Friday, 29 June 2012

Having survived the train ride of almost two days - and about 46.5 hours - we (Carolina and Richard) safely arrived at 8:30 this morning in Seida in Komi Republic in Russia. PAGE21 Post Doc Maija Marushchak was already waiting for us at the train station. After being welcomed by Maija the first task was to transport the huge amount of luggage (all in all 10 different pieces) to our new temporary home in Seida.
It was possible to organise a small transport vehicle so that this first part could be accomplished very quickly.



Short description of the train ride: boring, boring, boring, sleeping all the time and except one Russian girl nobody spoke English around us. We were just looking out of the window, but the landscape didn't really change so much until the second morning.

Then, when we woke up in the morning, we were driving through the Tundra with HGH a beautiful view of the Ural Mountains. Although this train ride was quite exhausting it was all in all a really good and unusual experience.

After arrival we moved to our new home, which is a nice wooden house in the middle of the village Seida, where we will live and rest during the weekends. We continued with having breakfast and there already started to discuss the basic things on how to "survive" in Seida. Seida itself is very small, with approximately 20 people living there, but not all of them permanently. But there is a small shop where we can buy the basic things, a train station as well as a sauna, which we will visit now.

Attached pictures show Maija and Richard taking first look on the village and Carolina and Richard during the train ride to Seida.

 

 

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

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Today our small group (Carolina, Christina, Richard) started the expedition to Seida early, early in the morning - 9 o'clock is sooo early.

First stage of the journey took us from Kuopio in Finland to St. Petersburg in Russia. Just an hour before we had the last shower for two months!
We will spend now a relaxing evening in this huge Russian city and tomorrow morning we start the journey to the research site Seida. This trip will take two days and two nights in the train. We are already excited about this experience and hope that everything will be fine.

The scientific equipment should have arrived meanwhile in Seida and we are looking forward to start our work immediately.

We give you the next update after our arrival in Seida.
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Main page of the blog "Vorkuta/ Seida 2012": http://page21.org/blogs/61-vorkuta

The University of Eastern Finland will send five researchers to the field site this summer. They will blog few times a week in the blog "Vorkuta/Seida 2012" to let us know who they research is developing and give us a glimpse to a life in a research station.

Christina Biasi started with her PhD thesis back in 2001 to work in Russian tundra. She has been participating in several expeditions for example to Taymyr, Gdansk since then and Seida/ Vorkuta is one of her key study sites. She likes the Russian way of life and outdoor activities (if not too long). Currently, she is a senior scientist at University of Eastern Finland, researching on C and N dynamics in northern soils. She supervises the studies in PAGE21 and research at Seida/ Vorkuta and participates also in field work.

Richard Lamprecht is a technical assistant and field support in Biogeochemistry Research Group at the University of Eastern Finland. He holds also a master degree in science. Having travelled to many places in the world, Richard is experienced in outdoor activities and we consider him a real adventurer. But it is his first trip to Seida, and let us see how he likes it. He will be also the main blogger from the Seida field site. Here following are his reflections on going on the field.

What it is like to go on field research?
Until now I have not really thought so much about it. I will see how it will be and how I will manage it – I think it is better (at least for me) not to prepare too much by thinking about because it takes away the excitement. To "jump in cold water" is the best way to go to such a trip and also to handle different appearing problems during that time.

What are you looking forward to most on this field season?
The experience to work in a scientific topic out in the "real" nature – or at least what is still there. Also to get more social skills and of course I'm looking forward to reach more professional research skills.

What do think you will miss during the expedition?
Until now I don't really know what I will miss, I guess my laptop first as I don't take it with me, but we have other computers. So I guess I will miss my friends mostly.

What rather unusual things you need to have in your luggage to survive the season on the field?
A travel backgammon set, a sketch-pad.

Maija Marushchak has longest experience of all of us in working in Seida/ Vorkuta. She selected, together with Pertti Martikainen from the University of Eastern Finland, in 2006 the site during the course of the EU project CARBONorth. The site was selected as it represents, with mosaic of wetlands, lowlands and uplands, the typical subarctic tundra landscape. Maija researches on CO2, CH4 and N2O dynamics in Arctic ecosystems, in the Biogeochemistry Research Group in UEF, and one of the coordinators of the research in Seida. She speaks perfectly Russian and is thus channeling between Russian workers and the European partners, and can arrange also practical matters. Currently, she is working as a visiting researcher at Komi Science Center in Russia and is involved as a Post Doc in the project PAGE21.

Carolina Voigt is a newly selected Doctoral student in the project DeFROST (Nordic Center of Excellence) studying effects of climate change on CO2, CH4 and N2O dynamics in Arctic ecosystems in Biogeochemistry Research Group at the University of Eastern Finland. It is the first time for her in Russia, and the first time for her in Seida/ Vorkuta. She did her diploma thesis at the University of Hanover in Germany. At the beginning of 2012 she moved to Finland.

Tatiana Trubnikova is a Technical/logistical coordinator of research in Vorkuta/ Seida and technical support in the Biogeochemistry Research Group in UEF. She is native Russian, which is beneficial for the project coordination as knowledge of and contacts in Russia are very valuable for practical matters. She works since 2007 for the Univesity of Eastern Finland, has a technical diploma and started recently an international master’s degree program in environmental science at the University of Eastern Finland.

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

Vorkuta/ Seida, is a secondary field site in PAGE21. It is located in the Eastern European tundra near the village of Seida, North-Western Russia, about 70 km away from city Vorkuta (67⁰07´N, 62⁰57´E). 

Main objective of the University of Eastern Finland field season 2012 is to quantify greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, N2O, CH4) and better understand their regulation and response to climate change. Warming and increase in ground ice temperatures have been reported from Vorkuta/Seida area, the permafrost peatlands storing most of Arctic soil organic carbon, which are particularly sensitive to warming. Major concern is that carbon stored in these soils is released as CO2 or methane following thawing and active layer thickening. Also, nitrous oxide has importance in Vorkuta/Seida as patterned ground features (peat circles) have been identified to have N2O hotspots. It is anticipated that these emissions will be accelerated in a future warmer climate.

The main parameters measured at this site during this field season are:

The reserach team will concentrate mainly on answering following questions: whether the carbon uptake via plants and photosynthesis will be able to compensate for increases carbon losses from soils following warming, and whether the large bulk of deep, old soil is destabilized with warming climate and permafrost thawing and if yes, to which extent?

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