Field Notes

During, before, and after the field course, Polaris students and faculty share their thoughts through journal entries.

 

© Chris Linder

 

  • Yakutsk, Eastern Siberian city of mammoth bones, permafrost, cultural diversity, and lattes!

    Greeting from eastern Siberia.  My name is Sudeep Chandra, one of the principal investigators on the Polaris Project and an assistant professor at the University of Nevada- Reno. Our trip to date has been filled with learning experiences for all involved.…

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  • Comments

    The ‘Comments’ on the blogs have been set up to work correctly now. Readers feel free to comment. I’ll have to approve them but will try to do so regularly. So make yourself heard! -Andy, WWU Professor and reluctant blogmaster.…

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  • Здравствуите из Якутска!

    We arrived in Yakutsk around 10 am yesterday due to a plane delay in Moscow.  While the flight was technically a “red-eye”, it never was dark during its 6 hour duration.  In order to retrieve our baggage, a ticket had to be shown for each bag (a system drastically different

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  • Thoughts from the Moscow airport

    July 7th, 2008 From the Moscow airport We have been traveling for a long time now and are waiting for, in some cases, our third red-eye in four days, as others have already mentioned.  We have used this time to get to know each other and to begin what will

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  • ресторан москва кафе стоп банк россна

    We arrived into Moscow early around 10:00 a.m. planning on spending several hours going through customs and ended up passing right through. Arriving at our ‘hotel’ nicknamed the Green Circle Hilton which was really a dormitory resembling a prison/hospital. There was a dog in the lobby.…

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  • Moscow

    We arrived in Moscow at dawn on July six. We made it through customs in a fairly short amount of time with all our scientific gear intact. Everybody was feeling pretty ragged as Kate Bulygina met the two minibuses she had hired and we loaded all the gear into one

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  • Leg one completed

    Tyler, Holly and I finished the first of our three overnight flights after landing at JFK at 7:00AM from Seattle. We met up with the St. Olaf crew fresh off field work in California and are trying get some rest before meeting the rest of the crew at the gate

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  • Just about ready..

    So I think I’m pretty packed and ready! More than anything I’m excited to finally begin this experience! It finally hit me that I’m GOING TO SIBERIA tomorrow morning!  How many people get to say that? Packing was somewhat difficult, it being hard to pack ‘light’ for a 3-week trip

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  • Packing, preparing, etc.

    So the past few days have been spent getting together all of the unfamiliar equipment I’ve acquired this summer and trying to fit them into one duffel bag. Unsuccessfully. But what has been really enjoyable has been responding to the question “What are you up to this summer?”…

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  • Ready to Go!

    After several months of work, on March 16, 2007, we submitted our Polaris Project proposal to the National Science Foundation’s International Polar Year grant competition.  Six months later we learned that our proposal was successful – the project would actually happen. …

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  • The Sea Ice Pool

    Betting on future climate has become a phenomenon on lately. See here and here, and here. (Those are all blogs I like by the way). In a related vein, there is also a pool for bets on what the minimum arctic sea ice extent will be in 2008.…

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  • Max’s Update from Yakutsk, Siberia

    As part of another NSF funded project, I’m in Russia for ~3 weeks with a group of four people.  Two have never been to Russia before, so in some ways it is a good test run to help identify some of the logistical challenges we’ll face moving the Polaris Project

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  • Methane Madness

    Who I Am I am an aquatic an aquatic ecologist and biogeochemist interested in carbon and nutrient cycling between terrestrial and aquatic systems, the cryosphere and atmosphere. I am also one of the organizers of the Polaris Project. I have worked in Cherskii since 2000, and have a passion for

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  • The winter weather in Cherskii

    While perusing wunderground.com, I checked out the temperature in Cherskii. It’s cold over there right now, which makes sense at 69°N. Here is a link to the Google Map for the area. It was -38°C today (-40°C is -40°F) .…

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  • Sea ice

    Arctic ice, both sea and land, has been in the news quite a lot lately and I expect we’ll hear more about it once the world’s leading ice scientists present at AGU in a few weeks. however, in the last few days I’ve come across two really interesting things.…

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