Many people from the Northeast head south for the winter, but scientist Lija Treibergs will be taking it to the extreme. The Paul Smith's College Adirondack Watershed Institute Research Associate is going to Antarctica for three months starting in late November. It's Treibergs’ second deployment there to study lakes and dry valleys and conduct lab analysis. Treibergs says the work there helps inform her research and the Adirondacks.
This will be your second time going to Antarctica as I mentioned, what does your preparation for a trip like that look like?
Yeah, so a few things. I have been kind of wrapping up work at Adirondack Watershed Institute in preparation to leave for three months but my preparation for going is kind of the way that any of us would prepare for a big trip but specifically in a place that's very, very cold. So, I am making sure I have field gear, layers outerwear, in order to be able to do the kind of research that we're going to be doing out on lakes and the dry valleys. And then making sure that I have kind of everything wrapped up back at home to be gone for three months.
How much of your focus while you're there is what you've just mentioned, you know, getting into the elements and making sure that you're staying safe, versus the actual scientific research that you're there. I have to imagine, you know, you’ve got to keep your eye on the prize, too.
Yeah, so a lot of the work is just preparing, like you said to be out in the elements. We go through a lot of training before we go out in the field. So, I'll be experiencing training at McMurdo Station before I headed to the dry valleys, which is where the field camps are. And then once we're there, you know, there's a lot of communication with your team members to make sure that everyone's on the same page regarding safety anytime that we head out into the fields. I will be there during the summer months, which is, the temperatures are not as extreme I think as some people think of when they think of Antarctica. It will likely be warmer at times there than it will be here in the Adirondacks. And so, it's not what you what you expect. So, in many ways, it's the same kind of preparation that we do here at Adirondack Watershed Institute when we're doing work out in the field in winter, making sure that you're covered up and that you have communication and everyone staying in touch about their safety and levels of comfort. But then, most of the time, you know, if that communication is staying effective, then it allows us to do what we need to do scientifically out in the field and achieve our objectives.
How do you get there? What's that process like?
So, I will be taking a plane from here to the west coast and then to Christchurch, New Zealand, where there is a U.S. Air National Guard Base that then flies a plane from Christchurch to McMurdo Station. Then I'll be in McMurdo Station for about a week, doing trainings and preparing and then I will take about a 40-minute helicopter flight out to the dry valleys. And then once I'm in the valleys, most of the transportation is by helicopter as well.
Wow. That sounds exhausting.
It is but it's exciting too. So, it doesn't it doesn't feel too bad.
What does it look like? You know, what kind of sensory experience is Antarctica when you do finally get there?
So, one thing I will say it's different, the dry valleys especially, it's very different than what most people, including myself, first think of when they think of Antarctica. When I think of Antarctica, you know, I think of these kind of big icebergs and big ice shelves, a lot of snow and ice. The dry valleys is a section of unglaciated continent. So, it's primarily ice free and the soil you know, you're on kind of dark brown soil, it's very, very dry. In some ways, it's more like Mars than you might think of than Antarctica. So, it's a very strange place to be. If there's no wind, it can be very, very quiet. There are kind of these hanging glaciers coming down into the valleys. But other than that, there's not that much ice, so it's very strange, but very beautiful.
Let's talk about your research a little bit. What specifically are you studying and trying to learn?
Yeah, so I will be going down as part of what's called the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research Project and that is a part of a larger network of Long Term Ecological Research Projects or LTER for short, that are at 28 sites across the U.S. and abroad. And these projects aim to understand how different ecosystems function and change over time and I specifically will be on the lakes team, which is a little bit confusing when you're thinking these are the dry valleys. They're called the dry valleys because they're extremely dry, they have limited precipitation, and their ice and snow free. And so, I will be working with this lakes team to understand that part of the larger dry valleys ecosystem.
Maybe this is a silly question but why is it called lakes then?
Yeah, so there are lakes, but they're permanently ice covered. So, there are three lakes in this valley system and they are there but they're permanently ice covered. And so, there is liquid water beneath them.
Well, what is the ecosystem like? Is there a lot of life in this area?
There's not a lot of life but is some, which is interesting and that's what, kind of what we're studying. The dry valleys ecosystem is kind of driven by the same basic processes that we find in all ecosystems like micro view, the utilization and remineralization of nutrients, but they lack the confounding variables, that kind of higher plants and animals, which are found almost everywhere else bring. And so, you know, if bacteria we have nematodes, things like that, but we don't have any sort of higher plants or animals.
And so how does the research actually work? Are you taking samples? Are you doing different types of measurements? What does the fieldwork actually consist of?
Yeah, a little bit of all of those things. So, in many ways, it's very similar to the research that I do here in the Adirondacks in the wintertime. We're going to be going out drilling holes in the ice, and then collecting water samples, and doing measurements in the water column and then bringing those samples back to the lab for laboratory analysis.
And what are you looking for specifically?
We are looking for mainly change through time. So, it's hard to kind of say, “Oh, we're looking for X, Y, or Z” kind of in context of, you know, hoping to find any specific thing, but rather, we're looking to create a long term database of certain environmental parameters so that we can sense changes through time in the system.
And so, how does that work relate to the Adirondacks? In other words, what you're seeing in Antarctica and what you're following, how does that inform the research you're doing back here?
Yeah, so one of Adirondack Watersheds Institute's primary scientific goals is to understand ecosystem response to environmental stressors here in the Adirondacks and climate change is at the top of that list. The McMurdo Dry Valley’s ecosystem is incredibly sensitive to changes in precipitation and temperature. So, what we can learn there can help us understand how our lakes and watersheds respond to climate stressors.
In other words, where you're going in Antarctica might tell us something about perhaps where the Adirondack region will be going in the future?
In a way, yeah. And also, it's because it's a place that experiences these changes kind of more acutely, it kind of lets us resolve some of those processes in a way that we can't understand here quite yet.
What do you mean?
I've been trying to think of a good analogy for this, but if you have a system that is experiencing a change at a very rapid rate, it's easy to bet, it's easier to see the changes that are being brought on that ecosystem. Whereas other ecosystems might be experiencing the same changes, but it's harder to resolve them against the background noise of how the ecosystem works and that harkens back a little bit to what I said about the dry valleys lacking kind of higher order plants and animals in a way, it's a simpler system. So, we have a simpler system that's experiencing a high degree of change. And so, it's easier to see and understand the response of that ecosystem. And then we can apply that understanding to other ecosystems, including our lakes here in the Adirondacks.
Just to get back to you for a second. You know, I'm someone who has a hard time if I can't sleep in my own bed for one night, what is day to day life, like when you're on a three-month deployment like this? I mean, do people watch like Netflix after work? What does it look like?
Well, no Netflix, the internet is not capable enough to support streaming services. They joke that the internet and Antarctica is worse than the internet in space. But other than that kind of relaxation looks a lot like relaxation back at home. We'll play games, we'll go on walks, things like that. It definitely, you know, you're working hard a lot during the day and so, kind of the evenings you kind of want to do chill a little bit. And so, the field camps are kind of collaborative living. We all cook dinner together and then hang out in the main space and kind of just enjoy each other's company.
What was the most difficult part of the last time you went?
Oh, that's a great question. I think one of the most difficult things is staying in communication with people back at home. Like I said, we don't have a lot of the tools that we now rely on like FaceTime. You're able to call you know, we have a landline at station and we can use satellite phones in the camp. But between the time change and just kind of the intensive schedule and kind of the limited communication, it's hard to kind of maintain connections with people back at home.
