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Antarctica represents one of the most strictly-monitored habitats on Earth. In addition to the desire to protect the flora, fauna, and atmosphere of a relatively pristine environment, Antarctica serves as a baseline barometer of global pollution. McMurdo Station is the largest human community on the Antarctic continent and as part of its obligations under the Antarctic Treaty's Protocol on Environmental Protection the U.S. is developing a long-term monitoring program designed to describe the environmental conditions in and around the station and to scrutinize any anthropogenic impacts that can be foreseen or detected. Ms. Linsley and the research team conducted environmental monitoring and sampling of chemical, physical, and biological variables in and around McMurdo Station from both marine and terrestrial habitats as measures of human impact and used GIS techniques to track them over time. The results of this research helped document and minimize the impacts of future science and support operations in Antarctica.

The research team explored remote regions of the seafloor around McMurdo Station, Antarctica with a specially developed remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for underwater research. The ROV could be deployed through a small (15 cm) hole in the sea ice, enabling access to regions beyond scuba diving depths (at 40-170 m). The researchers located historical experimental structures on the sea floor around McMurdo Station and investigated the colonization of these structures by species of sessile invertebrates. This provided an unprecedented opportunity to explore and document the rates and patterns of ecological succession from one of the most extreme habitats in the world. The team also tested protocols for conducting sonar mapping with the new ROV as a first step towards creating high-resolution, bathymetric maps of the entire seafloor around McMurdo Station.

The research team traveled by icebreaker to the Bellingshausen-Amundsen Sea in western Antarctica. During their two months at sea they sampled sea-ice properties such as temperature, snow depth, ice thickness, meteorological conditions, ice biogeochemistry, and biology in order to investigate sea-ice processes. The researchers deployed an array of 12-14 drifting buoys that continued to measure these processes for an additional year. The research cruise was part of a larger coordinated program designed to estimate the exchange of salt, fresh water, and heat between the atmosphere and ocean, characterize the thickness and extent of sea ice, and determine if the sea ice is shrinking in this region. A cruise into the East Antarctic pack ice which took place at the same time collected similar samples, and remote sensing studies contributed additional observations before, during, and after the cruises.

An international team of American, Japanese, and Russian researchers and students examined the 5,000-year history of human-environmental interactions in the Kuril Island chain of Russia. The team combined studies of archaeology, geology, paleoecology, oceanography, and climatology to investigate the records of human settlement and abandonment on the Islands. They also surveyed the geologic evidence of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, past vegetation and marine conditions, and climatological evidence of past temperature, sea ice, and storminess. The research team traveled by boat to a number of islands to dig archaeological pits, sample soils, and search for buried artifacts and clues to past activity on the islands. The objectives of the project include understanding the environmental conditions of the past and estimating the degree of human vulnerability and resilience to both sudden and gradual environmental changes.

The research team investigated climate variation over the past 10,000 years in southern Alaska based on information stored in lake sediments. The team monitored limnological conditions and analyzed recent lake sediment in order to reconstruct the paleoclimate of the region. The research attempts to understand modern warming in the context of long-term climate variability. The data was compared with records across the Arctic and sub-Arctic to better understand climate variation.

The team traveled to Svalbard, Norway, located in the High Arctic to investigate how high latitude glaciers, melt-water streams, and sedimentation in lakes and fjords respond to climate change. The Svalbard region has been marked by the retreat of glaciers, reductions in sea ice, and measurable warming throughout the Holocene period, and more specifically during the last 90 years. The Svalbard archipelago has preserved geologic records of climate change since the last ice age and into the 20th century, which makes it an ideal location for this study.

The research team studied little auks (Alle alle), small seabirds also known as dovekies that migrate to the High Arctic to breed in large colonies in Greenland and Spitsbergen. Little auks eat zooplankton, and parents feed their chick almost entirely on copepods (Calanus species). Different zooplankton communities are associated with the different water masses in the Greenland Sea. More importantly, the energy content of individual zooplankton differs among species, with larger species generally providing more energy to predators than smaller ones. Changes in the species composition of zooplankton communities associated with changes in oceanographic conditions in the Greenland Sea therefore directly affects the quality of prey available to Little Auks. The East Greenland population of little auks forages in water that originates from the Arctic and they are able to eat large, energy-rich Calanus hyperboreus and Calanus glacialis, whereas little Auks breeding in areas influenced by warmer water on the west coast of Spitsbergen may be forced to forage on smaller, less energy-rich Calanus finmarchicus. The team compared the breeding and feeding ecology of populations of Little Auks breeding in East Greenland with populations in West Spitsbergen. They examined the feeding and breeding behavior of the birds and collected information about their overall health and physiology such as size, chick growth, food type and quality, and the quantity of stress hormones in their blood.

The expedition members spent five days learning about the research conducted in Greenland, the logistics involved in supporting the research, and had first-hand experience conducting experiments and developing inquiry-based educational activities. The project tied in with the international network Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and GLOBE sponsors around the world.

The group arrived in the coastal town of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland on June 18th, where they toured the research infrastructure that supports Danish, U.S., and other international research projects. Tuesday, On June 19th the group flew to Summit Camp at the top of the Greenland Ice Sheet to learn about the research conducted at the Greenland Environmental Observatory at Summit (GEOSummit).

Teachers and students participated in data collection for some of the large and ongoing projects, measuring the sun reflectance off the snow and the interaction between the snow and the atmosphere. The team experimented with pieces of ice cores to examine the layers and gasses trapped as bubbles in the ice, preserved as atmospheric time capsules representing the year they were trapped. They examined snow-pits and used instruments that collect environmental measurements year-round. After their overnight stay at Summit Camp, the group returned to Kangerlussuaq where they took a closer look at water run-off from the ice sheet and the corresponding stream ecology.

The team investigated the role of carbon in arctic tundra ecosystems. Approximately one quarter of the world's soil organic carbon is stored at high northern latitudes in permafrost and soils. As the arctic environment warms, this carbon may be released to the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). The goal of this project was to understand how changes in a warming and drying arctic environment might affect the balance and stability of the arctic soil carbon. The team measured soil moisture, permafrost depth, carbon dioxide and methane gas in the soil and atmosphere, and surveyed plant composition, function and primary productivity. They also used remote sensing as part of a larger project to investigate patterns of change across the tundra at various scales, from small local changes to landscape level changes.

Before Mr. Wilder joined Dr. Obermeier’s team, he had the opportunity to work on an archaeological project outside of Barrow with Anne Jensen. Ms. Jensen has been excavating remains in Nuvuk, the northernmost village in Alaska, in order to learn more about the history of the region over the past 1200 years. Click here to learn more about the project.