"Iokwe aolep jān Majuro"

"Hello (love) everyone from Majuro".

First view of Majuro out the plane window

We arrived safely in the Marshall Islands today after a great week in Hawaii at the International Coral Reef Symposium.  As the wheels hit the one lane tarmac, closely straddled by the lagoon on one side and the ocean on the other, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Not only was it a bit "exciting" to land on such a narrow piece of land all but being engulfed by the water due to extensive dredging, but I was also so thankful to have arrived despite all odds.




We've been planning this project/trip for the last 3 years or so, and it hasn't been an easy road.  But we fought through all of the hurdles that came our way, and we were finally making it happen. 

Until my appendix decided that it wanted out.   A week and a half before our departure date, and less than a week before my trip to Hawaii, I found myself in an emergency appendectomy.

Maybe we were trying to force the shoe to fit?  Or I had pissed off some field work gods?

One organ less and three incisions later, I found myself on the road to recovery.  The seemingly slow road to recovery.  2 weeks has never felt so long.

It may be laproscopic surgery, but these incisions were still quite sore and swollen!

 
Tomorrow we head to Arno, which is an outer island about 1.5 hours away by boat.  We'll spend the next four days surveying the reef there.  But this time, I'll have to watch from the boat.  Scuba diving definitely doesn't fall into the category of not lifting more than 10 lbs or not soaking in standing water.  Sigh.


Hopefully I'll be healed enough to dive by the end of the trip.  Continued healing thoughts, please!

But in the mean time, it's a great learning experience for my new graduate student Emma Reed, who I know will do a great job surveying alongside my extremely experienced colleague.


I'll write more when we return (must catch some zzzzs!).  But in the mean time, enjoy some pictures from our flight in!

View outside our hotel

If it’s too good to be true…

maybe, for once, it isn’t?!?

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Over the past 5 trips to the Galapagos, I’ve come to accept the reality that it is inevitable that something will go wrong (and more likely many things).   Like with weddings, all you can do is hope the problem is not a show stopper.

For instance on our first trip, they refused to let us on the plane with all of our field gear and we had to send it via a cargo plane from Quito, delaying our trip by a week and causing us to start the planning and paperwork from scratch (and cancel our return flights home for an unknown future date, not knowing when our gear would actually arrive).  Fortunately, our bags eventually arrived and we carried on with our “plan B”.   I navigated the language barrier through the pile of paperwork, logistics and quarantine completely naïve to the many subtleties of the process (signatures, stamps, formalities). In retrospect, it is nothing short of a miracle that it all got done.  The wonderful people at the Charles Darwin Research Station were entirely to thank for that.

Our gear in quarantine

Then there was the second trip, when I naively thought that things would go smoothly since I knew the process. HAH.  After the luggage snafu of the first trip (and since we would be drilling coral cores using a hydraulic drill) we sent all of our gear from the states…6 months in advance!! That should be plenty of time, we thought.  Wrong again.  We arrived in the Galapagos without our gear, and once again had to play the waiting game…

And then there was the trip where we didn’t get our permit or transuéntes (which allow us to enter the Galapagos as scientists) in time for our trip.  So we had to leave our passports at the airport…

And that other time when the director of the Galapagos National Park threatened to take away our permit (due to a mistake with the paperwork)…

You get the point—it’s always something.  And usually a show stopper.  Someone here summed it up well recently: “They think that by making things more difficult, they’re being efficient.”

It always felt like you were cruising along jumping the known hurdles, only to find out that they had moved 6 inches from last year, and you trip and fall on your face.

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But not this time!  Maybe the 6^th time is the charm, but this trip has gone shockingly smoothly.

The trip started out on the wrong foot, when (as per usual) they called us to the back of the airport within minutes of our flight’s departure to check the bags containing our equipment.  The extra large duffels full of electronics, metal rods, and other assorted equipment always draw their attention.  It isn’t clear to me why they ALWAYS wait until the last minute to check, but it never fails.  Once again, we find ourselves sprinting back to the gate behind the gate agent, arriving 5 minutes before our departure…

But our bags were not as fortunate.

Our pile 'O gear

As our bags were being inspected, they had filled the rest of the luggage space with cargo for the islands—including someone’s new, widescreen TV.  By the time our bags arrived, there was no more space, and our bags were left behind.

