Green Jersey

Green Jersey goes to Alaska

For the next two weeks, this site will be updated from Alaska.

I arrived in Fairbanks yesterday at dinnertime. Since then, I: Toured a permafrost tunnel, where I saw a 20,000-year-old plant that was still green; learned about a beetle that can survive temperatures of -100 degrees; and saw Blue Babe, the remains of a steppe bison that lived 36,000 years ago (and turned blue after a reaction between phosphorus in its tissue and iron in the surrounding soil).

Early tomorrow morning, I leave with my group for a 12-hour road trip (featuring wildlife! Forest! Outhouses!) to Toolik Field Station in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range.

There, we’ll work with top scientists on research projects and see firsthand how climate change affects the Arctic, which is warming faster than the rest of the world. We will look at scorched earth, vegetation, permafrost, trees and communities of bacteria and fish, all in a place with 24-hour sunlight.

I’m here on a science journalism fellowship, and the trip is especially timely, considering the federal report released Tuesday on “unequivocal” global climate change and its effects. (Today, we met a scientist who worked on it.)

Will keep you posted!

– Jennifer Weiss