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The U.S. group arrived in Kangerlussuaq at 4:00 p.m. local time on Friday, June 28, after a LONG day of travels. We quickly settled in and it has been a whirlwind of activity ever since. On Friday night, we shared our "tokens" and learned names. The evening was filled with laughter and conversation

Today I sampled water and gases in lakes and ponds, helping the team figure out the fate of carbon from the melting tundra. As I’ve mentioned over and over in earlier blogs, this is important to know because there’s twice as much carbon frozen in the tundra as in all of the earth’s atmosphere. If

Skeletogenesis, specifically. Break it down (no pun intended) and you'll figure out what it means. Skeleto - skeleton; Genesis - origin or beginning. The development of a skeleton. There's a study going on down here looking into the bone development of icefish and red-blooded fish and some really

Dealing with Goodbye Today was it. My last day working on the tundra. My last full day in the Arctic. My last day with Team Squirrel. On one hand, I am ready to head home: I am ready to be back with David, excited about planning how to best share my adventures in the Arctic with my students and

Since we've been speaking about warming climates down here for the last couple days, let's talk about calving. Not cows giving birth. Calving is a term that refers a process when a piece of glacier separates off and drops into the water. As a glacier moves along, it travels across uneven terrain

My first day at Toolik was filled with field work all over the tundra, sampling soil and river water to analyze in the lab. Eight of us started at Imnavait, near the Toolik Field Station, where we collected samples from water tracks. Water tracks are strips of wet ground running from hilltop to

Before the school year ended, some of my students asked great questions about my summer work in the Arctic. I think I have touched on most of them during the course of the past month, but I’ll do a quick run

To finish up the microbial marvels, I want to go over a couple of cool things about their research. But first let's review the carbon cycle and how humans are impacting it. If you remember the diagram from yesterday, you will notice that the natural flow of carbon exchange is pretty even. For

I can’t believe that I only have a few days left in the Arctic. I am so grateful for the experiences I have had and the people I have met on this adventure. I want to introduce you to some of the passionate and brilliant scientists that I have had the pleasure to work with this summer. It is

After nearly 36 hours and 3500 miles, I arrived at the Toolik Field Station on the North Slope of Alaska. I flew into Fairbanks last night and today I set out at 10am in the Toolik Truck with Chad, Art and Erica for the 357-mile drive up the Dalton Highway, also known as the “Haul Road” because of