Arctic Science Sessions

Guests: Jackie Grebmeier, Lee Cooper, Mark Rauzon, Nicholas Silverson

The Grebmeier 1917469 team, as part of the Distributed Biological Observatory annual cruise, hosted an open house aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, off the coast of Utqiaġvik on July 26th. The open house included members of the Utqiaġvik community and representatives of the North Slope Borough, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, and ...

Guests: Don Anderson, Kathy Lefebvre

HABs (Harmful Algal Blooms) are the topic of discussion for this episode and the project described here investigates the population dynamics of HAB species in the Arctic. Don Anderson, Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, studies species of toxic algae that are responsible for disrupting human and ecosystem health. Please join us in this episode to learn how HAB’s m...

Guests: Robert Hollister, Judy Hollister, Taylor Doorn, Jenna Boelkins, Scott Branham, Justin Blough

The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) is a network of researchers examining the impacts of warming on the tundra ecosystems. Bob Hollister leads the Arctic Ecology Program with Grand Valley State University has been traveling to Atqasuk, Alaska since the 1990s. The O&E Team works with the Hollister team to host an annu...

Guests: Lorene Lynn, Howard Epstein

This podcast recording occurred during the Permafrost & Infrastructure Symposium in Northern Alaska, July 28 – August 5, 2023. Lorene Lynn, “Earth’s Janitor,” works in the field of Ecological Restoration studying soil science and permafrost, and Howard Epstein studies the recent dynamics of arctic tundra vegetation in response to changing climate and disturbances. The Symposium gave part...

Guests: Ignatius Rigor, Sarah Johnson

Making sense of the complex interplay between the air, ocean and sea ice is a challenging puzzle that motivates Rigor’s research. In this episode, we get an update on the Arctic Buoys project and their outreach efforts. Float Your Boat is an international program connecting people to the arctic ocean. 1,000-2,000 wooden boats are deployed annually during an Arctic Ocean expedition on the s...

Guests: Brian Kim, Alina Spera

The Beaufort Lagoons Ecosystem (BLE) long term ecological research team travels to the North Slope from six universities across the US to study five coastal lagoons across the region. The lagoons provide food and habitat for the large populations of migratory fish and waterfowl in the region and are the gateway between dozens of rivers and the Arctic Ocean. Tune into this episode as Brian and Ali...

Guests: Emily Eidam, Maddie Smith, Jim Thompson, Adrian Heath

Coastal oceanographer and geologist Dr. Emily Eidam and her team work closely with communities around the North Slope of Alaska to monitor coastal continental shelf change in the Arctic. Her team includes: Polar Oceanographer and Sea Ice physicist Maddie Smith, Jim Thompson who studies the waves and the surface of the ocean and her graduate student Adrian Heath whom...

Guests: Jana Peirce, Molly Rettig, Robbin Garber, Billy Connor, Yuri Shur

The Walker team will study the Ice-Rich Permafrost (IRP) of the Prudhoe Bay oilfields and the village of Point Lay, where permafrost temperatures are changing rapidly with large impacts to ecosystems and infrastructure. Come learn about their observations, why they’ve chosen Pt. Lay for research, and how Ice-Rich permafrost systems affects foundations fo...

Guests: Lynn Russell, Robert Leitch, Patrick Sheridan

Dr. Lynn Russell and the team at NOAA monitor aerosols in the Arctic’s atmosphere. The Arctic has some of the cleanest air in the U.S. so any trace amounts of Dimenthyl Sulfate (DMS) and other chemical compounds can easily be monitored. The residents of the Arctic heavily rely on healthy ice conditions and a cooler climate to sustain the subsistence lifestyle that they have...

Guests: Ignatius Rigor, Sarah Johnson

Ignatius Rigor works with many people all around the world as he studies sea ice using buoys and satellite data, flying C-130’s out of Kodiak, AK, and helicopters out of Utqiagvik, AK. Sarah Johnson and Ignatius provide descriptions of their bouys and the importance of the bouy data for climate research. In this episode, we also learn about the arctic sea ice conditions and their experienc...

Guests: Benjamin Jones, Mikhail Kanevskiy, Alexandra Veremeeva, Noriaki O’hara, Andrew Parsekian, Rodrigo Rangel

Benjamin Jones and his team are trying to understand how the North Slope landscape has changed over the last 10,000 years. In this episode, we learn about the science and how Ben’s team is trying to assess how lakes on the landscape have developed and evolved, the tendencies towered them catastrophically draining, a...

Guests: Ginger Shultz, Joyce Stotts, Jeffrey Spencer, Linda Nicolas

Linda has taught science at Iḷisaġvik College for 12 years and works with students to investigate bacteria in the permafrost. Ginger is Chemistry faculty at the University of Michigan who conducts research on teaching and learning in science. Joyce is a student at the college who participated in the activities and does research with Linda. Jeff is a Ph.D. candidate...

Guests: Kerri Pratt - University of Michigan, and Jose Fuentes & Alex Anderson - Pennsylvania State University

Six Universities come together to improve the understanding of atmospheric halogen chemistry in the gas, aerosol, and cloud water phases, with a focus on how that chemistry is impacted by Arctic sea ice loss and fossil fuel extraction. The project will conduct eight weeks of observations during spring, when halogen che...

Ken Dunton is project director for the Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems Long term Ecological Research (LTER) Program. The researchers within the program are using various methods to track and understand 1) how natural climate cycles influence coastal ecosystems in the Arctic, and 2) how climate change impacts alter coastal ecosystems. Lagoon ecosystems are at the land-sea interface, the zone where the land and ocean meet. Changes within ...

Colorado State University, Department of Atmospheric Sciences. We learned about some key impacts of thawing permafrost in Episode 1 with Vladimir Romanovsky and Dmitry Nicolsky. In this episode we talk to Jessie Creamean and her team who are doing research on the cutting edge of another important aspect of permafrost thaw, which is its potential to impact clouds and even local weather.

Find out more about their research at:

ht...

Emily Eidam, Jim Thomson, and their teams are collaborating on two separate but closely related research projects. Thomson's team is trying to understand the impact that larger waves are having on Arctic coastal erosion. Eidam's team, meanwhile, is tracking the journey of the materials that erode from coastal bluffs to understand where they go after they enter the ocean.

Find out more about their research at:

https://...

Vladimir Romanovsky and Dmitry Nicolsky are part of a research team studying changes in ground temperature across the North Slope to understand where and how fast permafrost is warming. Thawing permafrost can lead to ground surface caving, changes in terrain, and damage to infrastructure. It can also cause the ground surface to become wetter or drier. These landscape changes are likely to impact many aspects of life for people livi...