Archive for June, 2010
Back in the Arctic
June 28th, 2010 | 
Author: We are back in Longyearbyen for a week already, but it has been too busy until now to post anything to the blog. This year we will perform an experiment similar to those of last year but adding a new twist. We will not only look a the effect of warming on Arctic microbial communities, but also to “the other CO2 problem”, acidification. Again, our experiment will cover most of the microbial food web including phytoplankton, bacteria, protozoa and even viruses.
Collecting water on Viking Explorer. From left to right: the seawater sample (in the white carboys), John the skipper, Iñigo and Alexia.
The experiment has grown so big that the start has been very demanding. A lot of problems that we could not foresee had to be solved during the setup in a very limited time. We have been connecting hundreds of meters of tubing for both cooling liquids and treatment gases and leaks and trouble were unavoidable. Matching the power-hungry experimental units to the cooling capacity of the UNIS facilities has been also problematic, requiring extra work and testing the patience of the logistics department at UNIS. Getting all the systems working properly required that almost all members of the team were up for almost twenty hours per day, everyday from Monday to Friday. Despite the strenuous schedule, the team has continued working with amazing energy until everything was working smoothly. By Wednesday, the basic temperature and lighting setup was up and running, allowing to collect the water samples and start the experiment. Setting up all the gas connections required two extra days but everything was fine on Saturday morning. Thank you all for your hard work!
More about the team in the next post…
The experimental setup in the making...
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