Get your fingertips ready to navigate a flying quadcopter during stormy Alaska weather, catch the perfect aerial shot of rare wildlife, and uncover trails through rough Arctic sea ice. Play the Arctic UAVs game on your mobile device. The game is based on real UAV research missions executed by the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration (ACUASI) program, part of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Special offer: Frontier Scientists Arctic UAVs game app is now free! Download it for your Apple iOS Apple ITunes Apps (free at the link) & Android Google Play Apps (email Laura [at] FrontierScientists.com for a code to use at checkout).
Science emerges from beneath permafrost [VIDEOS]
“There’s a tremendous store of carbon in Arctic permafrost, nearly twice as much as there is in the atmosphere right now,” reported Jason Dobkowski, research biologist at the University of Michigan. “What’s going to happen to that carbon is a really important question on a global scale.” Organic carbon in the form of ancient plants– stored frozen in permafrost for thousands of years– is thawing and reentering active cycles, ending up in rivers and lakes where “Photochemical or sunlight-driven reaction turns organic carbon from thawed permafrost into carbon dioxide, which contributes further to global warming,” said Dr. Rose Cory, University of Michigan professor of aquatic geochemistry. Scientists work to define how quickly those processes will happen, as well as how changes in the timing and the quantity of water moving through Arctic environments influences water quality and water availability.
Scientists from Idaho State University, the University of Michigan, and University of Alaska Fairbanks go North to better define how Arctic carbon interacts with the water cycle in Frontier Scientists program ‘Tracking Water, Tracking Carbon’.
Permafrost keeps other secrets, hiding and preserving artifacts from humanity’s past. In Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve, archaeologists excavate ancient hunting camps. Tools and bones as much as 7,000 years old reveal the cunning and craftsmanship of some of the earliest people to occupy Alaska. These Natives survived changing climate conditions during the Mid-Holocene as slow post-ice-age warming transformed landscapes and ecosystems. The hunter-gatherer groups relied on animals, particularly caribou, to supply meals, clothing, tools and homes; bones and worked stone tools left behind at their campsites reveal tales of culture, survival and adaptation. “When I started investigating,” reported Andrew Tremayne, archaeologist and PhD thesis graduate student at the University of California, Davis, “You could see the bones actually still in place, basically just sticking out of the profile of this wall.”
Hear from National Park Service archaeologists who excavated dig sites on the shores of Matcharak Lake, Alaska, in Frontier Scientists program ‘Matcharak Lake’.
Special Event
Are you in the Anchorage area? Join Frontier Scientists for free videos and live talks by scientists sharing science on Tuesday, August 9th.
Tuesday August 9. Cook Inlet volcanoes will astound– hear tales from Game McGimsey, volcanologist and research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey – Alaska Volcano Observatory. The future of polar bears will amaze– Karyn Rode, research wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey – Alaska Science Center reports. The boreal forest will surprise– Bjartmar Sveinbjörnsson, professor of biological sciences and director of the Environment and Natural Resources Institute at the University of Alaska Anchorage, reveals. Be curious and expand your Alaskan world. You can bring your lunch to this get-together on the Alaska Pacific University campus, in the Leslie Holland-Bartels Conference room in Glenn Olds Hall on campus; drinks provided. 4210 University Dr., Anchorage, AK 99508-4626. A map and further details on FrontierScientists.com.
Fuzzy Friends at the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta
Stay tuned for New research from the YK Delta. Meanwhile watch cute fuzzy wildlife feasting on Carex subspathacea from video by Ryan Choi.
Frontier Scientists 2016
(Free featured science photochemistry permafrost dig game app education event)
Frontier Scientists: presenting scientific discovery in the Arctic and beyond
