ALISS: Arctic Lake Ice Systems Science

Ribs, Mac n’ Cheese, on the snowy tundra

4/19/2018

Just finished a delicious dinner of ribs and mac and cheese with fellows Allen, Ben, Misha, and Go. Besides Ben’s pain, it’s been a really nice and productive trip. New things learned and a bit more experienced.

This project is all about lake ice and how it fits into the Arctic system. We show that lake ice is complexly responsive to arctic climate change and the feedbacks to this system are also complex. Most of our work so far has focused on ice-driven hydrology and permafrost and how sea ice relates to terrestrial systems. Next we want to expand the domain and longevity of monitoring ice, and most importantly figuring out the next step with DTLBs (drained thermokarst lake basins, also known as expansive wetlands that cover about half of all the land of the coastal lowlands). That’s a wrap...or whatever that means in science!

Simple, but this is our main result. Shows the value of consistent measurements over time in a logical pattern. See for yourself. Last two years were very thin trending toward the coast. Pattern or trend is the big question???