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Seida 2013: Appreciation in Seida
Weather station.Monday, 26th of August 2013
We just completed our last regular gas flux measurement for the summer! Counting this, we have eight full weeks of measurements, which is what we have aimed for. It was a bit tricky to fit in all the measurements this week, for after weeks of sunshine finally the typical Tundra weather seems to have set in, starting off with a couple of days with continuous rain. But we are not complaining, having enjoyed a "dream summer": warm, sunny and dry for the better part of two months is very unusual for these latitudes.
This weekend and the beginning of next week we have reserved for calibrations, maintenance as well as reading out of dataloggers from our soil loggers and weather station. We already built a fence around our weather station, to keep the reindeer out, which will pass through our site in autumn. Besides this we have small i-button loggers (for temperature monitoring) buried next to each flux plot, which have to be read-out, reprogrammed and afterwards reinstalled to the soil.
CALM grid.With more than a 100 pieces of those this will take some time. Tomorrow we will additionally measure a CALM grid (circumpolar active layer monitoring), where the maximum active layer/thawing depth is measured across the landscape in a 100m x 100m grid. Everyone who has measured active layer will know that this takes a lot of energy and provides some "Tundra-training" for the lucky person embracing this task.
CALM grid.With more than a 100 pieces of those this will take some time. Tomorrow we will additionally measure a CALM grid (circumpolar active layer monitoring), where the maximum active layer/thawing depth is measured across the landscape in a 100m x 100m grid. Everyone who has measured active layer will know that this takes a lot of energy and provides some "Tundra-training" for the lucky person embracing this task.
Packing of course is another job that will take up the last days in the field as well as in Seida village. To help with all of this and to arrange the sample transport back to Finland, Christina and Tanya from our research group will arrive in Seida this weekend.
We have decided to spend this weekend in the field and to stay here until the end. This way we hopefully won't run out of time with the work that's left to do. The downside of this, unfortunately, is that we have to go almost two weeks without Banya... we might have to make use of the thermokarst lakes until then and the next Banya will be even more rewarding than usual. Since we are approaching the end of the field season we cannot help fantasizing about the first shower in almost ten weeks as well as enjoying all the other luxuries of the "civilized world" back in Finland, such as water from the tap, a laundry machine and the endless food choices in the supermarket and restaurants. A summer in Seida actually teaches you to appreciate all those things.
We have decided to spend this weekend in the field and to stay here until the end. This way we hopefully won't run out of time with the work that's left to do. The downside of this, unfortunately, is that we have to go almost two weeks without Banya... we might have to make use of the thermokarst lakes until then and the next Banya will be even more rewarding than usual. Since we are approaching the end of the field season we cannot help fantasizing about the first shower in almost ten weeks as well as enjoying all the other luxuries of the "civilized world" back in Finland, such as water from the tap, a laundry machine and the endless food choices in the supermarket and restaurants. A summer in Seida actually teaches you to appreciate all those things.
Written by Carolina and Richard