More reflections on 2017 field work

Guest post by Jackie Hung:

Going to Cape Bounty for a second field season, the novelty of High Arctic field work has still not worn off. Seeing the Weatherhaven tents through the window of the Twin Otters as we circled the cape brought back all the memories of the previous season. That is, until we had to dig out the tents from over 2 metres of snow.

Opening camp was a completely new, rewarding, and humbling experience. Seeing the landscape transform from late-winter conditions to spring and summer growth gave me a new perspective on the amount of change that the land undergoes and the harsh environment that the flora and fauna endure here. I was able to finally see and take part in some of the research and data collection that is undertaken in the early season, including lake sampling and river channelizing. Coming to the field before the growing season has also given us the chance to see the birds in their nesting season. Camp has been frequented by several visitors so far, including large muskox herds, curious caribou, and large Arctic hares.

 

Snow sampling and working with data loggers that record soil temperature year-round at Cape Bounty. 

 The transition into July and the growing season was a welcome change for me as a soil scientist. We were keen to arrive early into the field to capture the spring-summer transition; however, that occurred a few weeks later than it did last season. The higher amount of snowfall in the Canadian Arctic this summer meant a delayed start to my sampling. My research builds on the knowledge base established from the previous season and looks to explore unanswered questions that came up during my field sampling and analysis. My Master’s research at Ryerson University looked at the spatial and temporal dynamics soil nitrogen availability and how it related to environmental variables in the wet sedge meadows. Moving forward, I am interested in examining the relationships between the soil available nitrogen, gas exchange, and the changing climate in the wet sedge meadows and mesic tundra and linking these questions to remote sensing techniques.

In 2017, my day-to-day activities included taking static CO₂ measurements, trace gas sampling, spectroradiometer work, and soil sampling. Carbon exchange autochambers and buried soil moisture and temperature loggers are allowing me to take continuous measurements in various locations to complement my seasonal data set. Soil samples taken from the field will be used towards laboratory experiments that will allow me to manipulate different biophysical features to see the microbial response the soils to elevated temperature and fertilization. This field season has given me a head start to the sampling for my new role as a Queen’s student and will help in formulating the questions that will form the basis of my Ph.D.

Important new publication

We publish most of our research results in scientific journals that are reviewed by other researchers (or peer-reviewed).  It is an important part of sharing the knowledge that we gain from research with others, much in the same way we try to share with this blog and our Facebook page.

This week an important new paper was published in Nature Scientific Reports by the CBAWO group.  You can download a copy for free at Nature Scientific Reports.  In this, we show how recent permafrost change at Cape Bounty has made a significant impact on the lakes, changing the chemical composition of some elements by up to 500% in a few years.  This is an incredible rate of change, and this work documents how quickly this can happen and that it occurred in both lakes at the same time.  We also used the otoliths (ear bones) from Arctic char in the lakes to determine if this chemical change had influenced the fish.  We found that many elements changed abruptly in the fish otoliths at the time of the rapid changes in the lakes, signalling that the fish are responding to this environmental change.  By using a fish condition measure (by looking at length and weight of each fish), we show that the condition of the fish in the East Lake is improving, so it would seem that the permafrost change we have observed in recent years is contributing to enhanced living conditions for the fish.

Ice-push ridges on the shore of West Lake, August 2017.  Notice the cloudy water that has been that way since the winter of 2011-12.  

There is likely much more to the story, as the lake ice cover has become less persistent and water temperatures have increased as well.  The West Lake also tells an interesting story with the opposite effect:  underwater landslides (or slumps) that have made the lake continuously muddy have resulted in a continuous deterioration of the condition of Arctic char. 

So it would seem that the two lakes are going in different directions, but both are showing strong impacts from recent environmental change.

Part of the reason this paper is so important is that it summarizes work that has been carried out since 2004 at Cape Bounty, when the first lake water samples were taken and the ecosystem sampled.  We have continued this work and expanded it by working with collaborators at Environment and Climate Change Canada who are experts in contaminants in northern ecosystems, and residents of Resolute that have important knowledge about the fish and lake ecosystems.  This collaborative effort is reflected in the range of authors of this paper- each person contributed important parts of the overall story. 

Like most research, these results generate many new questions but we are working hard to pursue these.  We hope to be able to share them with you in the months and years to come!

