Monthly Archives: July 2013

At sea on research ship

July 29, 2013

I am currently aboard the R/V Lance for the MOSJ-ICE cruise, which travels from Longyearbyen to Rijpfjorden sampling plankton, ocean currents and water temperatures and will continue as far northward from Svalbard as possible to anchor on ice. Due to the limited satellite internet connection, there will be a two-week delay on all posts.

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Research ship Lance moors beside ice pack 500 miles shy of North Pole. © Randall Hyman

VIDEO: Toxins, the other Arctic nemesis

July 26, 2013

While climate change steals the headlines, scientists at the Ny-Ålesund science village on Spitsbergen Island have devoted much of their attention for many years researching an equally serious threat to Arctic ecosystems: toxins, transported by wind and ocean currents from Europe, North America and Asia. The Norwegian Polar Institute, under Norway’s Ministry of the Environment, allocates an entire department to this issue.

“I am made in Ny-Ålesund,” quips department head Geir Wing Gabrielsen, whose parents worked for the coal company that built the village and left in 1954 when his mother became pregnant. Gabrielsen has returned to his roots nearly every summer for the past three decades to conduct and direct seabird research, collecting blood and feathers to track the industrial toxins that have invaded this once-pristine environment.

That toxins exist at all in this industry-free environment is surprising. Prevailing winds and ocean currents transport pollutants on a one-way conveyor belt from western Europe, Asia, and North America directly to the Arctic. Frigid temperatures capture the airborne toxins in snow and ice. Intense, high-latitude sunlight grabs mercury from power plant emissions and chemically bonds it with sea salt. Agricultural and industrial chemicals complete the toxic cocktail, arriving by ocean currents and entering the food chain via phytoplankton.

Glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus) flies along shore in Krossfjorden, Svalbard. © Randall Hyman

Trace amounts of chemicals exponentially multiply as they pass up the ladder through zooplankton, fish and seabirds, ending up in upper-tier predators such as glaucous gulls, seals, polar bears, and humans. Some of industry’s most dangerous toxins, called “persistent organic pollutants” (POPs), take centuries or even millennia to degrade because they are not water soluble. They are, however, lipid soluble, easily absorbed by animal fat, eggs, and breast milk.

“For Arctic animals,” Gabrielsen explains, “fat is vital. It supplies energy and insulation to get through the cold winter. When animals tap these reserves, stored toxins are released. Since eggs and breast milk have a lot of fat, this impacts the young.” (See eider duck reference in earlier post, Tromsø: City life, ducks and geopolitics)

In recent years, toxins like PCB and DDT have been joined by newer cousins such as PBDEs used in electronics as fire retardants and PFCs found in waterproofing and stainproofing compounds. Polar bears, Arctic foxes, whales and seals have become among the most toxin-tainted species on the planet.

Scientists like Gabrielsen see Arctic seabirds as an early warning system of future trends since their total biomass outweighs most marine mammals, and their small bodies make them sensitive to pollutants. They are plentiful, but getting a hold of them requires perching above or below the same ocean cliffs where they breed. It can be hazardous duty.

“I once had an entire cliff collapse where my colleague and I had just been working minutes before,” recalls Gabrielsen. (See earlier posts, On the brink: Life as a field assistant and Seabird diaries: Science on the rocks)

CLICK PHOTO TO VIEW VIDEO:

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Ecotoxicologist Geir Gabrielsen wtih kittiwake. © Randall Hyman

PHOTO GALLERY: Seabird diaries on the rocks

July 25, 2013

“This is where a huge boulder wiped out a big part of our trail a few days ago,” says Dagfinn Breivik Skomsø as I puff behind him, climbing hundreds of meters up a sixty degree slope to his study site. A long, ugly scar of naked brown earth cuts the trail in two, littered with freshly-broken, angular chunks of broken boulder. “It must have happened sometime during the night, but it fell right near where we work, so it’s a good thing we weren’t here then.” (See later post: VIDEO REPRISE: Seabird diaries)

It’s already late evening, but with 24-hour sun lighting the Arctic island of Spitsbergen throughout summer, night and day make little difference. We won’t return to the Ny-Ålesund science village until sometime toward midnight. Skomsø’s fellow Masters students, Solveig Nilsen and Martin Kristiansen, are already wedging a tall aluminum extension ladder along a skirt of earth beneath a sheer cliff where kittiwakes wheel to and from nests jammed along narrow rock ledges.

