Video
A Year at the Pamichtuk Climate Monitoring Station, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve
Transcript
This video shows seasonal changes in the Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska using time-lapse photography from the year 2019. After zooming across a satellite image of North America to northern Alaska, we arrive at Gates of the Arctic, outlined in yellow. The location of the Pamichtuk 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 from a hilltop toward the rounded mountains of the Brooks Range. The year begins with a snow-covered landscape. It is twilight at mid-day in January, because our location is north of the Arctic Circle. Rime covers the post of the electric fence that was set up to discourage grizzly bears from damaging the weather instruments. Sunshine returns in February and March, but the snow cover persists through April. The snow melts quickly in May over most of the landscape, with some drifts lasting into June. The vegetation turns green in early June, and the tundra is briefly covered with small white flowers from the dwarf shrub Dryas. The vegetation turns color beginning in August; dwarf willow shrubs nearby in the middle of the scene turn yellow, while dwarf birch and blueberry on the far hillsides turn red. The snow returns in September and October, 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 Pamichtuk climate monitoring station in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.
Duration
1 minute, 55 seconds
Credit
NPS/David Swanson
Date Created
05/26/2023
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