observations

Guest

Dear Amy, Anya, Mikhael, Max, Sasha, Lena, Chris, Oliver and everyone,

Jim and I just got your email and have looked at the journal of your trip. We are very excited to see how well it is going and what a great experience you are having! I really wish I could be with you and see the river at this time.
I couldn't help thinking how important it will be to take very good observations of the break up period with lots of notes, photos, stage heights,etc. One of the biggest criticisms of arctic discharge records and biogeochemistry is that the breakup period is impossible to gauge or sample. Is this true of all large rivers? Is it true at all? Is there any way you can estimate how much of the discharge or chemical flux is impossible to sample because of ice during breakup? Does the breakup itself cause such a hugh sediment resuspension that this is the largest partriculate flux of the year?, etc.
I admit that I am completely ignorant on this topic because I have seen breakup only on small arctic rivers where ice was frozen to the bottom and water flows on top during the melt period. It sounds as if Mikhael's experience will be very valuable to record with respect to whether this is a typical spring breakup.
Please excuse my enthusiasm, I know that Sasha and Max will know very well how important this period is and how critical these observations really are.
But how amazing it is to realize that observations taken in a remote Siberian city can be so essential to our understanding of how the hydrology of the Earth is responding to climate change!
Best wishes to all. It was great to see Lena and everyone in the photos. I hope Amy's students are getting a lot out of this adventure. Take care and good luck sampling.

Cheers, Bruce

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 84

Thanks Bruce, we are super excited about being here during this critical time too. We'll do our best to get numerous observations and photographs. There seems to be some sort of marking system on the beach, but we still need to ask a local what each of the posts indicate. I imagine this will be very helpful too in collecting some of the data you mentioned!!

Thanks,
Amy