicians will be working throughout the austral summer to continue testing with the world's largest scientific instrument, the in-ice IceCube Neutrino Detector. Neutrinos are incredibly common (about 10 million pass through your body as you read this) subatomic particles that have no electric charge and almost no mass. They are created by radioactive decay and nuclear reactions, such as those on the Sun and other stars.
 13 27 By Anonymous 11 years 9 months ago
A large international team of scientists and drilling technicians will be working throughout the austral summer to continue to assemble and test the world’s largest scientific instrument, the in-ice IceCube Neutrino Detector that is about 75% complete.
 48 134 By Anonymous 5 years 6 months ago
39 75 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
This project is an international, interdisciplinary effort to address the rapid environmental changes occurring in the Antarctic Peninsula region as a consequence of the abrupt collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in the fall of 2002. As a result of this collapse, a profound transformation in ecosystem structure and function has been seen in the coastal waters of the western Weddell Sea. This transformation appears to be redistributing the flow of energy between organisms, and to be causing a rapid change in the ecosystem beneath the ice shelf. For instance, the previously dark waters of the Larsen B embayment now support a thriving phototrophic community, with production rates and phytoplankton composition similar to other productive areas of the Weddell Sea.
 123 250 By Anonymous 12 years 8 months ago
54 104 By Bill Schmoker 11 years 2 months ago
US students and teachers join Chilean students and teachers and spend five days on King George Island, Antarctica learning about the scientific research conducted in and around the Chilean research station.
16 36 By Anonymous 10 years 9 months ago
The expedition members will visit several research sites in Greenland as part of an initiative to foster enhanced international scientific cooperation between the countries. The expedition members will spend several days learning about the research conducted in Greenland, the logistics involved in supporting the research, and gain first-hand experience conducting experiments and developing inquiry-based educational activities.
 10 13 By Anonymous 11 years 1 month ago
75 162 By Anonymous 14 years 10 months ago
73 153 By Anonymous 12 years 9 months ago
120 295 By Robin Ellwood 11 years 6 months ago
7 14 By Karl Horeis 14 years 3 months ago
5 7 By Anonymous 11 years 10 months ago
33 65 By Anonymous 13 years 3 months ago
Underlying the northern arctic coast of Alaska is a thick layer of permafrost. As water melts and pools on top of the permafrost, thaw lakes are formed. Much of the North Slope of Alaska is covered in such thaw lakes. As they decompose organic material, the bacteria and other microorganisms living in thaw lakes produce either carbon dioxide or methane, depending on the conditions. Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 22 times that of carbon dioxide, and increased microbial activity in thawing permafrost areas could lead to changes in the atmosphere due to the increased release of methane.
 22 46 By Anonymous 12 years 4 months ago
Are microorganisms metabolically active in glacier ice? To address this exciting question, the research team will travel to the McMurdo Dry Valleys—one of the harshest environments on Earth—to study the biology, geology, and chemistry of basal ice—the dynamic layer of ice closest to the bedrock at the base of a glacier.
 55 134 By Anonymous 9 years 11 months ago

The research team will be sampling the coastal waters of the Arctic Ocean to investigate how microbial creatures affect the productivity of a coastal Arctic ecosystem. They will travel to the field site via snowmobile and sample the seawater through a hole drilled in the sea ice. The seawater collected will be used to look at competition between autotrophs, organisms that make their own food, and heterotrophs, organisms that cannot make their own food, for nitrogen (N) in the waters near Barrow, Alaska.

The field work will take place over the course of three seasons (two years) to give researchers the opportunity to investigate the coastal water ecosystems in different seasons, winter and summer and with different amounts of daylight. The sources of nitrogen vary when there is no daylight in the winter from the summer where there is nearly 24 hours of daylight.

In ocean ecosystems, microbes dominate many of the processes and the major producers and consumers of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. Understanding the role of microbial communities in the Arctic ecosystem is and essential part of predicting the impact of climate change on Arctic food webs and other natural cycles.

Learn more at the project website.