Nilsen climbs the ladder with no hesitation, toting a pole with a mirror on the end and stretching it along the ledge to count chicks and eggs in nests she can’t quite see into. Kittiwakes swoop past her head and scream wild protests. She gets the job done quickly and scampers back down, looking like she took a few direct hits from the birds in a paintball fight. When I ask to climb the ladder for some photography, she has one piece of advice: “If you look up, don’t open your mouth!”

Each of the trio of Masters students has a different dissertation attached to this kittiwake colony. Skomsø and Kristiansen take blood samples to monitor hormones and toxins while Nilsen measures body temperature of specific birds using a thermocouple inserted in the cloac to establish a database for calibrating stress associated with capture and handling. Veteran biologists have spent decades tracking the effects of climate change and ocean toxins on various Arctic species, but this trio and their peers will soon inherit the problems of a warming planet. Like this study site, the way forward promises to be a rocky uphill struggle fraught with dangers.

CLICK PHOTO FOR SCIENCE ON THE ROCKS:

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Scientist atop ladder on high cliffs checks kittiwake nests along ledges using mirror attached to long pole. © Randall Hyman

 

VIDEO REPRISE: On the brink

July 24, 2013

This brief video perches readers atop the precipitous cliffs of Spitsbergen Island where two field assistants snag Brünnich’s guillemots from narrow ledges to track the health of a breeding colony.  (For more details on their work, see  On the brink: Life as a field assistant.)

CLICK PHOTO TO VIEW VIDEO:

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Field tech secures Brünnich’s guillemot just snagged from narrow ledge along high cliffs of breeding colony. © Randall Hyman

PHOTO GALLERY: Life as a field assistant

July 24, 2013

Want a two-month summer job that’s ten hours a day, seven days a week, perched atop sheer cliffs in freezing rain snaring seabirds off narrow ledges? Then this job’s for you: field assistant for the Norwegian Polar Institute in Ny-Ålesund, Spitsbergen Island. Icelander Saga Svavarsdóttir and Frenchman Delphin Ruché wouldn’t have it any other way. “We are lucky to have this job,” says Svavarsdóttir. “We work more hours than we have to and stay out in the field as much as we can.”

On a typical day, they cut across stormy seas to Ossian Sars, once connected to land by glaciers until ice began rapidly disappearing in the late 1990s. As we hike up the back side of mountain cliffs, the terrain becomes grassy and green, fertilized by guano. This is paradise for foxes, skilled climbers who prey upon kittiwake chicks, often pushed from ledge nests by larger siblings. Days earlier I watched a hungry fox with pups chewing on a kittiwake wing near this same site.

Topping a blustery ridge, we scuttle down slippery, grass-covered hummocks and boulders to the edge of precipitous cliffs overlooking a foggy fjord clogged with ice from calving glaciers.  Kittiwakes and Brünnich’s guillemots, or thick-billed murres, crowd sheer ledges and fill the frigid air with shrill complaints and deep groans that sound like a mix of wild children screaming and demonic clowns laughing.

Sliding over a cliff on a rope tied around a boulder, Ruché lowers a pole with a snare on the end and expertly snags a guillemot by its neck. He whips the pole skyward to Svavarsdóttir who grabs the noose and deftly loosens it while cradling the bird in her lap, stoically ignoring a nasty cut on her hand delivered by the guillemot’s sharp beak. Ruché joins her topside and the pair weigh, measure, band and blood-sample the bird before lofting it back to its comrades below.

By day’s end they sample four birds and log hours of notes on individual nests, eggs and chick survival. Their efforts help scientists monitor the health of seabird colonies by measuring breeding success, blood toxins and hormonal balance. As climate change brings warmer waters and consequent shifts in zooplankton and fish populations, several cliff-nesting seabird species have suffered, placing them on the brink in more ways than one. (To view a video of their work, see VIDEO REPRISE: On the brink.)

CLICK PHOTO AND GO TO THE BRINK:

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Field tech releases guillemot after weighing and sampling blood and feathers atop cliffs of breeding colony. © Randall Hyman

 

 

VIDEO REPRISE: Mother Goose

July 23, 2013

This short video reviews the work of Dutch research biologist, Margje de Jong, as Mother Goose of the Arctic, tracking growth differences in barnacle geese as she hand-raises them to measure the effects of degraded grazing lands.  (For details behind the video, see previous post, Mother Goose as Scientist.)

