ABoVE

Scotty Creek, Canada

On September 1st from Fort Simpson, we flew 50 km south via floatplanes to WLU’s Scotty Creek Camp. This research site is located in an extensive peatland/wetland area, where permafrost plateaus (underlain by ice) are covered by black spruce forests. For nearly 20 years, Bill Quinton (WLU Professor) has led research on the processes controlling the rapid degradation that is occurring to these permafrost plateaus and the black spruce forests covering them from the warming of permafrost, as well as the impacts of this rapid degradation. Bill Quinton gave us an extensive tour of the Scotty Creek research sites. We were able to catch Oliver Sonnentag of the University of Montreal at his new flux tower, measuring exchanges of CO2 and CH4. On September 2nd the camp woke up to 10cm of snow, reminding the team that we are working in a far-north study site.