Half way... what!?

Hej alla!

This post is long overdue, but that means it is full of fun information and updates! Everyone loves binge watching tv shows, so reading one long blog instead of many short blogs spread out over time should work the same way, right? Welcome to my version of a Netflix Original blog. I would say I made it my New Years resolution to blog more, but… daily flossing took the lead in the last seconds of 2015. So what have I been up to? Despite the appearance to have been sucked into a black hole or to have fallen in the icy waters of some Arctic lake, I am alive (yay!). And a lot has happened since my last blog post.

When I last left you, I was at the end of my time in beautiful Abisko. The days were getting shorter, northern lights sightings were intensifying, and I was dreaming of hot chai lattes in distant (and populated) towns. My dreams came true at the end of November when I boarded the train and made the 8-hour journey south, through the mountains into the boreal forest to Umeå, my new home.

The view of snowy Kiruna on my train from Abisko.

Umeå (pronounced oouuu-me-oh) has a population around 100,000 and is at the same latitude as Fairbanks, Alaska (aka- way up there on a world map). Umeå (one more time, oouu-me-oh) Universitet, where I am continuing my research, is a fairly large institution with over 35,000 students- that’s close to 29 Wheaton Colleges… Okay, enough of the numbers stuff. Just kidding. One more fun fact: Abisko has a population of 300. Let that sink in a bit. 300 to 100,000.

Location of Umeå (thanks, Google Maps)

Although I miss the awe-inspiring mountains of Abisko, the towering trees of Umeå and the charm of Umeå’s quaint city center lit up by hanging lights and  swarming with pedestrians and cyclist make for a fine substitution. The surplus of cafes with delicious baked goods and hot beverages also helps quite a bit. But, I have to admit, one of my favorite things about Umeå is the gym (bear with me). My wonderful outdoors adventures in Abisko distracted me from what I am now calling my “post-college-athlete-still-think-I-am-a-college-athlete” phase. To sum it up, I still feel like I should be practicing on the court for 3 hours a day. So… 30 minute workouts on an elliptical or stationary bike just does not do enough to fill the void. Insert IKSU. IKSU, Umea’s gym, is the largest in Northern Europe. IKSU is equipped with a multitude of courts, workout machines, lifting platforms, workout classes, a swimming pool, climbing wall, virtual golf, and even an indoor sand volleyball court. Needless to say, I LOVE IKSU for keeping me busy and happy and I love the Swedes for loving sport as much as they do.

It's love. 

The Umeå River near my apartment. This picture was taken at noon in late December.

Busy downtown Umeå!

Beyond my move to Umeå, in December I had the amazing opportunity to head even farther south to Stockholm for a slew of Nobel-themed activities. The Nobel Prize, named after the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel (flashback to Blog 1 when I visited the Nobel Museum in August!), is one of Sweden’s dearest pride and joys. Justly so. The event honors some of the most innovative and influential people from around the world. Thanks to the work of the wonderful Swedish Fulbright Commission, our Fulbright group not only had the opportunity to attend the award ceremony, but to also meet this year’s American Nobel Laureates at the home of the US Ambassador. Let me tell you, if you have ever had to run through the (sometimes hassling) exercise of describing what you do with a 60 second “elevator speech”, keep in mind that one day you might find yourself in a situation where a very nice and humble noble laureate asks you what you do and you have one minute of his attention to say something besides “uhhh ponds, umm Arctic”. Don’t worry, I came up with more than that. But, really, keep that in mind.

Nobel Prize award ceremony. 

The 2015/2016 Fulbright squad at the award ceremony.

The award ceremony itself was beautiful and even though I was completely out of my element at such a fancy and elegant event, I enjoyed every second of it. From high up in the seats of Stockholm’s Concert Hall (where the event has been since 1926), watching the ceremony, and all of the traditions that it entails, felt like a movie. While the introductions for each Nobel laureate are giving in Swedish, the opening statement by the chairman, Professor Carl-Henrik Heldin was in English. The end of his speech left a lasting impression on me. Here is just a short part,

“The quality of future research is dependent on the recruitment of young talents to science. High-quality education at all levels is necessary, so that young people can prepare themselves for a scientific career, and we need to find ways to encourage them to become scientists.”

I felt like I have been extremely lucky in my young scientific career to have had such amazing mentors and people throughout my life who have introduced me to the wonders of the science and the natural world. So yeah, quick shout out to all those people.  Thanks for helping pave this crazy path of my past endeavors around the world and for the ones that are hopefully still to come.  

I’m not sure if binge reading this is exhausting, but writing it sure is… A few more highlights to go! Up next: Lucia.

The winter holiday season in Sweden is fantastic. It’s dark and cold, sure. But the streets and homes are bright with holiday lights and the sweet smell of saffron and cinnamon is constantly teasing your nose. I’m lucky enough to have a wonderful Swedish informant in Stockholm who is my guide for all things Swedish (thanks Cecilia!). Before I boarded the plane home, Cecilia made sure I experienced some of the wonders of the Swedish holidays. And they sure are wonderful! Major hitting points included: wandering the picturesque red booths of Stockholm’s many Christmas markets, holiday fika with saffron buns, ginger cooks, coffee, and glögg (a sweet, warmed wine with spices, almonds, and raisins. Yummmm), and a Lucia concert to top it off.

DELICIOUS saffron buns. 

