Simulating Global Warming: How Will Plant Communities Grow in Plus Two Degrees?

Based at the Climate Impacts Research Station, we take you into the field with scientists as they investigate climate change in an Arctic environment. We're with Steph Owens and Danny Lau, sampling copepods, a type of tiny crustacean that lives in the water to measure growth rates in different types of pond to see how they react to an increase in organic matter, which is likely to occur with climate change. Get in touch: Tweet @ArcticCIRC  @emmabrisdion www.arcticirc.net

Based at the Climate Impacts Research Station, this podcast takes you into the field with scientists as they investigate climate change in an Arctic environment. By placing OTCs (open-top chambers resembling a small plexiglass greenhouse with an open-top) over plots of Arctic plant growth, which increase their internal temperature by 1-2oC, we can see what happens to the plant communities when experiencing warmer seasons. Get in touch: Tweet @ArcticCIRC @emmabrisdion www.arcticirc.net

In this episode, we're heading out into the Arctic tundra. Here researchers are investigating the increasing release of stored carbon from Arctic soils into the atmosphere. In an Arctic tundra ecosystem, peat and permafrost store more carbon than trees and vegetation. With climate change, permafrost is melting and trees are growing faster and further into the carbon-heavy peat regions in the tundra. As trees drop leaves and add organic matter to the soil, the soil composition changes from peat to thinner mineral soils without as much carbon. The team are quantifying the rates of carbon released into the atmosphere from the decomposition of these carbon-heavy soil types, to help global models better understand how an increasingly warming arctic will contribute to increasing natural carbon emissions.  Thanks to Tom Parker, Jens-Arne Subke and Phil Wookey from the University of Stirling, and Lorna Street from the University of Edinburgh for sharing their research in this episode. After listening, please consider taking part in a short listener survey. It'll take less than 10 minutes, all responses are anonymous and the data collected will form part of Emma Brisdion's MSc thesis. Click here to take the survey: https://uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9zeSl7JQcD5xnx3   More episodes and information can be found here.   Based at the Abisko Scientific Research Station, this podcast takes you into the field with scientists as they investigate climate change in an Arctic environment.   Get in touch: Tweet @ArcticCIRC  Emma @emmabrisdion Email: [email protected]   Produced in partnership with the Climate Impacts Research Centre, Umea University.   Vector graphic: Freepik Music: Mark Skinner

‘Our mountains are shrinking!’ shout headlines referring to summits and climate change, while that’s not literally true, our mountains are staying pretty much the same shape and size, it’s the alpine region, the coldest part of the mountain top, that’s shrinking thanks to climate change. What’s happening to the plant communities that live on these summits, is of great interest to plant ecologists. Are warmer–adapted species able to move up the slope? Will they compete with our summit species? Are we going to lose our specially-adapted species? To find out more, this episode joins Bente Graae, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Pieter de Frenne, from the Forest and Nature Lab at Ghent University in the field, surveying plots at several summits around Abisko. Thanks also to Øystein Hjorthol Opedal and Hanne Torsdatter Petlund.   After listening, please consider taking part in a short listener survey. It'll take less than 10 minutes, all responses are anonymous and the data collected will form part of Emma Brisdion's MSc thesis. Click here to take the survey: https://uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9zeSl7JQcD5xnx3    More episodes and information can be found here.   Based at the Abisko Scientific Research Station, this podcast takes you into the field with scientists as they investigate climate change in an Arctic environment.   Get in touch: Tweet @ArcticCIRC  Emma @emmabrisdion Email: [email protected]   Produced in partnership with the Climate Impacts Research Centre, Umea University.   Vector graphic: Freepik Music: Mark Skinner

Did you know that lakes 'burp' methane? In this episode we head to Stordalen, one of the world’s most important permafrost and thaw pond sites, to find out how lakes and melting permafrost pools are emitting greenhouse gasses. With global warming causing more permafrost to thaw, carbon previously locked away in frozen soils becomes available to the organisms in the environment and can be released as greenhouse gasses. First we’re looking at dissolved carbon dioxide and methane transfer into the air from surface water with researchers from Arizona State University & Umea University, and how that varies with different vegetation in lakes, and then we’re speaking to a student from the University of New Hampshire about ebullition - the bubbles of methane produced by microbes in lakes. Finally, we head to Riksgränsen to use Radon gas as a tracer to measure the movement of groundwater into lakes and see whether methane enters the lake environment from its water catchment area, with a team from Umea University.   Listener Survey  After listening, please consider taking part in a short listener survey. It'll take less than 10 minutes, all responses are anonymous and the data collected will form part of Emma Brisdion's MSc thesis. Take the survey: https://uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9zeSl7JQcD5xnx3   More episodes and information can be found here.   Based at the Abisko Scientific Research Station, this podcast takes you into the field with scientists as they investigate climate change in an Arctic environment.   Get in touch: Tweet @ArcticCIRC  Emma @emmabrisdion Email: [email protected]   Produced in partnership with the Climate Impacts Research Centre, Umea University.   Vector graphic: Freepik Music: Mark Skinner

This week we’re heading up Mount Nuolja in Abisko, Sweden, armed with insect nets and measuring pots to catch and record different Arctic bumblebees. Emma joins Ryan and Lottie from Imperial College London, as they set off to investigate the plant-pollinator relationships that characterise the lives of the 15 bumblebee species that live here in the Arctic. By understanding more about how the different bumblebees interact with the different flowering plants up the side of the mountain and through the seasons, we can begin to predict whether these bumblebees might be impacted by climate change; if the plants flower at different times to ‘usual’ with warmer summers, the timings of bees seasonal emergence may not coincide.   Listener Survey  After listening, please consider taking part in a short listener survey. It'll take less than 10 minutes, all responses are anonymous and the data collected will form part of Emma Brisdion's MSc thesis. Take the survey: https://uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9zeSl7JQcD5xnx3   More episodes and information can be found here. Based at the Abisko Scientific Research Station, this podcast takes you into the field with scientists as they investigate climate change in an Arctic environment.   Get in touch: Tweet @ArcticCIRC  Emma @emmabrisdion Email: [email protected]   Produced in partnership with the Climate Impacts Research Centre, Umea University.   Vector graphic: Freepik Music: Mark Skinner

Based at the Abisko Scientific Research Station, this podcast takes you into the field with scientists as they investigate climate change in an Arctic environment. In this episode, join the team observing plant development throughout the seasons along a transect that stretches from the top to the bottom of Mount Nuolja. Swedish Botanist, Thore Fries, collected the same data 100 years ago in the same spot, so we can compare the information we gather today to that from the landscape a century ago. This helps us understand the impact of climate change on specialised arctic plant species, and predict how communities might change as the seasons warm and the specialised cold high arctic environment shrinks.    Listener Survey  After listening, please consider taking part in a short listener survey. It'll take less than 10 minutes, all responses are anonymous and the data collected will form part of Emma Brisdion's MSc thesis. Take the survey: https://uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9zeSl7JQcD5xnx3   Get in touch: Tweet: @ArcticCIRC, @emmabrisdion Email: [email protected] For more information about CIRC and the projects featured in the podcast, visit the CIRC website. Produced in partnership with the Climate Impacts Research Centre, Umea University.   Vector graphic: Freepik