 8 18 By Lollie Garay 13 years 6 months ago
The goal of this research is to determine how seasonally distinct terrestrial inputs of water and organic matter influence microbial and animal communities in coastal waters of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea.
 6 11 By Anonymous 11 years 1 month ago
The research team is evaluating how changes in water and nutrient cycles on land can affect stream networks in the Arctic. Changing climate in the Arctic may contribute to increases in the transport of nutrients to river networks and oceans by causing the release of nutrients from thawing permafrost, altering precipitation patterns, increasing rates of biogeochemical reactions, or expanding storage capacity in thawed soils. These changes may have far-reaching effects because flowing water connects land to downstream aquatic ecosystems.
 30 63 By Anonymous 12 years 5 months ago
31 89 By Frank Kelley 13 years 4 months ago
73 150 By Anonymous 5 years 3 months ago
Team researchers will be investigating air-surface chemical interactions in the Arctic, and how these will evolve in future climates. Their efforts are part of the Ocean, Atmosphere, Sea Ice, Snowpack (OASIS) program—an international program that involves scientists from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK.
 37 82 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
The research team will be working out of Barrow AK, at the juxtaposition of two Arctic seas; the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. It is a region frequently traveled by the endangered bowhead whale. This project had its genesis in understanding why the region near Barrow AK is a feeding hotspot for migrating bowhead whales and the whales and their prey will continue to be a focus of the team's interpretations. The research team conducted oceanographic sampling of the physical and biological marine environment in the region over the period 2005-2011 and observed significant inter-annual variability.
124 230 By Lisa Seff 11 years 1 month ago
Post questions and comments for members of the 2006 Oden Expedition Team.
 106 226 By Anonymous 13 years 7 months ago
90 181 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
373 748 By Anonymous 5 years 2 months ago
37 75 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
106 358 By Anonymous 4 years 8 months ago
While arctic species are all well adapted to living in extreme environments, it is unclear whether different species will respond similarly or differently to the environmental shifts that accompany climate change (e.g. longer growing seasons and warmer temperatures). Stronger responses by some species within a community, or strong responses by certain species groups, could lead to changes in the structure of the food web and its role in arctic ecosystems.
 127 246 By Anonymous 12 years 2 months ago
This project explores the role of wolf spiders within arctic communities and specifically, whether climate change is stimulating changes in these predators that could influence the structure and function of food webs.
 34 129 By Anonymous 8 years 5 months ago
18 40 By Anonymous 13 years 3 months ago
39 83 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
The goal of the team's research is to develop a past climate and precipitation record of Central Alaska over the past 1000 years. In order to accomplish this task, the team will be extracting and analyzing a series of three ice cores from an ice divide between the North and South Peaks of Mount Hunter within Denali National Park and Preserve.
 60 109 By Janet Warburton 11 years 6 months ago
The Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA) is a joint NOAA/Russian Academy of Sciences sponsored program whose mission is to document the long-term ecosystem health of the Pacific Arctic Ecosystem. Research cruises through the Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea in both U.S. and Russian waters provide the ability for sampling irrespective of political or exclusive economic zone boundaries.
8 11 By Betty Carvellas 12 years 3 months ago
47 112 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
231 476 By Nell Herrmann 12 years 9 months ago
211 463 By Anonymous 11 years 3 months ago
Post questions and comments for members of the SEDNA Ice Camp team.
 31 123 By Anonymous 6 years 7 months ago
The Polaris Project is an innovative international collaboration among students, teachers, and scientists. Funded by the National Science Foundation since 2008, the Polaris Project trains future leaders in arctic research and informs the public about the Arctic and global climate change. During the annual month-long field expedition to the Siberian Arctic, undergraduate students conduct cutting-edge investigations that advance scientific understanding of the changing Arctic.
 20 35 By Janet Warburton 12 years 3 months ago
54 116 By Anonymous 14 years 11 months ago
The goal of this project is to identify active members of the McMurdo Dry Valley soil microbial community and determine their ecological role.
 141 260 By Justin Kendhammer 10 years 11 months ago
4 7 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
11 25 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
97 214 By Anonymous 8 years 1 month ago
While there are many new studies beginning in Antarctica, Michelle and the research team will be supporting a project that has been collecting important data for 18 years. The Polar Experiment Network for Geospace Upper atmosphere Investigations project (or PENGUIn for short) is gathering information in Antarctica to further understand the sun and space influences on the Earth’s upper atmosphere. This network is supported by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs and is a collaborative effort to better understand the high latitude atmospheres of Earth and its response to conditions in space.
 14 37 By Anonymous 12 years 11 months ago
Scientists created Automatic Geophysical Observatories (AGOs) that are active at five locations established across the Antarctic Plateau that house nearly identical instruments measuring atmospheric weather conditions. During their stay, the team will make sure all of the different instruments are working properly and collecting reliable data.
 34 72 By Anonymous 11 years 11 months ago
A diverse research team aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Healy will conduct sampling along a series of transects over the eastern Bering Sea. Research on the ship is multidisciplinary, with scientists using a variety of techniques to document ocean conditions and the productivity of the Bering Sea ecosystem.
 36 110 By Anonymous 13 years 8 months ago
14 24 By Anonymous 12 years 6 months ago
Antarctica plays a central role in global tectonic evolution. Competing theories have been put forward to explain the formation of the Transantarctic Mountains (TAMs) and the Wilkes Subglacial Basin (WSB), primarily due to a lack of information on the crustal thickness and seismic velocity of the areas. The research team attempts to resolve how the TAMs and WSB originated and how their formation relates to Antarctica’s geologic history. Since most of Antarctica is covered by large ice sheets, direct geologic observations cannot be made; therefore, “remote sensing” methods like seismology must be used to determine details about the earth structure.
27 37 By Brian DuBay 11 years 7 months ago
Antarctica plays a central role in global tectonic evolution. Competing theories have been put forward to explain the formation of the Transantarctic Mountains (TAMs) and the Wilkes Subglacial Basin (WSB), primarily due to a lack of information on the crustal thickness and seismic velocity of the areas. The research team attempts to resolve how the TAMs and WSB originated and how their formation relates to Antarctica’s geologic history. Since most of Antarctica is covered by large ice sheets, direct geologic observations cannot be made; therefore, “remote sensing” methods like seismology must be used to determine details about the earth structure.
 51 85 By Anonymous 10 years 11 months ago
This project will investigate the marine system of the Totten Glacier and Moscow University Ice Shelf, East Antarctica which has shown a recent increase in ice loss.
 28 78 By Anonymous 8 years 8 months ago
Arctic soils have large stores of carbon and as the arctic environment warms, this carbon may be released to the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. The current understanding of tundra ecosystems and their responses to climate change is based on the idea that nitrogen limits plant growth, however nitrogen availability is strongly seasonal, with large amounts available early in the growing season but very little available later on.
 39 86 By Susan Steiner 10 years 11 months ago
25 52 By Janet Warburton 8 years 8 months ago
468 1097 By Anonymous 8 years 8 months ago
The research team will be studying the microstructure of ice crystals on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). What happens at the small scale of individual ice crystals ultimately affects the large flow patterns in an ice sheet. The group is therefore studying the link between crystal properties, ice flow, and climate history because the crystal structure retains a memory of past climate which is recorded differently than "normal" ice core analyses.
 13 15 By Anonymous 8 years 8 months ago
249 673 By Anonymous 11 years ago