Team Shrub has been visiting the Arctic for a decade to capture tundra responses to climate change. Each year we take a team photo - can you spot the trick to the team uniforms? We are just wrapping up our 9th field season on Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island, this time supported by National Geographic Society, the NERC Arctic Office and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. This summer our field team was PhD student Gergana Daskalova @gndaskalova, photographer and scientist Jeff Kerby @jtkerby, drone pilot Luke Hull @lhull87 and me, Isla Myers-Smith @teamshrub, joined by our Yukon Parks and scientific colleagues. In the Greening Arctic project, we captured island-scale tundra greenness to test the links between satellite records and on-the-ground ecological monitoring of tundra responses to a warming climate. We teamed up with the NASA ABoVE project and collected airborne and drone data across scales of tundra landscapes undergoing permafrost thaw and vegetation change. In the Hidden Arctic project, we unveiled the tundra’s hidden and so called “dark” biodiversity – the elusive plant species that have so far escaped the sights of scientists, yet might be key for shaping Arctic ecosystems of the future. We conducted a plant species treasure height finding the biodiversity just out side of long-term monitoring plots and the micro climates in which those species are growing. Now that the team is back from up north, over the coming weeks we will be posting about our summer experiences and our first findings as they begin rolling in. Join us to find out what we were up to in 2019 in our yellow rain jacket and red hat!
https://teamshrub.com/lab-blog/
https://openexplorer.nationalgeographic.com/expedition/teamshrub
https://openexplorer.nationalgeographic.com/expedition/hiddenarctic
Supported by @insidenatgeo, @nercscience and @royalscotgeosoc. #GreeningArctic #HiddenArctic #TeamShrub #NASA_ABoVE #YukonParks #Canada #Yukon #Arctic #Qikiqtaruk #tundra #biodiversity #drone #UKinArctic #RSGSGrants @openexplorer @edinburghuniversity @edinunigeosciences @dartmoutharctic
A portrait of Slumpy the polar bear inspired by first hand observation and photographs @jtkerby and @gndaskalova. Slumpy visited Pauline Cove on Qikiqtaruk - Herschel Island during a wild period of storms that had us weathered in on the island for almost an entire extra week. After 46 out of what was supposed to be 41 days in the Arctic, we have finished our Greening Arctic expedition and flown off from our Arctic field site. We left the island in snowy white sunshine, a far cry from the verdant green tundra we were capturing this summer with our drones. How is this Arctic landscape changing as the planet warms? Slumpy the bear is experiencing thawing permafrost, earlier sea ice melt and later refreeze first hand. And perhaps he notices the greater vegetation cover and plant growth too. He was a pretty muddy bear, but blended quite well into the mix of late season yellows and browns of the tundra with a white dusting of snow. Just a day ago, we had our last views of this tundra landscape as our plane took off south.
Check out Geo’s Open Explorer and teamshrub.com for current and future posts about our adventures as we collect our thoughts after our Arctic field season.
https://teamshrub.com/blog
https://openexplorer.nationalgeographic.com/expedition/teamshrub
Supported by @insidenatgeo and @nercscience. #GreeningArctic #Canada #Yukon #Arctic #Qikiqtaruk #PolarBear @edinburghuniversity @edinunigeosciences @dartmoutharctic
