Hell is cold

Well, last week I had a pretty strange adventure taking snow samples up on the Alaska Prudhoe bay oilfields. I think the pictures tell the story best. The temps on our work days were in the -30s F, with the windchill. Not too bad for up there in February.

This picture is the Deadhorse airfield with blowing snow and temps of -50s F, with windchill. Our operations would have ceased if temps dropped below -60F. In the range of -40 to -60, work can go on outside, so long as workers get frequent breaks.


In the picture I'm wearing four pairs of socks, five hats, and six layers over my upstairs. The coveralls stayed up better when I put on the belt. The boots are a military surplus called "bunny boots"; good to -40F or colder...




Here my coworkers are drilling into a lake used for water supply. The ice is about a meter thick and we took water chemistry measurements to make sure the fish could live happily at the bottom.


Here's a frozen North Slope river on the plane ride home. So good to get home to Fairbanks safe and sound!



Many, many pictures from this trip can be found here:

A little more Xmas

Here are another couple of Christmas picts. Bob looking inquisitively at a boot on a fencepost and Bob's parently relaxing in the kitchen after a long day of present-opening. I'll admit shamefully that I have very few pictures from the xmas bonanza. I'll do better next year, I hope.

Winter in Fbx

Well, here are some highlights during a lot of cold, dark days. Mooses. Cool frost. Decking Matilda out in polarfleece.

Fall Field work

Given my recent New York Times coverage, I thought I'd post some picts from my fall fieldwork back in New York. Here's a shot my collaborator Allan took as we were scoping out a potential second site. I'm up on Stormking Mountain, overlooking the Hudson River and Connecticut. We didn't end up using this ridgetop station, but the view was fab. Notice the fashionable use of fluorescent clothing. It was hunging season in the forest while I was there. Not wanting to look uncool while I was working, I'm sporting an American Appearal scoopneck and some fingerless gloves by my hipster friend Dancing Anne.

And here's Bambi's daddy. Not clear what was going on here, but he's taking a breather at the old Stone House. The deer hunt helps the forest grow big and strong--it's still recovering from it's 19th century deforestation.



This is some of the new equipment I installed at the new site. The giant steel plates measure the weight of snow in the (imagine) snow pack.

The moon rising over my Stone House station was a common site the week I was there. I did much of my work after dark with a headlamp, Fairbanks style.

Hello 2007

Well, it's just been darn cold this week. But still a magical winterland. I guess. I think -15 might be my cutoff for skiing. It's just unpleasant below that. And the dogs start to get cold skijoring below -20 or so. Because we've been down in the -40s and -30s all week, that means some quality time inside. As you can see, Matilda is surrendering to winter, too. Five or six months of hibernation sound good.

Old stomping grounds

Following San Fran, Bob and I flew to Denver and drove to WY and NE to visit family. A wonderful time was had by all, I think. And it sure was great to breathe some fresh Prairie air. I miss the ol' place. Here are a couple of photos from western Nebraska: one of a soddie rebuilt in the 1960s and one of us near Chimney Rock. Last time I was here the tower was taller. Mom relayed a story that some kids shot the top off with a rifle. Figures.


Bob's mom got installed as the new minister out in Guernsey and Ft. Laramie. We got our church in for the year and were completely bathed in sweets and baked goods by the congregation. I felt like my mom must have felt growing up as the minister's kid in Scottsbluff, a few miles down the road. Highlights included a couple banjo performances by Bob's father, Mary Ellen and I propping up the choir, Uncle Bill's Christmas suit, and his dog Princess' jingle bells. Next, we headed to Lincoln and enjoyed a couple days with my family. The highlight there was seeing Grandpa and my brother battle it out with a robotic dinosaur and remote-controlled helicopter, respectively.

end of 2006

Well, it's been a while since I updated, but stop blowin' yo horns. This lady is busy. December brought a whirlwind of moving and travel. Bob and I and the three puppies moved into a new house with running water and an inside toilet. You'll have the check Bob's blog for photos of the new place. I was back in NY doing field work in November, so Bob started the move without me. Both of our cabins had serious mold problems so it was time to take the plunge. Of course the pipes froze before we even moved in, but that's par for the course here in Fbx.


In mid-December, we headed to San Fran for the American Geophysical Union meeting, the annual pow-wow for all earth scientists. The atmosphere was particularly gloomy, I thought. Lots of rain and lots of depressed scientists with proposal rejections. Times are tight in the science budgets these days. Still, the highlight was seeing friends and eating burritos, as our Abby can attest to.

Ciao summer

I'm finally home from my crazy month of traveling. These are actual pictures that I took in Fairbanks in September. SEPTEMBER. They weren't kidding about the short summers. At least a friendly face greets me in the window here. All three dogs are playing every day until they drop from exhaustion. Bob is out doing field work on the Seward Peninsula again, but I'm sure he will post more dog pictures when he's back. I've posted links to his and my other friends' blogs.