CLICK PHOTO TO VIEW VIDEO:

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Mother Goose with her brood. © Randall Hyman

 

PHOTO GALLERY: Mother goose as scientist

July 22, 2013

“Oh look,” exclaims a visitor standing on the main road into the Ny-Ålesund science village on Spitsbergen Island, “they think she’s their mother!” The scene she beholds is admittedly endearing, but it’s all about science. Ten downy goslings, stubby winglets stretched outward for balance, waddle frantically behind Masters student Margje de Jong as she heads back to the Dutch science station calling, “Kom, kom, kom!”

Borrowing a page from early field experiments of renowned ethologist Konrad Lorenz, de Jong raised her flock of barnacle geese as hatchlings and imprinted them on herself as head of the brood. Being Mother Goose has its perks, but tending a flock of disobedient goslings isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be. It is a 24/7 commitment no matter the rain, wind and cold, day in, day out. (Also see VIDEO REPRISE: Mother Goose)

“They have a mind of their own,” she laughs, “and don’t always want to follow.”  Sitting in a sunny field of spongy moss the next day, she shows a grudging affection for her fuzzy charges, despite the scientist in her, calling each one by its colored leg bands, read left to right. “Green-green is the independent one, always wandering off and then coming back to make trouble. Green-red was looking sick for a few days but now he’s bounced back. Yellow-white is one of the the really big ones.”

As they tumble over her legs and nestle in her lap, she smiles and tickles one of them, but hers is a serious mission, simulating wild conditions as best she can with semi-captive animals.  Stopwatch and notebook in hand, de Jong meticulously records the feeding habits of each gosling. Having set up a series of cages in the field that prevent wild geese from foraging her plots, she is able to feed her own brood in two consecutive groups, the first enjoying choice pasture, the second getting lower quality.

She hopes to simulate conditions in the Netherlands, where geese are overgrazing, and see what happens in the Arctic. Will second-class goslings here exhibit decreased growth and increased disease? What will this mean for the Svalbard-Scotland population (see previous post Return of the Terns),  which has exploded from 243 birds in 1943 to over 33,000 today?

Ny-Ålesund fields that were once lush with summertime grasses and provided precious habitat for phalaropes and other waders are now bare. Should winter hunting in Scotland be reinstated, or should humans bow out of the equation?  Policy makers depend on scientists like de Jong to make sure no one leads them on a wild goose chase.

CLICK PHOTO FOR YOUR OWN GOOSE CHASE:

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Dutch scientist studies feeding patterns of goslings. © Randall Hyman

PHOTO GALLERY: Sysselmannen’s Svalbard guardians

July 21, 2013

“We are the face of the governor’s office,” says Cecilie Sørensen, one of two regional field inspectors based in Ny-Ålesund. She and her field partner, Ragnhild Røsseland, hold two of six coveted summer positions for which more than 100 outdoorsmen apply each year to patrol the high seas and mountain wilderness of Svalbard making sure everyone, from scientists to cruise ships to yachtsmen to adventurers obey the laws protecting nature and cultural artifacts. These two women, tough as nails and expert in wilderness survival, work for Svalbard’s administrative governor, or Sysselmannen, an appointed position akin to a police chief and national park superintendent rolled into one.

“Thousands of visitors come to Svalbard each year,” she adds, “so it’s important that we are here for Norway, in the fjords, checking that everyone has permission and insurance from the Sysselmannen’s office.”  In an Arctic wilderness where 3000 polar bears roam and storms materialize from nowhere, helicopter rescues (when they are even possible) can cost $25,000.

Patrolling from mid afternoon till 3:30am this particular day and night, they catalog artifacts and GPS position of an old trapper’s hut, then discover another one miles away that even a helicopter had failed to spot tucked beside a glacier.  In between we visit a popular wilderness hut and come upon a grisly crime scene: a reindeer skeleton with its antlers inextricably tangled in a fishing net someone foolishly left uncovered.  It is clear from the pile of fur and broken pieces of antler that it suffered a slow, miserable death futilely trying to free itself. It takes three of us to carry the heavy net to our boat and prevent a repeat tragedy, but sadly we find another net the women also remove, washed up on shore near the glacier hut.

On the happier side, we get up close and personal with puffins so tame we can nearly touch them… and a polar bear so huge we’re glad he cannot touch us!  After a magical afternoon and night of mirror-smooth seas, mosaic clouds and midnight sunshine so brilliant that the landscape looks surreal, we stop our engine in mid fjord and sit in pristine paradise.  We bask in utter solitude in a place and time no one will ever witness again as a massive sigh breaks the silence on our port side.  Almost as a tribute to this rare moment and experience, a minke whale seamlessly glides past, intermittently spraying the seas with its breathing, and disappearing into the deep.

