Arctic Adventure

Ruppel ’09, environmental studies concentrator, conducts research in Siberia during summer



Matthew Ruppel ’09 had such an incredible summer that he says it’s difficult to articulate his “amazing experiences and stories.”

In July, Ruppel, from Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., conducted research in the Siberian Arctic as part of the Polaris Project.

Many of his friends still have difficulty believing that Ruppel, a biology major with a concentration in environmental studies, made it to Cherskiy, Serbia, north of the Arctic Circle on the Kolyma River. The remote area is characterized by harsh weather conditions.

Ruppel was a member of a group of eight students and nine faculty members who slept on a barge for their two week research stay (another week was spent traveling to and from Siberia). The field research included an overnight trip by boat in the Arctic Ocean and sleeping in the tundra.

“The tundra was freezing,” says Ruppel. “That night my water bottle froze — in my sleeping bag!”

The Polaris Project is a collaborative effort involving the Woods Hole Research Center, seven universities and colleges, and the Northeast Science Station in Cherskiy, located in northeastern Russia. The project focuses on field research experience for undergraduate students in the Siberian Arctic working across five different ecosystem types (forests, tundra, lakes, rivers, estuaries).

As the faculty team member from Holy Cross, Bill Sobczak, associate professor of biology, invited Ruppel to conduct research on the river ecosystem. Ruppel had taken Sobczak’s freshwater ecology course, which covers the physical, chemical, and biological attributes of freshwater ecosystems, and conducted yearlong research on the ways that big storms influenced carbon flux into small streams at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Mass.

The goal of the Polaris Project is similar, albeit on a much grander scale. The guiding scientific theme was the transport and transformations of carbon nutrients as they move from land to the Arctic Ocean.

Scientists have suspected that carbon that has been locked away for thousands of years will escape into the atmosphere if global warming thaws large patches of frozen ground in Alaska and Siberia.

Called permafrost, the frozen ground contains large amounts of prehistoric carbon-rich grass and animal matter. The thawing of permafrost will eventually release into the atmosphere as either carbon dioxide or methane, both greenhouse gases. An excess of these greenhouse gases can raise the temperature of a planet to record levels. Scientists estimate that permafrost makes up 25 percent of land in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ruppel and his fellow researchers conducted a series of experiments that examined the fate of nutrients released from permafrost in lake and river ecosystems.

Students participating in the Polaris Project in subsequent years will build on this research.

Ruppel, and several Clark University students who participated in the project, will visit area elementary school classrooms to convey the excitement of polar research.

“It’s important to increase awareness about the Arctic because it’s the first environment that’s going to change most drastically,” he says. “We’re not going to feel the effects of global warming in New England anytime soon, but you can see them in the Arctic right now. It’s overlooked because it’s hard to get to and the Arctic only makes up a small part of the United States.”

Failure to take action now could have widespread ramifications beyond the warming of the earth, he says. Among them: increase in global sea levels and warming or cooling of other oceans that will cause dramatic global climate fluctuations.

In addition to engaging future generations in this area of research, Ruppel himself is looking to pursue a career in medicine. He calls his interest in biology and the environment a “separate, but equally fulfilling passion.”

Related Information:

• Environmental Studies