West Lake at Cape Bounty, August 2009.

Sediment research in 2017

Guest post by Casey Beel, Ph.D. candidate

This season was interesting for High Arctic hydrology. Total snowfall, and snow water equivalence estimates, was amongst the highest at Cape Bounty since monitoring began in 2003. This year also saw a significant delay in the initiation of snowmelt and channel flow, with the start of discharge not beginning until June 22 - the second latest day of first flow in our records. This change to the hydrology creates more questions about how this year will fit into our longer term record and what increased snowfall means for suspended sediment transfer.

Camping out at the West River station during a long sampling campaign.

The main objective of my research this year was to gain a better understanding of the temporal patterns of suspended sediment transfer. To do this, I spent 15 hours camped out in my waders, with a deck chair for comfort, and over 200 sample bottles, collecting water every 10 minutes from the West River. Thankfully, I choose a perfect day for this saga - with blue skies and warm temperatures. Across the river, two Greater Snow Geese have chosen a small grassy knoll to nest, and for the majority of my day, they were my only company, and as the hours drew on, I began to realize that they weren’t great conversationalists.

West River at full runoff.

One of the exciting additions to my research is that it is spatially distributed across multiple catchments. This allows me the opportunity to explore the landscape and find exciting new landscape features, fossils, and even marine shells that are emerging from degrading slopes. So far this year, we have discovered a newly forming landscape disturbance in the lower East River catchment, revisited the expanding retrogressive thaw slump to the north of camp, and collected enough rocks for my collection to warrant an extra bag of luggage for the trip home.

What grows here....

Guest post from M.Sc. student Valerie Freemantle

I am happy to say that my sampling has been going well and that Cape Bounty has started to feel like home. I wake up every morning looking out to the weather haven and West Lake. The days are long, but being outside and surrounded by science all day makes it such a rewarding place to work.

A view from the tent!

For my thesis, I am using digital pictures and satellite imagery in order to see if there has been any change in the vegetation cover at Cape Bounty since 2004. In the field, I have been revisiting plots that were sampled in 2004 and 2008 and using digital images to estimate the percent coverage of vegetation. When I return to Kingston, I will use these images to scale up to the satellite imagery this year. Then, I can relate these pictures and the data from 2004 and 2008 to satellite imagery and determine if there has been any change in vegetation between 2004 and 2017.

The vegetation in the Arctic has to be able to survive in some difficult conditions. The Arctic growing season is short and there is little on the landscape to block the wind. However, flowers still manage to survive in the slight depressions in the landscape where trickles of water flow soon after snowmelt.

For example, here are some Arctic poppies (Igutsat niqingit, Papaver spp.) blowing on a slope. They are all pointing towards the (never setting) summer sun. The areas where they have managed to establish themselves are in slight depressions where enough water flows to support lichens, mosses and flowers.

Arctic poppies

Another very common plant is the purple saxifrage (Aupilattunnguat, Saxifraga oppositifolia). This is the territorial flower of Nunavut. These little flowers provide bursts of colour all over Cape Bounty.

Purple saxifrage

The real powerhouse of sequestration in the Arctic is made up of vegetation like mosses and sedges. I need some more work learning to tell these apart, but there are many varieties of sedges and grasses at Cape Bounty. Here is a picture of some sedge and moss growing in a small water rack at the side of a rocky slope. The vegetation out here is pretty awesome.

Moss and sedges

Knowing how much vegetation is on the landscape is important. Vegetation is an important mechanism for removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it. Generally, the Arctic has been considered a net sink of carbon, meaning that it stores more than it produces. Mosses and sedges are a big component of this storage. But, with the anticipated changes in Arctic climate due to climate change, there is the potential that this trend may change. Thus, the next step of my project will be to link any changes in vegetation cover to changes in carbon sequestration. I am planning on doing this by relating the trends in vegetation growth from the satellites to measurements of carbon intake and output from eddy covariance towers here at Cape Bounty.   

