Episode 118: Researching the Arctic

UConn faculty have performed research all over the globe, but few have gone to a more remote place than professor of marine science Penny Vlahos. Vlahos, along with two other UConn researchers, travelled to the Arctic in May of 2023 to gather samples from sea ice that is expected to be extinct by 2040 and gather clues about our future without it. She shares details about the logistics of traveling to that region of the world and stories of other research trips she has taken around the globe. Vlahos also talks about what she likes to do in her free time, including baking bread!

Link to Episode 118 at Podbean

Transcript

Mike: Well, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the UConn 360 podcast. I’m Mike Enright from university communications, along with Izzy Harris and Kelsie Hall. We have a very special guest with us today. We have Penny Vlahos, who’s a professor of marine sciences and head of the environmental chemistry and geochemistry research group here at UConn, and she’s based out of the beautiful UConn Avery Point Campus. one of the highlights of her research was that in May of 23, she was one of three UConn researchers who traveled to the Arctic, to gather samples from sea ice, and she’s going to tell us a little bit about all that work.

She’s researched global temperature warming she teaches courses on chemical oceanography, environmental organic chemistry, and global climate. She has literally traveled the world in her studies. She has done work in Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Switzerland. And, she has an undergraduate and master’s degree from the University of Toronto and a doctorate from UMass.

Mike: So, Penny, thank you very much for joining us here today.

Penny: Thank you for having me.

Mike: I think you’re the first person that I’ve ever met in my life that’s been to the Arctic, so it’s very exciting.

Penny: And I hope I won’t be the last.

Mike: Tell us a little bit about your trip to the Arctic, the, the research you did there, and, and, and some of your preliminary findings, and who, who else from UConn went with you?

Penny: Yeah so it was a group of three. So it was Lauren Barrett and Samantha Rush, who were both doctoral students in our department, in the Department of Marine Sciences. It took a lot of planning. I would say that we started this dream about two years before it actually happened. Submitted the proposal, the concept to NSF, went to planning meetings that Sweden was having which, and it was funny to be there because there were a lot of groups that were in the middle.

They didn’t know if they were going to be funded, if this was going to be a, a reality for them. So we’re, we were planning and hoping for the best along the way. And fortunately for us, it worked out. It didn’t work out for all the groups that were involved. Some didn’t get the funding that they needed.

So we were really lucky. And you know, had the honor of being part of this expedition. There were over 40 scientists. It took several trips because we had to do the planning. We had to send all our stuff. International shipping post covid really weird new loopholes to jump through and we had to fly there to receive our things, get them on the ship, get everything ready.

Then they did us the favor by steaming the ship to Svalbard. So we didn’t have to put that extra time in ship time in. And then, so we flew home, then flew back and we’re part of the six weeks on the ship, which was an adventure in itself.

Mike: Tell us in a little more detail. So you’re in Connecticut and you want to get to the Arctic. There’s food, keeping up with what’s going on in the world, clothing. Just, just tell us how it all

Penny: It’s so weird. So they well, they’ve made an art of it, right? So they know how to plan the meals and things like that on the ship. And we even had two healthcare workers on the ship, a doctor and and a nurse.

And we would make fun of like the situation. Cause we knew that a lot of times they’d be walking around, making sure everyone’s happy and okay. And things, nobody’s isolated. But yeah, it’s, it’s obviously instead of making it a long trip, they flew us all into Svalbard. Which is one of the northernmost settlements in the world.

And so we were already really close to what our ultimate destination was, because we were already in the high 70s. And you know, we’re able to launch off from there, which is good. Because then we had already set up our equipment, so we got to we got busy fast.

Izzy: This might seem like a silly question, but can you just tell me, how cold was it actually in the Arctic? What did you wear? How did you prepare for this? Because every day when you wake up, you just must go outside and be like. This is just so abnormal.

Penny: So it’s so weird. You get acclimatized to it. And it’s for the first time in my life that I understood what a polar bear feels like and why they love the Arctic. Because the Swedish Polar Secretariat I think knows that some people might not be prepared for all of the circumstances.

So they apply, they supply the life suits that you’re wearing. Out on the ice. They supply as actually a gift when you get there. This fleece kind of, or wool fleece blend jacket that everybody should have when they’re walking around the ship. Because a lot of people think they don’t know.

