High Arctic

... pedestrian survey of three broad regions, which represent the entire culture history of the HighArctic from ca ... A number of factors make Inglefield Land of archaeological interest (Fig ... 1). First, it is located at the northern end of the North Water polynya, an area of permanently open ...

Although eskers are frequently described glaciofluvial landforms, they are poorly understood. To assist with the interpretation of Pleistocene examples, modern analogue data are required. This paper documents the morphology, sedimentology and formation of a 650 m long esker system in front of the high-arctic glacier Vegbreen in Svalbard. The esker is located between the Neoglacial maximum and the present ice front and appears to have formed both as a supraglacial trough-fill and as a channel/conduit-fill along the suture formed by two confluent glacier lobes. A range of sedimentary facies is preserved within this ridge system providing evidence for braided rivers, ephemeral lakes, episodic flow regimes and sediment gravity flows. This case study provides an important analogue for glaciofluvial sedimentation between retreating ice lobes.

... In this pe-riod, the snow melt occurred at the BSRN station, associated with a decrease in albedo from the winter value 0.8 to 0.5, before it dropped sharply to the summer value. The Cryosphere, 3, 245–263, 2009 www.the-cryosphere.net/3/245/2009/ Page 5. ...

Abstract. Concentrations of total mercury and methyl mercury were determined in sediment and fish collected from estuarine waters of Florida to understand their distribution and partition-ing. Total mercury concentrations in sediments ranged from 1 to 219 ng/g dry wt. Methyl ...

In the field, in-situ measurements of aerosol light scattering are often performed under dry conditions (relative humidity RH < 30-40%) which differ from the ambient ones. Since ambient aerosol particles experience a hygroscopic growth at enhanced RH, their micro physical and optical properties - especially the aerosol light scattering - are strongly dependent on RH. The knowledge of this RH effect is of eminent importance for climate forcing calculations or for the comparison of remote sensing with in-situ measurements. Here, we will present results from the Cabauw Intercomparison Campaign of Nitrogen Dioxide measuring Instruments (CINDI, June-July 2009, Cabauw, The Netherlands). During this campaign different remote sensing and in-situ instruments were used to derive atmospheric parameters mainly NO2 but also aerosol properties. The aerosol in-situ measurements were performed in the basement of the Cabauw tower (inlet height 60 m). The aerosol scattering coefficient was measured dry and at various, predefined RH conditions between 20 and 95% with a recently developed humidified nephelometer (WetNeph) and with a second nephelometer measuring at dry conditions. In addition, the aerosol absorption coefficient was measured by a multi-angle absorption photometer (MAAP). This combination of measurements allows the determination of the aerosol extinction coefficient at ambient RH. Three MAX-DOAS (multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy) instruments retrieved vertical profiles of the aerosol extinction coefficient during CINDI. The retrieved aerosol extinction corresponding to the lowest profile layer can now be directly compared to the in-situ value, which is now re-calculated to ambient RH.

Biological nitrogen fixation is the primary source of new N in terrestrial arctic ecosystems and is fundamental to the long-term productivity of arctic plant communities. Still, relatively little is known about the nitrogen-fixing microbes that inhabit the soils of many dominant vegetation types. Our objective was to determine which diazotrophs are associated with three common, woody, perennial plants in an