Climate debate in DK

If you can read danish, have a look here! An interesting article about climate scepticism in politics, but also read this. I think the important part that is not straight forward is that there is a lacking debate in society today. And science is somewhat screwed. Everybody knows that it is so much easier to get money if you do research on climate change rather than trying to prove the opposite, which is of course not okey, that is what science is about; to prove something or the opposite! However, since I do believe in the anthropogenic impact and responsibility of the changing climate I can not other than support the that side of the story. I love seeing those articles in public, it's obvious that people are sceptic and that's good to know. In my world we take it for granted that people know about climate and that it is obvious that it is human impact that change the climate, and it is really important to relise that that is not the case, not everybody believes in it...

The insignificant statistics

Wow, the time is running to fast.. In just 15 days, I'm on my way to greenland. I'm a bit nervous about the instruments we have packed. Questions like if all connections are there and if everything works has risen, and I don't know the answers... I just hope that everything is as it should be and that it will work when we arrive... whoa... In present time, I'm studying for the upcoming exam in june. We are also writing a report about the data we collected in lilla bögeskoven some weeks ago... I think it will work out fine, but the results are not as clear as we had hoped, as always it is insignificant.. That's something that really annoys me, a limit of 0.05 that should be considered, otherwise it is not significant.. I wonder how many true things in nature we have ignored just because the p-value was 0.06... Hmm, anyway about the project, it's good practice to learn the software SAS, which I have not used before, and also to look at the data which actually covers a big part of the course.

Excursion to lille bøgeskoven

As I've mentioned before i'm taking a course at the department of biology. Today we went to a forest to gain some practical hands on experiences. It was a really nice day and we were really lucky with the weather, a lot of rain while we were in the car, but sunny when we arrived.. 

Anders is giving instructions of todays work

We took some soil samples for nitrogen and carbon content

sorting the soil

measurements of fluroscence 

measurements of soil respiration

LiCor, measurements of CO2 and H2O fluxes

PhD, Michelle, our field assistent

...and some other guy...

VOCA VOCA yeayey

BVOC experiment on mesocosms from Abisko and Zackenberg has generated a lot of data.. I'm at the moment leraning how to sort it and handle it... It's quite a lot of work (manually) in excell.

I've also finally got an answer from the journal where I submitted the Manuscript about plant resonses on reindeer grazing, and with some changes it will get published. =)

It is a lot of planning right now. Next week a container will leave Copenhagen and be shiped to Disko island. So, we have to get ready and pack...  I think thats all for now. Cheers

Mesocosms from abisko

A freezer where I'm measuring BVOC from vegetation

Clean air in, and then our through a tube which will absorb BVOCs

Kind of an update on everything

Hmm, what did I wrote last time, can't remember, it was such a long time ago. Sorry.

What I'm doing now is a lot of planning and preparing for fieldwork. Things has to be transported to Greenland quite soon, and me, myself and I have to be prepared for the coming tasks in the field. The biggest issue right now is how to get power enough for my instrument to run for 24 h. The internal batteries will last for about 8 h, and I'm now planning on buying some spare external batteries to bring. But, than I need to know how to connect them properly to the instrument and what I can do and not with those LI-ion batteries. It's also an issue with the transport of those batteries, because I'm not 100% sure you may transport LI-ion batteries on the air-plane, or actually what amount that is classified as "safe"...

Also, today I started a course "terrestrail ecosystems and global change", it ends in june and I think it is quite intensive.

I've also just finished measuring VOC on an mesocosm experiment.  I have not yet analysed the data, but will soon start with that. It has been really good to learn the method before my "real" project starts. There are some critical parts where things can go wrong, and it's nice to know about them beforehand. 

The life in denmark goes on, we are in the moment in a starting-up-a-new-life-stage, buying an apartment and trying to figure out how things will be in the future. The thing is that time runs so fast that this life, in denmark, is soon history, and that feels both nice and very stressful. 

I'm looking forward to summer, its going to be really nice to travel to Disko Island, where I've never been before, and yeah also Zackenberg wil be nice to revisit. I'm really looking forward to my last period in field, wich from late august to mid september, just imaging the shift from summer to winter, I LOVE IT! 

Well, it is also time to wake up from the winter sleep, because guys, it is spring!