Then, and only then, they decided our bags were dangerous (after the opportunity to look again).  Fortunately, after a bit of negotiating by our Ecuadorian student volunteer, I signed off on an agreement that there was nothing dangerous in our bags and we were told they’d be on tomorrow’s flight.

A day delay? That’s nothing in this game.  As long as they come tomorrow, as they had nearly all of our gear!  We wouldn’t get very far without them!

The next day we finished our paperwork, met with the director of the GNP (who ALWAYS finds some sort of problem), and did quarantine-- and it all went swimmingly.  There were NO issues.  And he even said I could do my talk in English (thank goodness!).  Those of you who know my fluency in Spanish know how painful that would’ve been for the audience…  I can get by in conversational Spanish, but I certainly can’t give a science talk!!!

Our gear being inspected before quarantine

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May be I jinxed it, as I woke up this morning feeling the start of a bad cold.

Hopefully I'm not breaking our new rule of field work: (6) No Zika.

After our gear finishes in quarantine in this morning, we head to Genovesa and Bainbridge on the Pirata to collect our samples from the 2015-2016 El Nino event.  The locals have all given reports of a “weird” El Nino, in which there wasn’t as much rain as expected.  In March, they say that the water temperatures also rapidly cooled, suggesting that the upwelling has recommenced in the region.

I’m anxious to see what we’ll find…

(to be continued)

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number (NSF AGS-1561121). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Observations of "the Niño": will it be another 82/83 sized event here in the Galapagos??

We are back in Puerto Ayora after an exceptionally difficult but successful trip to Genovesa and Bainbridge (more on that soon).  And now the fun paperwork Olympics has resumed, in which we run around between the Charles Darwin Research Station, town, and the Galapagos National Park offices over and over to get all of the important papers approved.  And stamped of course (they love their stamps!).

Our sample export perrmit, signed and stamped by the Galapagos National Park

Our samples, taped shut by the park and ready for export

But this trip it's a little different.  Usually the walk  is sweltering hot under powerful sun and high humidity.  This time, though, we are thankful for the higher cloud cover, and occasional light rains to keep it a *bit* cooler.  Much appreciated, though brief, relief from the heat.

And each time the dark clouds roll in, we point and joke, "THE NIÑO is comming!"  After the great Chris Farley skit, of course.

Jokes aside, we have found ourselves constantly observing slight differences in the way things are this year, and it's impossible not to wonder whether they are early signs of the El Niño.  

And we are not the only ones.  All around town, we hear chatter about the El Niño, and locals ask us what we think might happen this year on the islands.

So what have we observed?

The Bainbridge Flamingo population is down from January.  And there are grasshoppers everywhere (I just got attacked in the face by one!).

But most notably, ocean tempearture and pH have risen considerably. Both signs that the upwelling of cold, nutrient rich, low pH waters from below has been tempered by the El Niño.

And these warm waters have fueled storms, which soaked us at Genovesa, and made the sail between islands "exciting" to say the least.  Poor Frazer might not ever set foot on a sailboat again.  He was a bit green the entire trip....

Clouds building over Genovesa Crater Lake.  11-26-2015

But how does this event stack up to the other greats?  

We are fortunate to have one of the best sources of the local history at our fingertips: the captain of the Pirata, Lenin Cruz.  Lenin grew up in Floreana, and has lived in the Galapagos all of his life.  At 65 years old, he still sails scientists all around the archipelago on the Pirata.  He is quite a local legend.

The Pirata Photo by Stephan Hlohowskyj

While sailing to Bainbridge, Lenin told us how in 1982/83, he could see lightning hitting the islands on the horizon as he sailed.  He recalls that by mid-late December, it was raining hard all throughout the Galapagos. 

Waterfalls had formed over cliffs of dry, barren lava rock.  Lenin's front and back yards had become lakes. And the road between Baltra and Puerto Ayora had washed out in multiple places.  

To get around these obstacles, incoming tourists and locals were transported a few at a time in a construction loader!!  Transporting bus loads of people a few at a time, obviously took a lot of time. So local parties would go well into the night as they waited for all of their guests to arrive!  And I bet this was not exactly what the tourists thought they had signed up for....

