Video
A Year at Serpentine Hot Springs Climate Monitoring Station, Bering Land Bridge National Preserve
Transcript
This video shows seasonal changes in the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Alaska using time-lapse photography from the year 2019. After zooming across a satellite image of North America to northwestern Alaska, we arrive at the Preserve, outlined in yellow. The location of the Serpentine Hot Springs climate monitoring station is marked by a red dot. A remote automated camera is mounted on a tripod, along with weather instruments. The time-lapse video was made from selected photos taken on days with good weather. The view looks across a treeless landscape with a creek in the distance and a hillside behind. The year begins with a snow-covered landscape. It is twilight at mid-day in January, because our location is just south of the Arctic Circle. The sun gets brighter in February, March, and April, and caribou come to forage on lichens by digging in the snow. The snow melts off in May, exposing ground covered by light gray lichens and low shrubs of dwarf birch. In June, green leaves appear on the shrubs and in the meadow by the creek. In August, orange and red colors appear first on the low bearberry plants on the left side of the scene and then on the low birch shrubs, while willows along the creek turn yellow. In late September most of the leaves are gone and the first snow falls and then melts. Persistent snow arrives in early November, and the mid-day sun fades to twilight again in December.
Description
This video was made from a full year of photographs from a remote camera (phenocam) located at the Serpentine Hot Springs climate monitoring station in Bering Land Bridge National Preserve.
Duration
1 minute, 54 seconds
Credit
NPS/David Swanson
Date Created
05/26/2023
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