They either have something too heavy or too light. And so they kind of give you the bare necessities that you would need in case you didn’t plan properly, right? But basically if you’ve got an inner. Wool liner, you’re good to go. I became addicted to saunas when I was there because they had a, they have two saunas on the ship and I the first time my roommate told me to go with her and I went in, I thought, Oh, my God, I can’t handle this. This is too much. And I was out in 10 minutes. And then afterwards, I was like, I need this. You get used to it, right? So when you get out of that hot thing and then go out into the cold on the deck, it’s amazing. And we’re like, I was in t shirts. And it’s interesting how if it’s not blowing like storm weather, it’s beautiful. There were times where we were out on the ice. And it was sunny, low winds, and it felt like you were at a beach.

Mike: Wow. Yeah. Interesting. So this is something that I should know, but who, who has political control of the Arctic? Who, who does it belong to? Like, do you need a passport to get there or is it just no man’s land?

Penny: So unlike the Antarctic, the Arctic is a big ocean surrounded by land, right? There’s no land in it. So it’s all these political, you know, obviously, the surrounding countries are all very well defined, right? Svalbard that normally belongs to Norway is actually under special treaty for multi state management for resources and things like that. So there’s no land mass up there that’s not already owned by somebody.

Mike: Interesting.

Penny: Yeah.

Izzy: So we all know climate change is a real thing. What are some of the implications of those changes in the Arctic to those of us in North America and the rest of the world?

Penny: So, they’re going to be, in the long term we’re all going to, it’s going to come at a cost for us. In the near term, meaning in the next, you know, decades, there’ll be some winners and losers. What it means is that there’s going to be drastic changes. One of those things where people who are not keyed into this will say, hey, where did this come from? Why is everything changing so rapidly? And That’s going to have a huge implications politically, I’m afraid, because new shipping routes trade commerce there are going to be a lot of people who are going to want to be taking advantage of this transition time, even though we’re really in a Emergency situation.

So some people will be able to benefit from it. Obviously, it’s going to mean big changes for land masses and for what we’re used to in terms of the conditions of where we live. So the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the ocean. This is the place that is the canary in the cage, where we can look at all these changes.

They’re happening a heck of a lot faster in terms of, you know, what we’re used to on the earth, than one would expect. So, our lifetime is going to be one of interesting times.

Kelsie: Penny, how did you develop an interest in this type of work and the things that you do?

Penny: Okay, so I’m a big kid, and I just love adventure and solving puzzles and stuff. So I had gone to the Arctic when I was in 2005. That was the first time. But my kids were young. They were seven and nine, and it was hard to be away from them. So after that, I said, no, I’m not doing that again until they’re, you know, Now they’re both in graduate school. So I was like, okay, now I’m now I can go again.

And my graduate students wanted to go. And the work we do is how chemicals move in the environment. The environment could be Long Island Sound. It can be the Arctic, right? Or Sri Lanka, like you mentioned, it could be anywhere. So it’s all the same laws that apply to the movement of this stuff. So this was Of course an exciting time because of the lack of understanding we have for this changing system.

There’s so much that we need to learn and there’s so much that we don’t know about these future changes that, you know, it’s an exciting puzzle to work on. It’s hard to be there. It doesn’t come, it comes at a cost financially and, you know, personally but it’s definitely worth it.

Mike: What was it like to bring students along with them? Especially I assume it was the first time they have been there. What was it like to do the trip through their eyes?

Penny: So, yeah, that’s a big one because I do. I’m a little bit of a mom to my, like, I see myself as a parent to my graduate children, And so. It’s interesting to see, especially generationally, everybody reacts a little bit differently than maybe you would have reacted when you were there, or I would have reacted when I was there at 25 especially because they’ve got new media connections, other things that they’re used to that, you know, we weren’t used to.

So it’s interesting to to see the transitions that they go through. Like they, initially you’re really busy because you’re setting everything up. You’re worried it’s going to go, so it’s okay. And then there’s a low period, and that’s where the transition happens. Where you see the emotional part come in, where things are working now they realize they’re away from home and they can’t talk to their support systems and You see a little bit of stress signs and things like that.

So we had one day a week where everybody had off And that day was not going to be scheduled to tire anyone, and they could catch up and refuel their batteries. We could do that because it was a six week cruise. If it was you know, a one week cruise, that’s not going to happen.

