​Since joining the Tzortziou lab in early June, my anticipation of participating in a fieldwork trip to the Long Island Sound had been building. The Tzortziou lab focuses on the critical research of coastal ecosystems which are rich in biodiversity and productivity yet highly vulnerable to human pressures and climate change. In the summertime, our team sets out to collect valuable data contributing to the understanding of dissolved organic matter (DOM) dynamics in estuarine environments. My first opportunity to embark on a fieldwork trip arose at the end of July when our team chartered a fishing boat in Peconic and Shinnecock Bay on Long Island Sound. The primary objectives were to collect hyperspectral reflectance spectra data and water samples for later analysis in the lab. Our team, consisting of Kyle Turner, research associate, Tong Lin, PhD student, and Ella Frederike Jacobs, summer outreach and communications intern, met at the Center of Discovery and Innovation on the morning of July 25th. Once the equipment was packed into the car and our podcast for the ride was chosen, we embarked on our journey from the bustling New York City to the serene coastal towns of Long Island.

​After a tense battle with downtown NYC traffic and couple of flight delays, the East Coast crew (consisting of Joaquim Goes, Helga Gomes, and Jinghui Wu from Columbia University, Charles Kovach from NOAA STAR, and myself from the Tzortziou Bio-Optics Lab) safely crossed the Atlantic Ocean and the Equator and arrived in Cape Town, South Africa for the BioSCape field campaign. BioSCape is an international collaboration between NASA and other U.S. and South African organizations to study the rich biodiversity and ecology of the Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR), across terrestrial and aquatic domains. 

Our group is one of the few aquatic-focused science teams on the project, with the goal of mapping phytoplankton functional types (PI: Wu) and carbon fluxes (PI: Tzortziou) from air- and space-based optical remote sensing. Our study has three sampling areas: St. Helena Bay, Walker Bay, and Algoa Bay, which we will be visiting over the next few weeks in conjunction with targeted overflights of NASA aircraft equipped with two state-of-the-art hyperspectral spectrometers, AVIRIS-NG and PRISM....

We were above the clouds for the first half of the flight from Bethel to Emmonak, our excitement bottled by the white sheets below us. But as we got closer, glimpses of the rivers and sloughs of the Yukon Delta began to emerge. I was reminded of sifting through optical satellite imagery of this region and seeing mostly clouds but reveling in any clear pixels. Ah, but the resolution was better! Fellow passengers pointed enthusiastically to moose wading in ponds. A woman sitting behind Maria showed us where she would ice fish: all beautiful reminders that we weren’t just approaching our field site but a vast home.  

​Kyle and Jonathan loading equipment onto R/V Ukpik

I was invited by my colleague Dr. Maria Tzortziou to join her on a research trip to the Yukon Delta where her NASA-funded team is studying coastal changes due to the climate crisis. (We are being financed by an interdisciplinary research grant through City University of New York.) As a climate writer interested in environmental justice, I feel excited and fortunate to be partnering with an environmental scientist who can help me understand the larger picture of global warming and its implications for frontline communities such as here in the remote village of Alakanuk, Alaska, by sharing her scientific observations. While Maria’s team continues methodically gathering water samples and taking satellite imagery that over time have a story to tell about environmental change in the most rapidly warming part of the planet, we have come for five days to gather stories from members of the local Yup’ik community – some of them collaborators in the larger research program - about what changes they have observed in their home place, how they are adapting to these changes on sociocultural and spiritual levels, stewardship, and traditional ecological knowledge.

We had a long but safe and successful trip to Nome, AK! Jonathan Sherman and I made it to all of our quick layovers leaving from New York City earlier this morning (but the last plane had to hold for us). We met Chelsea Lopez while boarding for Nome at the Anchorage Airport. As we landed in Nome, Scott Freeman picked us up from the airport, and the team loaded all of our supplies and instruments and headed to the ADF&G (Alaska Department of Fish and Game) bunkhouse, where we were staying in town. Our collaborator Jenefer Bell, Arctic Area Research Biologist with ADF&G, has been so helpful and supportive throughout the planning of our coastal Arctic fieldwork this summer! Our plan over the next few days is to have a 3-day trip with Captain Adem Boeckmann and his large fishing vessel Anchor Point to transect south and collect measurements across a strong marine-coastal-estuarine gradient in Norton Sound and near the Yukon River Delta. Saturday looks like our one chance at (some) sunshine, so we plan to spend Friday steaming and collect the majority of data on Saturday.

Meanwhile, we've been enjoying the quaint but small town of Nome. We played pool at the local saloon, Nome's oldest saloon since 1900 with an old "gold rush" facade. At that time, Nome was one of Alaska's largest cities, with people flocking to strike it rich in the golden sands. We walked the beach along Norton Sound and admired a sprawling collection of old rusted machinery from Nome's "golden era". The team assembled the optics package that will be used over the next few days to collect profiles of optical parameters, including absorption and backscattering, critical for linking in-situ measurements to satellite imagery. The weather is slightly chilly, but not too bad! I haven't had to pull out my heavy winter coat yet.

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