by Gabriela Schaepman-Strub
Kytalyk, July 22, 2013
The area around Chokurdah is ideal to study the effects of climate change on vegetation and feedbacks, as over a relatively short distance at least five different vegetation zones are present that can be studied. So far we only concentrated on Kytalyk (southern hypoarctic tundra according to the Russian classification after B. Yurtsev et al., 1978), but we will evaluate an expansion during our boat trip soon. Last two days I got the chance to explore the more southern area of Chokurdah. Our Japanese colleagues, headed by Atsuko Sugimoto, invited me to the opening ceremony of their new tundra-taiga forest transition station. During the past few years, they were active at several experimental sites with isotope measurements for an improved understanding of the carbon and water fluxes. They now established a more permanent site with a 3m tower with instrumentation to assess the carbon, water, and energy balance.
The celebration started with a scientific presentation of the research by Trofim Maximov and Atsuko Sugimoto to the government of the region in the municipality building of Chokurdah. The presentations were followed by a few questions by locals: “Could the measuring towers be used to enhance the local mobile phone network?” “Is global warming really true (they had heard about the fact that not all scientists agree)?” “Can you help to assess the problem of the recent strong easterly winds that flooded Russkoe Ustje and destroyed the large permafrost cellar needed for storing the fish?”.
Two Eveni women in their role as shaman during the opening ceremony of Kodak station. While one is singing and playing the drum, the other is sacrificing food to the gods of nature. Photo: G. Schaepman-Strub, 16 July 2013.
In the afternoon, we had the unique opportunity to participate in an excursion to the new station. It was the combination of a scientific excursion, finally seeing some trees again, and an ethnological experience. It is a custom out here to invite a Shaman to connect to the gods of nature. The three Eveni women made a fire, they sang, danced and sacrificed food to the fire. They wanted to do the ceremony directly in front of the tower. This was followed by immediate protest by the scientists, who tried not to trample the vegetation around the tower when establishing it during the past few weeks. On top of that, the fire would be disturbing the CO2 concentration series quite a bit! The Shaman could not understand that a fire could not be lit at the most important spot and that people should walk on the wooden boardwalks only. Finally a compromise was found – the fire was lit behind the official sign of the celebration, a few hundred meters away from the tower, hopefully out of its measurement footprint.
At the end of the day a party followed at the local canteen, and the next morning an interview for Trofim Maximov at the local newspaper office to report about a recent visit of the journalist to Kytalyk station. He was visiting us by ponton when we unloaded the wood. During his walk around the station he was mostly fascinated by the warming experiment due to the large solar panels and the batteries. So more publicity for the research at Kytalyk station in the local news!
Group photo of the celebration for the opening of Kodak station.