Monday, 16 July 2012

logger installation, photo: University of Eastern FinlandFinally, after one week with a lot of work our next post! Last week we managed to finish almost all of our installations and also started first measurements. More about these you can read further down in this post.

Last Tuesday the bad weather gave us the opportunity to finish our new fancy datalogger which we could set up in the field right away on Wednesday.

As is usually the case, this task took much longer than we expected and we stayed at our field site until late evening. Luckily, just when Maija was dreaming about Igor and Carolina was wishing for pancakes, Igor arrived with a box of pancakes and everyone was happy (see picture).



On Thursday our first CH4 and N2O sampling for this field season took place. In this context we would like to provide you with some more details about what we are doing in the field here in Seida:

flux plots peat circle, photo: University of Eastern FinlandIn our field site we examine three main landscape types: peat plateaus, peat circles (round, unvegetated peat formations) and mineral tundra.

On each of these landform types we compare artificially warmed plots with control plots. The warming is achieved with open top chambers, which increase air temperature by a few degrees, simulating climate warming (see picture). Gas fluxes are measured via static (CH4 and N2O) and dynamic chamber systems (CO2).




After finishing the sampling on Thursday our day wasn't over yet, but we continued with preparation of the samples (transferring them into vials) until the early morning hours. Friday, 8 o'clock sharp, a tired group of scientists met for breakfast and afterwards continued with the first CO2 measurement in the peat circle/ peat plateau sites.

preparation of vials, photo: University of Eastern FinlandSoil samples, photo: University of Eastern Finland











As a large part of the week was still taken up by setting up of our research site, we decided to postpone our weekend by a day and stayed in the field on Saturday to work.


Lunch break, photo: University of Eastern FinlandWe took soil samples in different depths at all our sites and prepared them for lab analysis on Sunday as well as today. Tomorrow morning we will return to our lovely green field cabin.

A large part of this week will be lab work but we will still try to accomplish every measurement in the field as planned.

Short resume: After more than two weeks in the field we have adapted pretty well. Despite the hard work everyone is fine and getting fitter by the day. The daily walk from the cabin to our main field site, which at first seemed very tough, we perceive now as a more or less relaxing walk. Food is still good, the weather is nice and we are even starting to get used to the mosquitoes.

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Main page of the blog "Vorkuta/ Seida 2012": http://page21.arcticportal.org/blogs/61-vorkuta