New Web site uses video storytelling to capture Arctic life, research
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Video footage of life near the North Pole can be found on a new Web site that showcases the research, climate and culture of the Arctic region.
Co-developed by Purdue University atmospheric chemist Paul Shepson and collaborating author Peter Lourie, the site takes visitors on a digital journey of life in the Arctic, describing how it may be changing and highlighting research under way in the Arctic Region near Barrow, Alaska.
Included is Shepson's own work with a solar-powered ozone buoy that collects atmospheric data from the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean.
Arctic Stories can be found online at https://www.arcticstories.net/
Several contributors, including a whaling captain and a retired electrical engineer turned Mexican restaurant owner, provide their stories and passion for the Arctic in the video.
"The digital stories share details and the picture of life in Alaska's North Slope Borough and the town of Barrow, which is the northernmost city in the United States," Shepson said. "The videos also showcase the connections between science and life in the Arctic, climate change and the natural environment in the Arctic, and the impact of climate change on Arctic people and life."
Shepson received a grant from the National Science Foundation to support the work he describes in the research videos found on the Web site. The interdisciplinary, international collaboration is known as OASIS, which stands for Ocean-Atmosphere-Sea Ice-Snowpack.
Shepson's research spans an array of topics in the field of atmospheric chemistry and climate change, focusing on tropospheric ozone and on atmosphere-surface chemical interactions in both forest environments and the Arctic.
He is the head of Purdue's Department of Chemistry and former director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, which was launched in Discovery Park in 2004.
Writer: Phillip Fiorini, 765-496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu
Source: Paul Shepson, 765-494-5207, pshepson@purdue.ed