CLICK PHOTO TO JOIN THE SYSSELMANNEN WOMEN:

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Regional field inspectors Cecilie Sørensen and Ragnhild Røsseland patrol the waters and coastline of Svalbard, Norway. © Randall Hyman

 

VIDEO REPRISE: Return of the terns

July 21, 2013

A short video takes viewers behind the scenes to see how Dutch biologists capture, measure and tag Arctic terns in Svalbard to study their amazing annual roundtrip between Antarctica and the Arctic, during which they log over 80,000 kilometers, the world’s longest bird migration. For more details, see earlier post, Return of the terns.

CLICK PHOTO TO LOG FREQUENT FLYER MILES:

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Dutch scientist studies Arctic tern migration. © Randall Hyman

PHOTO GALLERY: Return of the terns

July 21, 2013

The Dutch research station at Ny-Ålesund is no fly-by-night operation, especially when it comes to Arctic terns, who literally fly to the ends of the Earth to avoid darkness.  As world record holders for long-distance migration, these terns bask in endless daylight in Antarctica, November through February, and return north when the sun dawns in the Arctic bringing summer-long continuous daytime. Like scientists on an avian treasure hunt, the Netherlands team searches the village for nesting terns, scooping them gently from their nests and retrieving ultra-light geolocator loggers from their legs to fit them with new ones. (see later post, VIDEO REPRISE: Return of the terns)

Wearing knit caps to protect themselves from the stilleto-sharp beaks and screaming dives of indignant terns, Arctic ecologist Maarten Loonen and Masters student Tim van Oosten work together capturing and tagging birds.  Loonen explains, “Our loggers show that the Svalbard population flies over 20,000 kilometers (12,500 miles) on a zig-zag route from the Weddell Sea on the Antarctic Peninsula, stopping first in West Africa, then Central America, then Greenland and finally back here. In total they fly as much as 80,000 kilometers (50,000 miles) per year. This was a surprise.”

Many terns have already bred now and fledged their young, but those who suffered egg predation from foxes or polar bears are still nesting and can actually lay up to three times a season if their eggs are taken. They depend on the fat capelin and Arctic cod in the waters surrounding Svalbard to breed and stay healthy. Despite steadily rising ocean temperatures, these fish have so far remained abundant.

“They are income breeders and come here to both feed and lay,” adds Loonen.  “Our other study species, barnacle geese (see later post Mother Goose as scientist), are capital breeders who converge in Scotland in huge flocks in spring to fatten up on grass before flying here to raise their young.”

Van Oosten’s work helps Loonen compare the health of Netherlands-nesting terns with the Svalbard population, which just begins nesting in the Arctic when Dutch terns are ready to fly south. The timing of upwelling ocean currents that produce good fishing along the migration route may be critical.

“The number of terns nesting here this year is one third of previous years,” says Loonen.  “I’ve noticed their tail feathers are worn and dirty, which could mean they had some trouble feeding during migration and arrived here in poor condition.”

Meanwhile, some terns have already begun gathering on islands surrounding Ny-Ålesund to prepare for their long flight back to Antarctica in August.  Loonen and Van Oosten wish them many happy re-terns.

CLICK PHOTO WHEN IT’S YOUR TERN:

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Arctic terns return from Antarctica. © Randall Hyman

VIDEO: Glacier spectacular… breaking the ice

July 14, 2013

There are times when nature’s forces overwhelm and leave one viscerally stunned, struggling to fully comprehend what just occurred. Watching a glacier calve huge blocks of ice into the sea is not usually in that category. It is exciting, to be sure, but not terrifying.

On the very rare occasion, though, that one happens to be half a kilometer directly in front of a towering glacier that suddenly erupts with a deafening roar and collapses in a succession of thunderclaps in all directions, climaxing with the entire height of one section keeling forward in an explosion of spinning ice projectiles and airborne ocean, the experience definitely qualifies as both heart-thumping-thrilling and terrifying… especially when when one realizes that there is a tsunami wave headed for your boat after four endless minutes of domino-like calving.

It is perhaps understandable if snapping pictures takes a back seat to thoughts of survival at times like these, but it is the memory of a lifetime and worth sharing with others as a reminder of our smallness as well as our role in global warming and the steady disappearance of magnificent, awe-inspiring glaciers worldwide.

