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Oscar has been awarded a NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Postgraduate Scholarship by the Government of Canada. The title of his funded proposal is “Tracking the seasonality of photosynthesis in a widespread arid conifer woodland using canopy colour,” and careful readers will note his Canadian spelling of the final word.

Oscar’s NSERC fellowship, the Canadian equivalent of the highly-competitive NSF GRFP for U.S. citizens, will provide support for the next 3 years as he conducts research on growing season length and timing in pinyon-juniper ecosystems using field measurements in Arizona and Utah, in addition to PhenoCam data from a number of sites across the Southwest. 

Congratulations to Oscar on being selected for this great honor!

The photograph on the left shows Oscar dodging the paparazzi (or, more accurately, hiding behind a juniper) after his award was publicly announced last week, and the photograph on the right shows Oscar in the field at the Bradshaw Ranch SEGA site near Sedona (a location commonly described as a “paranormal hotspot”; EMF-detecting gear not shown to protect the integrity of the researcher).

Last week at the FoS, an intrepid group of Flagstaff residents learned about virtual travel in time and space as they explored the rhythm of the seasons across the PhenoCam network archive. In an introductory presentation, Oscar and Mostafa explained the science of PhenoCam, and why phenology is an important indicator of the biological impacts of climate change. Then, after a tour of the PhenoCam web page, during which they learned some handy tricks for drilling down to specific sites and images, participants worked on a couple of hands-on activities centered around sites in some of their favorite locations. Oscar noted that “Although the NAU high-performance computer is named Monsoon, the run-away winner in the workshop’s ‘name your favorite season’ survey was actually autumn!” After the event, Andrew commented that “this was a great opportunity to share, in a way that is accessible to people of all ages, some of the really cool science happening in our lab.”

Great job, Oscar and Mostafa!

Every year, the Flagstaff Festival of Science allows NAU students, researchers, and faculty to share with the Flagstaff community some of the exciting and cutting-edge STEM research being conducted in the labs at NAU. In a STEM poster session in Ashurst Hall, Kai presented a poster on the work that he is conducting as part of his CCC2NAU “Pathway to the Skies” internship. In a cross-department between members of Christopher Edwards’ PIXEL lab in Astronomy and Planetary Sciences, and the Richardson Lab, Kai is working as part of a team putting together a “next generation” phenocam that would include three different camera systems, one for each of the visible (RGB), near-infrared, and thermal bands. In his poster, Kai explained the overall project goals and objectives, including some of the design challenges, and described his work in engineering and 3D printing a mount to securely hold all three camera sensors in precise alignment. Great job, Kai!

an·​a·​lem·​ma ˌa-nə-ˈle-mə: a plot or graph in the shape of a figure eight that shows the position of the sun in the sky at a given time of day (such as noon) at one specific locale measured throughout the year.

Supported by an L.L. Stewart Fellowship through the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts, video artist Julia Oldham is visiting long-term collaborator Dr. Christopher Still as an artist-in-residence at Oregon State University. Julia has been exploring how she might incorporate PhenoCam imagery in her art, and how the image time series might be used to generate soundscapes as well. After meeting another long-term collaborator, Dr. David Bowling (University of Utah), at the recent AmeriFlux meeting, Julia combed the PhenoCam image archive to find sites with with just the right shadow geometry so that the analemma would be traced out on the ground. Using imagery from the SEGA Arboretum Meadow site, Julia developed the video below. “There are so many beautiful PhenoCam sites — what an amazing resource for seeing place and time and transformation,” Julia wrote.

Just another example of the irresistible intersection of science and art!

