The winter climate is becoming unstable in Greenland, with warm events causing soil exposure and thawing. A winter thawing event could have lasting consequences for the tundra ecosystem in the following summer. We conduct field experiments by doing controlled winter warming of soil plots near Arctic station at Disko Island, Greenland. We study the effects on soil microbes using soil chips and the nitrogen cycle using ¹⁵N techniques. 

Outreach to the public

Arctic soils house an enormous biodiversity, which help keep carbon (C) in the ground and anchor the foodweb on land. We should therefore encourage the public to understand and protect soils. In our scientific investigations near Arctic Station at Disko we will collect soils from experiments which mimic the ongoing environmental changes. Scientific images of the homeland soil at Disko Island, made in laboratories in Sweden, will show the unseen in these soils and educate the public to protect soil and the life in it.

With artwork exhibition and teaching material made from microscopy images and films of the myriads of amoebae, bacteria and algae, we will show these creatures.

Funding:
The project is supported by VR Vetenskapsradet 2020-03209 and NAPA the Nordic Institute in Greenland.

Collaborators:
Asiaq, Greenland Survey (Asiaq – Greenland Survey (asiaq-greenlandsurvey.gl))
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Department of Earth Science, University of Gothenburg Sweden
Functional Ecology, Lund University Sweden
University of Copenhagen, Denmark