What do you think of, when you think of the Arctic?
If you’re anything like me, you immediately think of windswept plains of snow, glaciers of ice with blue-white cliffs.
And how do you imagine summer in the Arctic? I used to picture fields of grassland and flowers, or open water, and maybe, in the far far north, polar caps that were still solid ice.
I was wrong. Those fields of grassland and flowers do exist, further south, in Alaska and Northern Canada, but not at 75° North. And perhaps, much further north, at the centre of the Arctic Circle, there is still some thick ice. But in June/July on the water that separates Cornwallis Island from Devon Island, the remaining sea ice was thin, striped with cracks, fading fast.
Devon Island itself, the 27th largest island in the world, the largest uninhabited island in the world, appears lifeless. The landscape was exclusively greys and browns, with pockets of residual snow, as far as the eye could see Even when we landed in the twin prop plane, on a makeshift airfield below the habitat, all appeared barren.
But the naked eye can’t be trusted, as we discovered when we began exploring, because there is life in that landscape, subtle but defiant. Some species there are migratory, like the geese, but most are extremophiles, life-forms that have adapted and evolved to be tolerant of the −50 °C winter temperatures. Such as the woolly bear caterpillar, which endures cryptobiosis (living death) for up to seven winters, before finally accumulating enough nutrients to transform into an adult moth, or the algae, moss, and flowers, that return triumphant after each thaw.
But it is a changing landscape. Since before records began, Devon Island (Tallurutit in Inuktitut, the most widely spoken Inuit language) has had a polar desert ecology that received little precipitation. This has changed in the last three years. The first week of our visit, and the last few days, were marked with rain and drizzle, low mists that saturated our clothes with water.
The world is changing. We all know. Climate change has accelerated and aggravated forest fires and hurricanes, made flooding and mudslides more numerous, more severe. The polar regions are our buffer to the global temperature rise, the Antarctic is experiencing changes twice as fast as the rest of the world, and the Arctic? Four times as fast.
This makes our site on the uninhabited Devon Island one of the most valuable sites for collecting scientific data on climate change. We had three main scientific objectives while on the island: nanoplastics, radiation, and microbiology.
There are no primary sources of plastics on Devon Island, so it makes an ideal location for tracking the spread of nanoplastics through air currents and precipitation. Radiation measurements include Galactic Cosmic Radiation, solar radiation through the smaller ozone hole, and radon emissions from the melting permafrost. Microbiology helps us to better understand species that can endure the extremes of temperature, but also how changing populations reflect the climactic changes.
Aside from Arctic research, another aspect of the site that brings plenty of scientific interest, is the massive Haughton Impact crater, 24km in diameter, that was formed approximately 30 million years ago. Due to the nature of the environment, it is one of the least eroded, most preserved craters from its time.
Another area of interest bringing researchers to the site, is the environment’s similarity to the Martian surface. Consequently, there are two research stations by the rim of the crater, including the habitat we lived in, who conduct space analogue studies on the island. This involves testing out planetary exploration equipment and activities under simulation, and assessing the impact of living so remotely on the crew (it took us five days to reach our research station, and extraction was always weather dependent). As such, in addition to our three main scientific objectives, we conducted field ecology and geology, as well as pressurised space suit research and isolation psychology studies.
Next year, we hope to return, or support the returning crew, to conduct follow-on research, and to strengthen ties with the Inuit community, who have been so kind in allowing us to do research on their land.
For more complete accounts of the science, engineering and expedition experiences, please visit the FMARS website for the crew’s reports (pages 1, 2 & 3).
Watch to see where we go next.
Ad sidera tarrae causa!
(To space for Earth’s sake!)
By: Dr. Natasha Nicholson