2017 field season underway

Post by Casey Beel, Ph.D. student

Casey waiting for the next sample at the West River.  Snow geese are unimpressed with hydrological research!
(photo:  P. Treitz)

This season has been interesting for High Arctic hydrology. Total snowfall, and snow water equivalence estimates, was amongst the highest at Cape Bounty since monitoring began in 2003. This year also saw a significant delay in the initiation of snowmelt and channel flow, with the start of discharge not beginning until June 22 - the second latest day of first flow in our records. This change to the hydrology creates more questions about how this year will fit into our longer term record and what increased snowfall means for suspended sediment transfer.

The main objective of my research this year is to gain a better understanding of the temporal patterns of suspended sediment transfer. To do this, I spent 15 hours camped out in my waders, with a deck chair for comfort, and over 200 sample bottles, collecting water every 10 minutes from the West River. Thankfully, I choose a perfect day for this saga - with blue skies and warm temperatures. Across the river, two Greater Snow Geese have chosen a small grassy knoll to nest, and for the majority of my day, they were my only company, and as the hours drew on, I began to realize that they weren’t great conversationalists.

One of the exciting additions to my research is that it is spatially distributed across multiple catchments. This allows me the opportunity to explore the landscape and find exciting new landscape features, fossils, and even marine shells that are emerging from degrading slopes. So far this year, we have discovered a newly forming landscape disturbance in the lower East River catchment, revisited the expanding retrogressive thaw slump to the north of camp, and collected enough rocks for my collection to warrant an extra bag of luggage for the trip home. With a month left in my season, I am hoping for more, exciting scientific and curiosity based discoveries.

Resolute Qarmartalik School Science Fair

Bad weather in Resolute during late winter.

Bad weather can be frustrating when your excitement to begin summer research is at a high. You have all your personal gear packed. You have spent two days organizing everything you need for the next month.  All of your scientific equipment is ready to be installed. But the weather keeps changing. Snow keeps falling. Visibility is poor. And planes remain grounded. This can be trying. But then an opportunity to visit the community and participate in the science fair at the school is presented to you. You forget about the fact that there are delays in getting to the field and you remember that outreach opportunities like this are one of the reasons we are involved in Arctic research.

For the last four years, the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP), Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN), have sponsored a science fair for Grades 1-11 at the Qarmartalik School in Resolute Bay. This year, students presented their research on which form of renewable energy would have the greatest benefit for Resolute, how to better insulate housing in the community, the best toothpaste to use to protect their teeth, the best compost to use in this environment, and many other topics that the students were either passionate about or that were directly relevant to their day-to-day lives in the Arctic.

Researcher Neal Scott with several students at the Qarmartalik School Science Fair.  NRCat was also on hand for the festivities! [picture posted with permission of parents and school]

We were fortunate enough to be invited to judge this year’s science fair along with other community members (e.g., the RCMP) and encourage the students’ scientific curiosities. This opportunity also enabled us to meet and talk with the parents and teachers of this remote community. We were shown traditional tools used to clean and stretch animal hides. We were each given syllabic charts to encourage us to learn how to write our names in Inuktitut, and we were taught a traditional game, where the goal is to be the first person to get the end of their stick into one of the small holes drilled into a caribou antler. But for the children (and ourselves if we are being honest), the best part of the day was a visit from the Natural Resources Cat (NRCat) – for which it didn’t take long for the kids to “de-tail” the costume (3 minutes to be exact).  

It was a great day to share the excitement of science with the children of Resolute!

Polar Continental Shelf Program

We are working hard to get ready for our 2017 field season at CBAWO. There is a lot to organize- people, schedules, equipment, flights, and funding.  It is a job that seems to start about a month after we return from the field and continues for most of the year- and in reality it is just that. There is a lot of work in the background that makes research at CBAWO and other projects across the Canadian Arctic possible.

Based in Resolute, Nunavut, PCSP is a logistics support agency that makes Arctic research possible.  

One group that deserves a lot of credit for our research success is the Polar Continental Shelf Project (PCSP).  This small program is part of Natural Resources Canada, the national government, and has been operating in the the Arctic since 1958.  It is probably not an overstatement to suggest that PCSP has supported almost every major research project in the High Arctic over the years, involving thousands of researchers. Many of the projects are based in Resolute or other communities in the Arctic, but a large number of them are like ours, located in remote field camps scattered over an area the size of western Europe.  PCSP has been a bedrock support for all of this research, by providing logistics, aircraft, vehicles, field equipment, and a base of operations in Resolute where they can seemingly help you with any problem.  They also have a well-earned reputation for serving great food in their cafeteria and there is nothing like cleaning up with a hot shower and reconnecting with the world after a long field season at the PCSP base.

