Barrow, Alaska January 14, 2014 -28°C (-18°F), cloudy, moderate wind Today — in our continued quest to find life in, on, and under Arctic sea ice in the dead of winter — we hit rock bottom. Well, ok… more of a sandy bottom. We were using a Ponar-type grab sampler to collect sediment from underneath […]

Barrow, Alaska January 13, 2014 -24°C (-11°F), partly cloudy, light wind We made two trips to the ice today. The first trip was to a near site, just offshore, at about 10 am. At that hour it is still dark and we needed headlamps to work — the sun hasn’t risen here since November 18, […]

Solar noon in Barrow, Alaska. The sun hasn’t risen for weeks, remaining just below the horizon, and won’t rise again until the end of the month. I’m here for the next week with two graduate students from UAF. We’re studying the evolution and diversity of bacteria, fungi, and small animals that live in the sea […]

April 10, 2013 ConocoPhillips “has spent about $650 million” in pursuit of Arctic offshore oil drilling, but is now putting its plans on hold because of regulatory issues, so that “Shell basically will set the standard going forward.” February 9, 2013 Dozens of demonstrators arrested in Montreal during disruption of Plan Nord job fair. Plan […]

[photos from 2006 sea ice field course in Hokkaido, Japan] We are planning a sea ice field course in Barrow, Alaska, from May 8-18. All the relevant information for the course can be found in the syllabus, including costs and prerequisites. To sign up for the class, please send a CV and a 1-page summary […]