CLICK PHOTO FOR TIME-LAPSE VIDEO OF CALVING GLACIER:

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Huge section of glacier crashes into ocean in Svalbard. © Randall Hyman

VIDEO: Taking a break on an iceberg

July 11, 2013

Reporting on climate change in the Arctic is serious business, but sometimes you just gotta have fun and relax a bit. Getting marooned on an iceberg in the middle of the Barents Sea is a good start. (Photo of me courtesy of Norwegian Coast Guard officer Kenneth Mula)

CLICK PHOTO TO HOP ON AN ICEBERG:

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Randall Hyman sits on an iceberg at midnight in the Arctic Ocean. © Kenneth Mula

 

PHOTO GALLERY: When bird scientists bear all

July 8, 2013

Everyone wants to see a polar bear when they come to the Arctic. It’s only natural, and great bragging rights. They are magnificent creatures, an ursine version of the Terminator, practically unstoppable, even with bullets, and they find humans just as tasty as a seal meal.

While it’s thrilling seeing one, polar bears are a mixed blessing if you’re studying ground-nesting birds. “I’m Homeland Security, and home is Storholmen Island,” says Børge Moe, research biologist from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA). He and evolutionary biologist Sveinn Are Hanssen, also of NINA (see related posting, Tromsø: City life, ducks and geopolitics), have been coming to Svalbard for years studying eiders and skuas, but recent trends have made them as much polar bear specialists as bird scientists.

“There didn’t used to be many bears in the area, but now we have to really watch out,” says Moe. “Today was great. We got to see one on a nearby island and then do our work on Storholmen. That gave us thirty minutes for sure before he could swim the two kilometers to get to us.” (To view a video about their work, see VIDEO REPRISE: Seeking the Arctic skua)

Working with them for four hours on the island, I find his calculation slim consolation, but Arctic scientists count risks differently than New York bankers. Swapping binoculars and a single rifle, Hansen, Moe and Masters student Elise Skottene keep a watchful eye for the bear while checking nests, counting eggs and snaring birds the length of Storholmen.

In the end, it is a great day, with photos of a bearded seal on ice, an Arctic skua perched on a small berg, a polar bear peering over a ridge, and lots of birds snared, fitted with electronic loggers and sampled for toxins in their blood. On the down side, eiders have abandoned all nests on the tip of Storholmen where the team saw the bear swim ashore two days earlier.

“We’ve been talking with our colleagues who work elsewhere on Spitsbergen and we’ve all seen dramatic increases in polar bear predation on eggs and chicks over the past 20 years,” says Moe.

With less ice, more summer bears get left behind on Svalbard hunting for food on land instead of seals at sea. The data Moe has compiled on the topic is stunning and compelling, but more about that in an upcoming article.

CLICK PHOTO TO JOIN THE TEAM (viewer bears all risks):

 

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Emaciated polar bear hunts for food on Svalbard isle in summer, marooned by vanishing sea ice. © Randall Hyman

PHOTO GALLERY: Ny-Ålesund, with Arctic science for all

July 8, 2013

Three months after visiting in the grips of winter, I am back in Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard) in the High North above the 78th latitude. The landscape has dramatically changed since mid April — see earlier posting, It takes a village (aka science base) —  when a silky sheet stretched across Spitsbergen Island, covering glaciers and mountains in seamless white undulations. From the air, the island is now an abstract collage of black and white. Jagged crevasses slice across glaciers like bony ribs on a hungry animal as the relentless sun melts away winter fat and crystalline blue melt waters fill the gaps.  Rivers pour from beneath glaciers and from mountain valleys, pumping clouds of ocher and gray silt into the fjords.

Ny-Ålesund itself is only recognizable because the buildings are the same, but what was ice and snow in April is now green mosses and gray rock teeming with barnacle geese, arctic terns,  phalaropes, buntings, wagtails and sandpipers.  Once a coal mining town, Ny-Ålesund is now both science base and history museum, with all original buildings protected as cultural landmarks. Over a dozen nations maintain research stations in these buildings, many of them countries that would have no access to Arctic research were they not signatories of the Svalbard Treaty, which grants equal land and sea rights to all treaty members.

CLICK BELOW TO SEE THE VILLAGE AND RESEARCH IN SUMMER:

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Stark landscape emerges as snow melts around the Ny-Ålesund science base in Svalbard, Norway. © Randall Hyman