This is my first week with my new studded tires. I don't know how I got this far in life without studded tires, but Fairbanksians assure me that I can't live without them here. Though I have to wonder about those people driving 20 year old Novas or little Caprices...I mean, surely those aren't just their summer cars? Maybe they take the bus in winter. Or get by somehow, as many people seem to do here.

The aurora have been amazing this fall. Bob and watched them tear through the sky a few nights ago. Strong green waves flowing quickly across the black sky. I don't have a camera that can capture them, and Bob didn't have his with him...so we were stuck just watching the light, awestruck.

Capturing life's science

After returning from British rambling, I headed to NYC to build some new sensors for my field station north of town. My collaborator Allan was kind enough to give me some workspace at CUNY on the Upper Eastside, near good coffee and expensive food. And the worlds poshest Home Depot, let me tell you.







I didn't envision my visit to NYC would be spent locked in a small room on the roof of a highrise, soldering 120 thermistors onto telephone wires, but such is the adventurous life of science.

I did manage to see many friends and then head to Boston to give a couple more talks. The weather was pleasantly warm and it was great to see my brother and his wife in Boston.

Merry Ol'

In late August, I headed to England to give a talk at a meeting in Cambridge. It was a real triumph, as the ol' beans would say. After a week of feeling very old skool at the Scott Polar Research Inst and seeing friends (Alex, Misha, Katia, Todd) in town, I headed down to Reading for the weekend. There I visited my friends Andrew, Cristina, and Judith, who showed me around London and the countryside. So great to see everyone! Great to see England! I heart tea!!






The weather was a delightful change from the snow we'd had at Toolik the week before. My favorite thing we did was go for a couple of rambles across the countryside. Walking through fields and past churches and vast estates. And when got tired, we just stopped for tea, of course!

Toolik, Take 2

Late August finds me up on the North Slope again, at Toolik Field Station. This trip is part of my institute’s annual graduate summer climate science workshop. The weather has been unseasonably cold here, but the students have kept a positive attitude and we’ve had some fun times. Since we are studying snow and ecology, it is nice that we could arrange for a snow event up here. It really illustrates some of the concepts we’ve been discussing. Still, with so many people in camp in the cold, we are at full power generating capacity and have to schedule electricity outages. The poor students have been wearing their gloves and hats during the lectures in the dark classroom tent. I don’t think anyone will be sad to say goodbye to the snow when we leave, but the wood-fired sauna has assuaged our suffering considerably.

A couple of days ago, we drove up to Prudhoe Bay to get a tour of the oilfields and swim in the Arctic Ocean. Brrr. I don’t need to do that again. Prudhoe Bay was an interesting place to see, given the current partial shutdown of the pumping there. The oil fields look like a sight from Mad Max; big, color-coded camps for each company, isolated by swampy tundra. BP, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and Haliburton are all there. We saw a grizzly bear near the road, jumping on a squirrel burrow. The flat coastal plain looks a lot like the Nebraska prairie, and in fact we saw a flock of Sandhill cranes, making their way south. 10,000 year-old Athabaskan ruins have been found here, where hunters watched for herds of caribou. It’s a beautiful place where the landscape has changed both slowly and quickly. The caribou have wandered this slope for thousands of years, but now the pipeline snakes quietly through the river valley. More development is likely to come.

Yesterday we took a break from the classroom to head into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for a great hike in the Brooks Range. This has been a perfect way to cap the summer season. Tomorrow we head back to Fairbanks and I fly off to a meeting in England. Bob is also out in the field, a couple hundred miles to the west from here in a place called Ivotuk. He’s uninstalling some meteorological towers with a Russian friend of ours who eats raw bacon. I hope you guys are staying warm! Thanks to modern technology, we’ve been able to keep in touch via wireless internet, even in these remote places. Thank you Al Gore.

Adventures with Superbob

So who’s this Bob guy? Well, he appeared in an earlier blog as the leader of the adventure to Nome and environs. He seems to have stuck around ever since. Bob is a hydrology field engineer and researcher, photographer, chef, dog lover, and blogger (rbusey.org/junk) extraordinare. From Sitka in Southeast Alaska. He lives in a cabin down the road from me with his girls, Midge and Bergey. Bob’s been in Fairbanks for the last ten years and current goals include getting indoor plumbing shortly after (?) his outhouse frost-jacks completely out of the ground. Bob is also the nexus for a cast of great local characters: strong ladies and goofy men, is how I would describe them. That seems to be the way they grow ‘em up here!

Summer in Alaska

There was a season on visitors this summer in Fairbanks. In early May, Tim and Rachel came up to see me and on the way back stopped in Seattle to see Rachel’s sister Danielle. Though Fairbanksians are already enthusiastically sporting short sleeves and rollerskis by this time, there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground. We all went to Denali Park before it was officially open. We biked in a few miles and saw a Ptarmigan and a momma bear with cubs. Biked through a couple snow squalls…it was still pretty cold. Tim and Rachel took it easy around Fairbanks then, while I worked. They helped me finish unpacking and headed to the nearby hotsprings. It was a fun visit, but you two should come back when it’s warm!