When we returned, Lenin dug up an old letter from his mother in Floreana, dated December 12, 1982

Floreana, a 12 de Diciembre de 1982

Sr. Lenin E. Cruz 03

Puerto Ayora 

Mi hijito querido

In the letter, she describes the strong rains that they had been having, noting that the rains had come earlier than normal (although the wet season starts in December, most of the rain typically falls later in the season).  Prior to all of this rain, her well was very low from a long drought, so she also commented on this fragility.  Roughly translated, she said:  

"The rains are strong. I heard on the radio that they are strong on the other islands and all over the world.  The rains are ahead of schedule.  The rains are unpredictable, some years it rains, others nothing."

 So are these rains we've been having a sign of what is to come?   Only time will tell...


This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number (NSF AGS-1561121). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Sampling the 2015/2016 El Niño event

Tonight, we boarded the Pirata and sailed to Isla Genovesa, where we will begin our sampling expedition to capture the 2015/2016 El Niño event.  Hopefully, if you're reading this tomorrow morning, we are packing up our gear and beginning the arduous hike up to the island's crater and down its walls to Genovesa crater lake.

Team Niño on the Pirata: Lenin  (el marinero), Stephan Hlohowskyj, Dr. Frazer Matthews-Bird, Dr. Diane Thompson (el hefe), Lenin (el capitan).  Not pictured: my many other great collaborators on this project-- Dr. Jessica Conroy,  Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, Dr. Julia Cole, Dr. Mark Bush, Dr. Melanie Riedinger-Whitmore, Dr. Miriam Kannan, Dr. Aaron Collins

My colleagues and I have been monitoring the local climate and lake conditions of both Genovesa and Bainbridge crater lakes for the past 6 years.  These lakes are unique among the Galapagos islands, as connections to the sea have maintained vibrant lake ecosystems among a very hostile and dry volcanic landscape.  These lakes cook under the hot tropical sun and low rainfall, concentrating the lake to about 5 times that of the local seawater and creating a warm, very productive ecosystem. These local oases support a vibrant population of marine birds, including boobies, frigates and flamingos.

Great Frigate bird male at Genovesa crater lake.  Photo credit: Stephan Hlohowskyj

Red Footed Booby, Genovesa crater lake. Photo credit: Stephan Hlohowskyj

Great frigate male displays his stuff at Genovesa. Photo credit: Diane Thompson

Flamingoes at Bainbridge crater lake. Photo credit: Stephan Hlohowsky

But we are more interested in what lies beneath the surface: the sediments accumulating at the bottom of these lakes.  As the local climate changes, now and in the past, so does the type of sediments accumulating on the lake bottom.  Cores of sediment have been collected from these lakes, and these cores show a rich history of climate changes that have been captured in their layers. 

Jessica Conroy samples a sediment core in October 2012. Photo credit: Diane Thompson

Close up of a sediment core from Genovesa crater lake, showing the distinct layers of sediment.  Photo credit: Diane Thompson

But what do these layers tell us?  Because these very saline lakes are very sensitive to changes in rainfall, they have captured past El Niño events (and their dry, cold water counterparts La Niñas). 

For example, the sediment record from Bainbridge has been used to study the frequency of El Niño events over the past 6000 years.  The sediments accumulating at the bottom of this lake may therefore be key to understanding how the frequency of El Niño events has changed in the past and what may have driven these changes in El Niño frequency.  In turn, this will improve our understanding of how the frequency of these events may change in the future as our global climate continues to warm.

Despite the importance of these Galapagos lake sediment archives to our understanding of El Niño variability, there is a lot we still have to learn about these lakes to properly interpret the story told within their layers.  

To improve our ability to interpret climate story from these lakes, we have been monitoring the local climate and lake conditions while simultaneously collecting all of the sediments falling in the lake in simple sediment traps.  This allows us to better understand how changes in climate affect the physical and chemical characteristics of the lake, and how that in turn changes the type of sediments falling to the lake bottom.

Collecting the Bainbridge sediment trap samples in 2012. Productive lake.  mmmm productive!  Photo credit: Diane Thompson

We have been monitoring these lakes since December of 2009, a period that covers more than 5 full seasonal cycles and includes a weak El Niño, a moderate El Niño and sustained La Niña conditions.  However, we have yet to capture the effect of a strong El Niño on these lakes, which is key to studying El Niño events in the past.

Over the next 4 days, we will collect and redeploy our instruments at these two lakes so that we can measure the fingerprint of the 2015/2016 El Niño in Genovesa and Bainbridge crater lakes.


