Sharing science at Arctic Change meeting

Guest post by M.Sc. student Gillian Thiel

Gillian baking muffins on a rare sunny day!

What happens when you gather many of the world’s leading Arctic researchers, northerners, enthusiastic graduate students, and government officials in one building during a the biggest snowstorm of the year? A pretty amazing conference!

During the week of Dec. 11 – 15^th, a handful of professors and students from the Cape Bounty research team braved the impending snow to attend the international Arctic Change 2017 conference in Québec City. It was possibly the final time that researchers from around the world would have the opportunity to meet under the umbrella of the ArcticNet funding program. It did not disappoint.

Student Day (Dec. 11^th) was a fantastic day planned by students for students and included an elevator-pitch competition, panel discussions, and workshops on topics such as data management and bridging northern and southern perspectives on arctic research priorities.

Over the week, I had the opportunity to attend a variety of sessions on topics including ocean biogeochemistry, rapid changes in extreme environments, and vulnerability, adaptation and resilience to climate change in the Arctic.

One of the most memorable presentations was one by Ed Zebedee about how the community of Pangnirtung, Nunavut dealt with a major power plant failure in 2015. It highlighted some of the major barriers to living in the north such as ill-equipped airports and the difficulties of shipping large equipment to remote communities. However, Mr. Zebedee’s presentation also highlighted the incredible resilience and adaptability of Pangnirtung residents, the efficacy of the emergency management plans that were in place, and the initiative of the Canadian Rangers. You can read more about the power failure here.

I also had the opportunity to attend panel discussions including one on the politics surrounding defense and development in the Northwest Passage led by the Honourable Minister Laurence Cannon and featuring Hannah Uniugsaraq (Director of Nunavut Tunngavik), Lindsay Rodman, Suzanne Lalonde, Tom Lawson, and Michael Byers. It was an impressive panel.

But, what made the whole week truly unforgettable were the people I met. Arctic Change 2017 gave me the opportunity to interact with researchers from around the world. They gave me insight into my own research, and also exposed me to science I knew nothing about in regions of the Arctic I had never even heard of! Overall, the Arctic Change 2017 was a fantastic, fun, and educational experience. 

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.

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.

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! 

Tundra Times

Posted by CBAWO M.Sc. student Matt Gillman

Teamwork is a large part of the scientific investigations that take place at the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory (CBAWO) here on Melville Island, Nunavut. As a result, a given day may entail assisting in running an ice auger through 2 metres of lake ice so that a sediment core may be retrieved for a limnological view into paleoclimatology; or possibly hiking over tundra to collect soil and/or surface water for hydrological- or biogeochemical-based projects; or maybe collecting atmospheric gas samples with the purpose of investigating greenhouse gas emissions and drawdown due to vegetation; or grabbing stream water samples for sedimentological work; the list goes on.

My work here is focused on improving our understanding of how subsurface hydrology and hydraulics determine the delivery of water and nutrients to High Arctic Rivers. I am particularly interested in late season delivery of subsurface water and nitrogen, both of which act as controls on water quality. From this work I hope to provide information which may be applied to resource management decisions concerned with High Arctic water security, as well as future scientific endeavors aimed at building on our understanding of northern hydrology.

Now that the river is thawed and subsurface flow of water is becoming more abundant, my work in the river system consumes most of my days. Such days involve collecting solute and temperature data along the length of the river to look at the location of subsurface inflows, collecting water samples to assess the chemical composition of waters in soils adjacent to the channel, and measuring water table levels in sampling wells to map out the hydraulic conditions near the river.

Research aside, the landscape and wildlife at CBAWO are amazing. A photo can rarely give justice to the rolling hills and bedrock outcrops of the tundra. Regardless of how rough one’s day is going, it can normally be set right by a brief look around as reminder of setting. Elusive as they may be at times, the wolves, caribou, muskoxen, and arctic foxes are always a neat surprise to come across. 

A muskox enjoying some beautiful weather on the western bank of the Boundary River, Melville Island, NU.

Having had rare encounters, the animals on Melville Island have little fear of humans and are quite curious. The muskox seen in the photo here was content to watch us work from the opposite bank of Boundary River, a river which drains a lake on the boundary of Nunavut and The Northwest Territories.

As a whole, I am thoroughly enjoying the beginning of my first full (I spent a couple of weeks here last summer) field season conducting Arctic-based research. I am lost for words to describe how neat it is to be here.

Ice caps melting

A short post to highlight news that has emerged, indicating that the ice caps in the Canadian Arctic are melting at an accelerated rate since 2005 (see article in Vancouver Sun).  This information is something that has been well understood in the research community for years, but it is striking that the increased loss of ice from these ice caps, including the Melville Ice Cap (about 150 km west of Cape Bounty) coincides with a period of remarkable warming at Cape Bounty.  The warmest July at Cape Bounty was in 2007, followed closely by 2011 and 2012.  Interestingly, July 2013 was cooler at Cape Bounty and reflects a cooling also noted in the article and on the ice caps.

These ice caps vary in size and sensitivity to change, and there are researchers working to understand these changes, but the same recent climate has had an important impact on our research at Cape Bounty.  In particular, and the widespread permafrost disturbance that we observed occurred in late July 2007 and occurred at a time when temperatures were greater than 20degC on some days.

One of the most visible forms of permafrost disturbance at Cape Bounty are slope failures called active layer detachments, or ALD for short.  These slides can be very large, up to 600 m long and 200 m wide, and move down slope long distances.  They move like a carpet slowly sliding down a slope, a thin layer that keeps moving until some obstruction slows it down.  As it loses momentum, the moving soil piles up in folds and comes to rest.

ALD are a potential risk to roads and other infrastructure that might be built in this region, and they impact water quality by increasing sediment erosion and causing additional salts to be released.  Other impacts likely occur, particularly by the release of soil organic matter that was buried for thousands of years, and allowing soil and water microorganisms to consume this different material.  How this affects the soil and water ecosystem remains poorly understood and is one of the topics we are studying at Cape Bounty.

While it is difficult to determine trends, especially with so much year to year variation in weather, both the ice caps and permafrost are responding to recent warming in the Canadian Arctic.  From the perspective of Cape Bounty, even if this trend reverses itself, the impact will remain on the land and affect the water for many years to come.