PCSP facilities have changed quite a bit over the years but the core of the operation is an accommodation building and a warehouse where equipment is stored and maintained.  The accommodation building has expanded over the years, most recently in 2011 when a joint effort with the Canadian Military resulted in a significant expansion.  This collaboration means that military training operations have a home in the High Arctic, and researchers can use the facilities at other times.   They can hold and feed over 200 people, and when the weather is bad and flights are not moving, they can find themselves with a full house!

The PCSP accommodation and lab buildings in mid-May.  Staff have been working since January with researchers and military training exercises.

The PCSP warehouse is a huge building filled with field equipment. There is seemingly everything there:  tents, drills, boats, snow machines, radios, and every kind of camping gear.  There is a full mechanics shop for keeping everything thing running smoothly and those "can you help me with this?" moments. They have a supply of fuel for everything, all planned the year before and brought up on the sealift in September.  Upstairs there are storage spaces for us to leave equipment over winter, which saves a tremendous amount of freight expense for researchers.

Putting it together in the warehouse.  A load arranged to fly out to the field camp with everything you need to survive and do science.

Perhaps the most important aspect of PCSP is the access to charter aircraft they facilitate and support.  Small planes like the Twin Otter in the picture below are the workhorses of the Arctic, able to land on almost any surface and move equipment and people to the most remote parts of the Arctic. PCSP usually has 1-2 of these aircraft on contract, as well as helicopters and even larger planes when the need arises.  Aside from facilitating the use of the aircraft for researchers, PCSP Base Managers work to make the most of these planes. That often means arranging sharing of flights and using unused return flights for other purposes.  This is no small task to manage, and when the meter is running at about $2500 each hour, this effort is really critical to stretch research budgets. The process of dispatching flights is complicated and will be the subject of another post, but suffice to say it is something that the research community that PCSP serves is really dependent on!

Waiting for the next trip- a Twin Otter at the PCSP base in Resolute.

There are many other partners that make our research possible, but there are few that seem to do as much with so little as PCSP. They are really one of Canada's great successes that more people should know about.  When the rest of the world plans to develop their polar research support, they have come to PCSP to learn how to do it.

Lake ice cover time lapse

Have you ever wondered how ice melts on an Arctic lake?  We have time lapse cameras that take images every 30 minutes of each lake.  When we combine them into videos, you can watch the ice come off in a few minutes.

Sit back and enjoy the 2012 ice-off on East Lake!

QUAWLity- a new laboratory for research at Cape Bounty

As the research program has become more complex at Cape Bounty, we have needed increasingly sophisticated laboratory facilities and increased amounts of power in the lab.  This is not a trivial issue in a remote camp.  In the past we have made due with temporary lab tents and used a portable generator, but these conditions were less than ideal and the generators were noisy, need gasoline and ultimately can be unreliable.  This is the story of how we built our new lab facility, QUAWLity (Queen's University Arctic Watershed Laboratory).

With support from the Canadian Government Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), QUAWLity moved from the drawing board to reality.  We shipped up the Weather Haven tent and arranged wood for the floor from a supplier in Resolute.  It all arrived in camp in early August 2015 and construction began.

The floor was first to be built.  We are not allowed to put in permanent foundations, so we placed the wooden floor on blocks and built it with insulation and linoleum to make it cleaner and warmer.

It was a group effort to build the tent.  Conditions were calm and foggy, perfect for handling the large tent pieces.  These tents are very well designed and have robust metal frames and vinyl covers that are suitable for long term exposure.  The tent went up quickly despite the dreary weather.

The construction crew, just before cutting the front door out.

The finished tent, secured to the ground with long metal stakes and metal guy wires.

That was it for 2015, we left the tent empty until 2016.  Arriving in May, you never quite know what to expect, but other than a bit of loose material at the front, all well well.  These tents create large snow drifts, but the upwind side is usually bare of snow.

The first order of business was installing the propane wall furnace.  Dr. Benjamin Amann was eager to help!

We organized the lab into a series of workstations where sample filtering and handling could be carried out. The fume hood was a nice addition that allows safe handling of acids needed to stabilize some samples and a propane chest freezer means no more running the generator to keep the cooler frozen.