If you are like me, you probably have no idea what Lucia is. That’s okay. I’ll do my best to provide a quick summary (as explained to me by travel books and really nice Swedes). St. Lucia Day is a hybrid between old pagan celebrations and Christianity. The holiday centers around “Lucia” bringing light to the darkness because traditionally Lucia fell on the darkest day of the year. On this day, people were cautioned to stay inside to avoid dangers such as evil supernatural beings and talking animals. Now, the roots of this tradition have transformed into staple of Swedish culture. Every year, a young girl is chosen as the “Lucia” for her town or church (it’s a big competition in some places - They even vote for it in the local newspapers!). “Lucia” takes the lead as the bearer of the light at the local children’s choir concert. During the concert the children dress in white and sing a mixture of present day and Lucia-themed songs while holding candles (I hear some place switched to electronic candles, but the concert I went to had very real candles that resulted in only a couple minor incidents…).  Here is one of the standard Lucia songs and a video of the procession from the concert I went to!

The night treads heavily


around yards and dwellings


In places unreached by sun,

the shadows brood

Into our dark house she comes,


bearing lighted candles,


Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

As you can tell, the goal of this holiday is to make the darkest days of the year just a little bit brighter- both literally and figuratively through the many community and family based traditions. I am definitively a fan of Lucia (sadly, I think I am too old to join the running for next year’s Lucia…).  

I then topped of my year with a “quick” flight home for some much needed family time, vitamin D, and, as always, more science.

If this blog was overwhelming and you only looked at the pictures, I don’t blame you. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Up next: all things Swedish! In the next blog I will finally write about all the things I love about Swedish culture. Disclaimer: at least 75% will be about food (and the other 25% about me bumbling around and doing everything wrong).

Cheers!

Kenzie


This site is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed in this site are entirely those of its author and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State or any of its partner organizations.

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It's a Science Blog! Part 2: Methane, Mooing, and Mires

On the last edition of It’s a Science Blog! I introduced the Arctic, permafrost, and carbon (I know it has been a while. I haven’t been procrastinating, I promise. But for a refresher just keep scrolling!). In this edition I will venture a little deeper into greenhouse gases and what they have to do with my project here in Sweden. Exciting stuff.

To start, I want to look back at a term I threw out in the first blog, greenhouse gases (GHG). This word gets used a lot when talking about climate change and I want to take a second to break it down a little bit. Greenhouse gases are compounds that, when present in the atmosphere, act to trap heat and warm up the earth. You are probably most familiar with the GHG, carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is produced from fossil fuel combustion (burning coal, oil, natural gas), but can come from natural sources. For example, we release CO₂ when we breath. But CO₂ is not the only greenhouse gas. Other common GHG include water vapor, nitrous oxide (also produced by your car!), and methane (CH₄).

Together, these gases let some types of light waves, known as UV light, through the earth’s atmosphere, while trapping another type, called infrared radiation (IR radiation), sending it back to the earth, heating the atmosphere. A similar process happens in greenhouses we have for plants, thus the name!

 

Greenhouse gases trap IR radiation (heat) coming from the earth and send it back towards the surface

My research centers around methane (I also look at CO₂ as well, but I won't go into detail about that here), which is close to 20 times more effective at trapping heat than CO₂. You might be thinking, hey methane… cows produce that when they burp, right? Yep, but hold on, I’ll get to that. First, some background info.  

Methane is a product of metabolism by a group of small organisms called methanogens. In other words, really tiny critters eat carbon and produce methane as waste. But for this to happen, methanogens have to be in an environment with no oxygen. Where do these environments exist?... Well, a lot of places actually.

For example, in nature, environments with little to no oxygen ("anoxic" environments) can be created when the ground becomes saturated with water which cuts off the soil from the oxygen in the atmosphere. So you can imagine how the bottom of a lake is a very anoxic. But you don’t even need an entire lake to have these conditions. In fact, wetlands and rice paddies are some of the leading sources of methane.

Man-made landfills also create an anoxic environment perfect for methanogens and methane production. The food we throw away into landfills builds up so much that we have to compress the trash in the landfill, leaving the bottom of the landfill with no oxygen. Then our leftover food becomes the main meal for methanogens.  

Methane is produced both by natural processes and human activity- for example, landfills. 

And where do cows fit in all of this? Well, it turns out, a cow’s stomach doesn’t have a whole lot of oxygen either. Methanogens are able to live inside the cow's stomach, breaking down food and turning it into methane just as they do in anoxic landfills and wetlands. The methane is then released into the atmosphere when cows burp.

Okay, enough about cows. Let’s get to the question you have probably been asking for a while… what am I doing? Yes, what am I doing- in life, in Sweden, in general. Good questions. I don’t actually spend all my time hiking in the mountains, as it may appear. Till just recently, I have spent most of my days outside mucking through a mire and loosing my boots to mats of quicksand-like mosses.

 A mire is a type of wetland. In the mire I study, there are both patches of low lying, soggy or water covered ground (where the boot gobbling, quicksand mosses live) and higher patches of dry ground. Most generally, these high patches, known as palsas, contain permafrost (don’t know what permafrost is? Check out my previous science blog!), while the low, wet patches are mainly permafrost free. My project focuses on small ponds in these low, permafrost-free regions of the mire. I want to know if methane is being produced and emitted from these ponds, and, if so, how much methane is being emitted and how it compares to the emissions from nearby lakes and streams.  But… I think that’s enough for today. More methane-pond-mire breakdown in the next It’s a Science Blog! For now, enjoy these pictures of Stordalen mire, my workplace:

Oh, and for those of you wondering why methane hydrates, natural gas, termites, giant Siberian sink holes, methane on Mars and other methane related topics didn’t make it into this blog, I am not ignoring them. There just isn’t enough room in one blog to fit every cool topic concerning methane. But if you want to talk about these topics just email me! I’m always down for a methane chat.

-Kenzie 

This site is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed in this site are entirely those of its author and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State or any of its partner organizations.