Fall has begun, which means the Flagstaff Festival of Science is here! Darby and Jacob helped kick off the annual Festival with an outreach event downtown, Snook’s Science in the Park. They brought out Poppy, one of our Flux Puppy carbon dioxide analyzer systems, to teach the Flagstaff community about some of the science we do. Booth attendees hypothesized which Mason jar would have the greatest carbon dioxide efflux, the one with compost and rollie pollies or the one with roots, water, and duckweed. Folks, including many kiddos, used their knowledge of respiration and photosynthesis to form great hypotheses! One of the special things about Flagstaff is how STEM-oriented its citizens are, and Science in the Park is a spectacular demonstration of this. They also learned about human physiology by blowing into the Flux Puppy to see what the concentration of carbon dioxide was in their breath, and challenging others for the highest concentration of the day. The winner blew 240,000 ppm after sprinting around the park and holding their breath!

Congratulations to Darby and Jacob on a super-successful outreach event!

In early September, Jen attended the annual AmeriFlux Annual Meeting, which was held on San Francisco Bay at the Berkeley Marina. Many friends, collaborators, and former lab group members were in attendance and it was a great networking opportunity. Jen gave an oral presentation titled “The Great Thermal Bake–Off: A Hands-On Workshop for Enhancing Temperature Measurement Precision and Standardization for Improved Flux Interpretation and Application”, which provided an overview of the outcomes of the workshop which was hosted by NAU at the Historic Hat Ranch in August of this year. (Side note: Jen was awarded the prize for the longest talk title!). On returning home from the meeting, Jen wrote: “the Ameriflux meeting was so awesome! There were over 100 folks there and a really welcoming community. I was able to chat and make connections with lots of folks. “

The first photo shows Jen (front right) along with fellow SICCS T3 PhD student Emma Reich (front left), former lab visitor (2023) Deklan Mengering (back left; now UC Davis), and former lab REU student (2010) and postdoc (2019-2021) Adam Young (now Battelle/NEON) at the AmeriFlux site US-EDN: Eden Landing Ecological Reserve. The second photo shows conference participants in front of the Berkeley Marina.

Congratulations to Perry Giambuzzi, who passed his comprehensive exam today after an excellent oral presentation followed by multiple rounds of challenging questions from Andrew, his chair, and committee members Chris Doughty (SICCS), Paul Stoy (U Wisconsin – Madison), and Mark Friedl (Boston U). Questions covered topics related to phenology, remote sensing, and CO2 flux measurements, and included a real zinger on the ultimate fate of a photon (thank you, Professor Doughty).

Great job, Perry!

Congratulations to Mostafa on the publication of his paper, “Canopy temperature dynamics are closely aligned with ecosystem water availability across a water- to energy-limited gradient”, in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. Synthesizing data from three different sites, each instrumented for eddy covariance measurements and canopy thermal imaging, Mostafa’s paper highlight the importance of considering water and energy limitations when studying canopy temperature dynamics in different ecosystems.

Organized by Jen, Mostafa, and Ben Wiebe, and with funding from FLUXNET, AmeriFlux, NAU’s T3 Program in Ecoinformatics, the College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural Sciences, the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, and Campbell Scientific, the Great Thermal Bake-off was a smashing success.

From August 13th to 16th, 40 scientists from over 10 countries gathered at NAU’s Historic Hat Ranch property, just west of Williams, AZ, to discuss advancing the application and standardization of near-surface Thermal Infrared (TIR) remote sensing in ecological research. The workshop included participants from various career stages, with half identifying as early-career researchers, fostering a diverse and collaborative environment.

The main objectives of the workshop were to Enhance Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration an to Promote Standardization and Accessibility, and a key outcome was quantitative data from a series of experiments to characterize the uncertainty in canopy temperature measurements made under real-world conditions.

Congratulations to the organizers on a fantastic event!

For more information, read the blog post at Fluxnet.org.

Jen was recently out at Hat Ranch, setting up instruments in preparation for The Great Thermal Bake off in mid-August. Although it can be hard to find good help these days, Jen reported that her field technicians were very enthusiastic — keen to lend a hand (or hoof?) and generally get in the way, especially this dun-colored sweetie.