The last part of the set up was a solar system. Inside the tent are a panel for the electronics and a cooler for the AGM deep cycle batteries.  These batteries are designed not to freeze so they are safe to use in this setting and the cooler provides further protection from temperature extremes.  A temperature logger placed with the batteries showed that they stayed at -30degC or warmer, compared to almost -50degC outside at times.  They were fully charged when we arrived in mid-May

The 300W of solar panels are on a wooden frame outside, secured down with guy wires.  The orientation is perfect to have the wind scour the panels and keep them clear of snow in the winter. Even though we have 24-hour daylight during field seasons, the midnight sun does not charge our batteries!

After a full season in 2016, everything seems to be running well.  The lab tent is a clean, warm and spacious place to do our work and we really pushed it with a large field crew in 2016.  Everything worked to expectations, and the roller chairs really make life easier.  The solar system was sufficient to power everything so we are now officially free of generators for the lab.  It's all part of doing research 400 km from the nearest community in the remote High Arctic.

Biogeochemical Research in the High Arctic

Hi! My name is Gillian and I’m a first-year Master’s student at Queen’s. Dr. Melissa Lafrenière, co-manager of the Queen’s Facility for Biogeochemical Research on Environmental Change and the Cryosphere (FABRECC: http://www.queensu.ca/geographyandplanning/fabrecc-lafreniere/home) is my supervisor. We are working to better understand biogeochemical processes at the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory. In other words, we study the interactions between the physical, chemical, biological, and geological processes occurring in the High Arctic permafrost environment.

               

Specifically, I study carbon in organic matter. The permafrost of the Arctic stores huge amounts of organic carbon. In fact, researchers estimate that there is twice as much carbon stored in the permafrost as there is carbon in the atmosphere right now. As permafrost degrades due to warming temperatures, some of the permafrost carbon could be released to the atmosphere as greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

Why will only some of the carbon be released? Well, only a portion of the permafrost carbon is decomposable, and carbon must undergo decomposition to produce greenhouse gases. My job is to determine what makes the carbon decomposable and identify where the decomposable carbon is likely to be found on a High Arctic landscape.

Knowing how much carbon is decomposable, and where it’s located, is important for developing climate models. Because data on decomposable carbon are limited, carbon stored in permafrost isn’t well incorporated into current climate models. The results of our research could change that. For example, if we know there is a lot of decomposable carbon stored in areas highly susceptible to enhanced permafrost thaw, then we might conclude there is a high probability of greenhouse gas emissions in those areas. This increased probability can then be accounted for in climate model projections, making them more accurate.

A soil profile at one of my sampling sites at the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory on Melville Island, NU.

I collected soil and water samples from sites with varying geomorphology and vegetation at Cape Bounty during the summer of 2016. Back in the lab at Queen’s, I incubated these samples for twenty-eight days. During an incubation, the samples were kept a constant temperature. At specific time points throughout the incubation period, I removed a subset (or aliquot) of each sample and analyzed it to characterize the molecular structure of its carbon compounds and its organic carbon concentration.

Now that the incubation period is finished, I can calculate how much organic carbon was lost (through decomposition) over the twenty-eight days. Better yet, I can compare these data with the molecular structure of the carbon compounds to see if molecular structure is an indicator of decomposability. If they are related, it would be really exciting since the methods used to characterize molecular structure are much easier to perform than the incubations. If molecular structures could be used to predict carbon decomposability instead of incubations, it would save researchers a lot of time and money!

An emission excitation matrix (EEM), like the one shown above, provides insight into the molecular structure of carbon compounds in water samples.

The next step for my project will be to look at how the decomposability of carbon varies by sample site. If we identify a relationship between carbon decomposability and study site characteristics, we could use this to predict how carbon decomposability will vary across the broader landscape. For example, if we find that carbon decomposability is related to a certain vegetation community, we could use vegetation cover maps to predict how carbon decomposability varies across the landscape.

               

The best part about my project is that I get to go back to Cape Bounty next summer for a second field season. So, based on what I find out from the lab work I’m doing now, I can tailor my 2017 sampling plan to better address my research questions. Stay tuned for more results and stories about field season preparations later this winter!