You use every minute. Also, it happened that a lot of our holidays or days off were the storm days that we planned. It was a good day to take off. And it’s really interesting to see how refreshed they were, both of them, when they would come back. Like, one of them, I remember, Samantha cut her hair and was dressed up when she came back.

And I thought she had gone on holiday. I was like, what happened to her in 24 hours? But they catch up on their sleep. And just knowing that they don’t have to be anywhere, you know, what, you just don’t have to something to stress about that moment, so it makes a big difference, but it’s also a matter of keeping in tune with them too and kind of watching and seeing if somebody is turning a little, getting a little more cranky.

Mike: So do you have any contact with the outside world in terms of? Even getting, you know, news, what’s, what’s going on in the world, do you have, or are you completely isolated up there?

Penny: So, surprisingly, we had very little contact, and it is, it does feel like you’re in an isolated bubble. It seems, it feels like you’re in a space station in a way, because you’re you don’t, anything could be going on in the world, and it’s not really affecting you.

And you don’t know about it. Right. But what they did allow us to do is to have like once a day, you could stream back and forth. You couldn’t send pictures and because they don’t want you to use a lot of data. I’m thinking that in the future, that’s going to change a little bit because the communication systems are going to improve.

But and they were using star, they were launching and beta testing starlight on the, on the cruise. So I think in the future it might be different, but right now. It was very limited and you had to be, you know, it’s funny because when it’s time, when you know that it’s data streaming time, you kind of run to your phone and check to see what answer did I get from the question I asked 24 hours earlier but it’s it’s important, really important.

And when somebody’s out at sea, I’m sure they do this in the Navy too, you never tell them back bad news if you’re on land because there’s nothing they can do about it. So you only give them positive.

Izzy: That must be such a huge culture shock. We’re all so in tune now with social media. our phones, that’s amazing. I didn’t realize that it was so little contact to the outside world.

Penny: Yeah and the nice thing is that they could express it. Like there were times where they would come and say, you know, I cried last night or something like that. I’m like, okay, good. You know? You, and also the fact that they can share that and, and, you know, be open about it. I’m like, okay.

Izzy: Yeah, well, it must have been nice to come back to a full 5G of service. So I know you’ve done a lot of research outside of the Arctic, like in the Long Island Sound and Lake Erie that involves dead zones. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Penny: Yeah. So we, and again, they’re kind of all related, right? So it’s the way compounds move in the environment and acidification and CO2 fluxes in the atmosphere into the ocean. So Long Island Sound has two problems. They have the, the global problem where CO2 in the atmosphere is going up.

And that means that. It’s going into the Long Island Sound and getting a little acidified. But we also have this, you know, seasonal low oxygen, which is an additional acidification. So we have two whammies in Long Island Sound. So, and that’s where you’re worried about fish kills, water quality, and the impact that we have on the environment.

So, like in the early 1800s based on sediment records, there was no hypoxia in Long Island Sound, no low oxygen or dead zones. And now obviously since then, since we cleared land and, you know, developed and so on they’ve emerged. And the important thing for us is to try to number one, reduce the spread of that dead zone.

And also to try to maybe. reverse it and go back to smart development and management, smart design so that we don’t do this to our, our local ecosystem.

Kelsie: You have traveled all around the world throughout your career. What have been your favorite places to go and what have been the most memorable?

Penny: Okay. So a lot of the times it’s interesting things like the Arctic experience it’s some of the hardest, but also the most memorable and rewarding too at the same time. So in 2005, when I went to the Arctic, I had downtime in the evenings so I would sneak up to the bridge and I’d kind of watch the captain working on the icebreaker and it was really cool to watch how they navigated it. So I asked if I could learn how to navigate and then I asked if I could drive the ship and then they let me.

And it was like, it was a joystick because of the way it operates. They just. pump water from one side of the ship to the other. So it was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. And then I was told, don’t tell the captain you’re doing this. And I wasn’t allowed to touch the captain’s chair. But then during work hours, I got this call from the old captain saying, come up to the bridge and I thought, Oh, I’m in trouble. And so I get up there and he says, I heard you’ve been driving the ship that night. And I said yeah. And he goes, I would like you to sit in that chair. The captain’s chair. And I was like, no, I’m not allowed to do that. He started laughing, just sit in the chair. And he said, drive.

