From the Arctic: Chance and Change on the Tundra

Morning came at night again, but my comforter fort proved to be a success and I slept in a bit longer. That or I am just really tired.

The briefing room was cold this morning, which was a sign to layer up before going out. The temperature outside can drop or rise within minutes it seems, and once you commit to the long johns you are not changing in the field. Just imagine those mosquito bites. If the sun is shining you can be very warm when near the ground even if there is no breeze.

This explains how the tiny seedlings thrive in the small valleys made by desiccation cracks in the lichens or behind small pebbles or other plants. The tiny seedlings need to be hardy and lucky. They need to get several consecutive years, as many as 10, that contain ideal conditions to help them get past a zone of saltation where they are wind-blasted by snow throughout the winter.

Being buried by the snow in the winter is a good thing. It insulates and protects them through the harshest months. If they manage to survive this period they have a good chance to make a long term go at it. They often have broad, thick bases, or mats, that will be buried by the snow; then a zone where one side of the tree is almost bare from the abrading snow; and then the higher section is symmetrical on all sides of the tree. Often, because of the protection that these mature trees provide, smaller seedlings will sprout on the lee side of the tree. Or the branches on the ground will take root and become trees of their own called raments, because they are genetic twins of the first mature tree.

 We surveyed two areas today where the tundra and the forest meet. Here you have three zones: tundra, a transition area called the ecotone and then the forest. The seedlings are rare in the tundra, needing a great deal of chance to take off. The ecotone is an active area either filling in or losing ground, and then there's the forest itself, with mature trees that are either filling in with additional branches or new seedlings. Our work will establish baselines for these areas to be used to show forest growth or loss.

One area we worked in today is an ancient beach ridge, what was once the shoreline. On the tundra the wind picked up and it became much colder but with fewer mosquitoes. As we moved closer to the forest the sun peeked out a bit and the bugs got bad. At this point I found it necessary to don my bug hat. Of course several got trapped inside the hat with me, forcing me to trap and squish them. For the first time, I squished one that had filled with blood. It popped through the net onto my finger and left the evidence of its feeding there and on part of my net—quite distracting.

The reindeer lichen that covers much of the tundra was thick here and I could imagine just lying among it and napping on the soft, insulating peat, much like the still elusive polar bears.

James Locke is traveling as part of an Earthwatch Institute expedition to study climate change at the Arctic's edge. The above is part of a series of dispatches he is filing for Manhattan Beach Patch during his trip.