This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number (NSF AGS-1561121). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

First Glimpse of the 2015 El Niño from in the trenches

If anyone asked me prior to this trip what I expected to find in the Galapagos during this strong El Niño event-- an event that may be on par with the strongest events in the historical record (in 1982-83 and 1997-98)-- I likely would have given a textbook answer of what happens in the Galapagos during a “classic” strong El Niño event.  It would have sounded a bit like this: rain, lots of rain; warn waters; dead sea life; dry, barren landscapes transformed to lush green wonderlands full of fat, happy finches.

Photo by Stephan Hlohowskyj

This picture I had painted in my head came not just from research on El Niño, but also from personal accounts of colleagues who were in the Galapagos during the huge 1982-83 El Niño, which hit the Galapagos very hard.  I heard stories of sea lions dying on the beaches while land birds thrived off of the unusually lush landscape.   Local divers and reef experts also paint a stark picture of the coral reefs, which succumbed to coral bleaching and death as a result of the high ocean temperatures.  Even 30 years after this event, its devastating impact was impossible to ignore while collecting coral samples on our last 2 expeditions.  We were hard pressed to find any large coral heads that survived that event, and all of the corals we sampled had a distinct death band in 82/83.

During these large, classic El Niño events, marine ecosystems crash around the Galapagos and throughout the eastern Pacific Ocean as a result of above average temperatures and a reduced influx of key nutrients from deeper waters.  At the same time, terrestrial ecosystems thrive under above normal rainfall.

The day before we departed for our trip, the Ecuadorian Government declared a “state of emergency due to the phenomenon of El Niño.”  The announcement said that the Ecuadorian Government was forecasting a stronger than normal event with unusually high volume of rainfall, and encouraged residents and visitors to visit their new website to learn about El Niño and its effects on Ecuador.

As an early career scientist who has focused her research largely on the phenomenon of El Niño—aiming to improve our understanding of how the strength and frequency of these events has changed in the past and may change in the future—I was extremely excited to get on the ground to see and measure these impacts in real time. 

So you can imagine my disappointment when I got here to find that the El Niño picture I had painted in my mind was, well only a fairy tale?!  Well, no, but where was all of the rain??

The clouds had definitely rolled in, with ominous clouds above us as we quickly devoured the coveted “encocado de pescado” at Williams, our favorite restaurant on the island.

And the view out of the back porch of our dorms at the Charles Darwin Research Station is no doubt more cloudy every day 

than it was during our last trip in January of 2015 (around the peak of last year’s warm/wet season)

But despite the ominous clouds, it has not rained.  Our boat captain Lenin tells us it rained a few days ago, but made a point of saying that he is skeptical of this El Niño.  He doesn’t believe the hype, and thinks the government’s state of emergency is just a control tactic. 

BUT, on the other hand he notes that the guides have told him that Darwin and Wolf (the most northern Galapagos Islands) are very lush and have been receiving a lot of rain.  So are the northern islands being impacted more by this event so far, despite warm ocean temperatures throughout the islands? This surprising observation has my head reeling through open questions and implications. 

How patchy are the El Niño rains among the islands?   And as a result of this patchiness, could such a large event be missed if only sampled from one island?  What are the implications of this for the interpretation of the frequency of El Niño events in the past from natural archives of past climate (e.g. sediments accumulating at the bottom of Galapagos lakes)? 

I anxiously await our field expedition to Genovesa and Bainbridge crater lakes to try to address these open questions.  We have been monitoring the local climate and lake conditions at these sites to determine how such El Niño events are recorded in these lakes; for example, how much rain falls during El Niño events, and how does this change the conditions of the lake and the sediments deposited on the lake bottom? 

Based on the occurrence of these signature El Niño layers in sediment cores extracted from these lakes, we can then produce improved records of the frequency of El Niño events over the past 6,000+ years.

And now as I finish writing this, it just started raining!!! Stay tuned…to be continued…

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number (NSF AGS-1561121). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Galapagos shark video!

It's going to take me a lonnnng time to process all of the footage I captured on our trip.  In the mean time, here's a little tease.

Coral drilling video!

Once we got started drilling, we were all business and my camera got left behind.  But I was able to get one short video of Julie drilling "Rosie" the Rosetta coral.  The drill was seizing up at this point, so progress was slow and frustrating, but you get the idea.  When I took over drilling after this video, a new drill was sent from above for me to save the day!