And I was like, what? So that was one of the most exciting things. And then the other one, which really surprised me is, I had this Interdisciplinary project, the one in Sri Lanka with actually Steve Schentzel from UConn Health and Shuchi Anand from Stanford. And it was, so we had anthropologists, physicians, environmental people.

And one of the things we were doing is trying to figure out why the people in these farming villages had kidney failure. So we’re trying to figure out what’s going on in their water sources and so on. And when we were there, we were very vested in the people, in the study, in these towns. And also, you know, there are the, the people who have kind of suffered along the food chain for the Green Revolution and all of that, because here they are producing more, but they’re exposing themselves to a lot and so on.

And the individuals were so welcoming and kind and listening to their stories, I kind of almost wish that I was an anthropologist at that point. Instead, I thought, I don’t want to be at the well sampling the water. I want to be here listening to these people. And it was so life changing, you know, to listen to them and they were crying, right?

And, or you want to cry too, and you’d hear, like everything that they’re going through and how helpless they are because they’re so detached from the resources that could help them That it’s a big eye opener and it’s also a big reminder of number one Something to pass on to students is to never let yourself believe that something is hopeless and that tests your persistence and your grit no matter what the weather is like, will can eventually get you where you need to go.

And I think that’s a big lesson when you see, you know, the different dynamics in different places, and the commonalities, too. Sometimes, you know, I really get excited about doing projects that are going to make a difference and other times I, you know, feel like, I don’t know, I don’t like the world anymore.

I don’t know what to do about it. It’s like I’m helpless. But anyway, that comes and goes. But you’ve done amazing things.

Izzy: I was just going to say, so we know that you’re a professor. You’re a researcher, you’re a part-time boat driver. Are there any other professions that you wanna share with us or any other hobbies that one might not think.

Penny: Well, I’m a I’m a very dedicated mom, , that’s for sure. And have a lot of fun with my kids. And they, fortunately, I kind of got their. Interest in science and stuff like that. So we have a lot of fun conversations about things like that. I, I do have, obviously, I’m an avid reader. Love nature, but I don’t like being a tourist. I like being there for a reason for work. If that makes any sense. Yeah. So like, I would never be on a cruise liner. I would only be there if I was working on the ship and needed to be doing collecting data or something like that. And but definitely other hobbies. Just like. I like to crochet and I like to do other, you know, stuff that comes and goes.

Sometimes I, as soon as I plateaued, I give it up and then I move on to something else for a while. But you know. I love fermentation and making breads and things like that.

Mike: Did you bring any?

Penny: No. You’re on the sourdough rave right now. Oh yeah, I love sourdough. But I have to cut down on my carbs because when you have a warm loaf of bread, you can devour in a second. Like, I could eat the whole thing, it’s so good.

Izzy: Oh with some butter?

Penny: Oh my god. Forget it. Yeah, so.

Izzy: So maybe you can start working on a couple of blankets to crochet for your next Arctic trip.

Penny: I did that and everybody in my family got one last year.

Kelsie: I have one more question. Yes. Do you see yourself going to the Arctic anytime in the future and possibly bringing your children or?

Penny: Like making it a family trip. Oh, I see. I see what you mean. And I want in on that trip, too. Yeah. Yeah. So send me a postcard So I think it would be hard to get them on the icebreaker unless they they had a science purpose because it costs a lot Of money to I think it’s NSF pays like a hundred thousand dollars to the Swedish government per birth And the ship, it’s a lot.

So that might not happen, but definitely going to areas nearby, like I definitely want to take everybody and everybody should go to Patagonia and see that. And the other thing is I’m going to be, this is a little, a surprise, but in September I’m going to be a rotating program manager at, at the National Science Foundation in polar programs.

So that’s exciting because I get to work with people from different countries that are working on Arctic research and try to develop synergistic partnerships. So I get to do that for at least a year. And then we keep going, it’s a year at a time. So they UConn is really good about, you know giving faculty release to do things like that.

And so that’s going to be exciting, I think. And then as far as the Arctic the cruise that we were just on, we are, we want to do another effort in like 2027. That’s awesome. That’s going to take a while. Yeah.

Kelsie: But still. It’ll come up quick.

Mike: Well, thank you very, very much for joining us here on the podcast. Thank you for making the drive up from Avery point to Storrs. We always like to go down to Avery point to the beautiful Avery Point campus. And but thank you very much for joining us today. And thank you for listening to the UConn 360 podcast. And we hope you join us next time..