Next came my pal Jeff from Lamont. He flew into Anchorage, which gave me an excuse to go check out South Central Alaska. We hiked and camped near Hope, Seward (lovely Primrose Campground on Kenai Lake), and Whittier. We drove back to Fairbanks and Jeff, Bob and I went hiking at Angel Rocks before Jeff headed out on a four-day solo trek on the Chena dome trail. Luckily he didn’t run into the bears that were wandering around out there. Then he headed back to Anchorage on the train. Matilda came along on most of the adventures, but she was still having a lot of behavior problems. She could seem to be let out of my sight without whining and crying. Poor Jeff! They became buddies by the end though.

Next came Mom. We had lots of fun. Bob, Mom, and I headed down to Denali for a nice bus tour. It was drizzly, but that merely brought out the nice colors on the rocks. Polychrome was gorgeous. Mom also enjoyed kicking around Fairbanks, heading to the knitting store, watching us BBQ, and seeing the giant cabbage at the botanical garden. Bob had a list of required activities including the hotsprings and North Pole, where we took photos of us with giant, barbed wire-lined Santa next to an RV park. By the end of the week, Mom even got the hang of the outhouse. Yay! Matilda was feeling much better about life by this time. Bob’s been teaching her to meditate when she gets angry and to get along with his dogs. Getting better all the time. But when Grandma Judy brought dried liver chips, she became an instant hit.

After Mom came Abby and Miriam, my friends from graduate school. Along with Bob and the three dogs (Bob’s two and my one) the five of us had a blast. Abby and Miriam took a great backpacking trip to Denali. Then we went to a fun wedding reception for Bob’s photographer/dog musher friends Sam and Jillian. The highlights of that night included Bob taking illicit pictures with the camera of the bride’s father and them becoming best buddies afterwards. The evening culminated with a guy running through the yard with a BBQ rib in his mouth, chased by 8 or 9 dogs ranging from huskies to a small poodle. Abby, Miriam, Bob, Matilda, and I also went berry picking and canoeing on Abby’s last weekend in town. Lots of fun!! Great summer everyone!!

End of an Era

I’ve finally ended a long run at Columbia University. There’s no other place quite like it. I moved to Manhattan when I was 18 years old and left just after turning 29. Looking back, I couldn’t imagine spending these years of my life anywhere else. What an adventure. It was hard to leave. During the last 8 years New York became a cultural center for my generation. It was THE place to be. Other Nebraskans agreed as they migrated to the city for college, journalism school, law school, and jobs. Nebyorkers: I love you all! And then a war started there. A war which will be the other defining element of our generation. The impact of the war on individual families is stronger in the American South and Midwest, where most of our soldiers are coming from. But when the threat reappears on U.S. soil, I imagine New York City will return to those anxious days of 2001.

The North Slope

I just returned from another field adventure out on Alaska's North Slope, the area north of the Brooks Range. This was more of a reconnaissance mission than anything. I was working with a group from University of Texas at Austin, who was sampling water on the Sag, Kuparuk, and other rivers in the area, all the way up to Prudhoe bay.

The trip up was pretty cool. I took a van driven by a friend of mine, Alice, who has driven the haul road between Fairbanks and Prudhoe for 11 years. She knows every trucker and every tree on that road. We'd be driving in the middle of nowhere and she'd pull out the CB radio to check to see if Jack or Jerry was home. We stopped in Coldfoot to drop off some folks at the airfield. They were going to be flown into someplace for a week of hiking. Man, some people just can't get far enough away from themselves. Sheesh. This is already 6-hours north of Fairbanks. The coolest thing in Coldfoot was that a couple of kids had a lemonade stand on the airfield. How cute is that?

The Arctic cotton was in full force, since most of the snow is gone. Beautiful! Toolik Field Station was home base, a strange M*A*S*H unit for scientists. I tagged along with Jim, Amy, Breton, and Jorges while they sampled the Sag in five places. Jorges was from Peru, Jim and Amy were working in Texas and Breton was from Hawaii.














We ran into this goofy butterfly guy who was camped out at the river, about 60 miles from Prudhoe Bay. Said he was from Salt Lake City, but he'd been at that campsite for weeks looking for caterpillers. When he found them, he put little tents around them and waited for them to turn into butterfies. The day we were there was the day the first one hatched. This made me miss Matilda who likes to chase butterflies.


Toolik is mostly a biological research station, and the summer interns had just arrived. Including a goofy guy named Eugene who was a computing science bigwig who happened to enjoy lying on his stomach weeding mosses. Go figure.

There was still ice on the lake when I got there and a few days later it was almost gone. The loons are the most famous bird on this little lake, but there were also swans swimming in the open water. Very peaceful.