When does a rolling stone gather moss?
One of the things that makes scientists excited is to discover that they don’t understand how some part of our universe works. Of course, we are still debating the origin of our universe. While most scientists now believe the hypothesis of the Big Bang origin of our universe about 13.8 billion years ago, I always wonder what came before. Even if we are part of a system that existed before the Big Bang, where did it come from? I am not expecting to learn the answer to this question now or even if I live another 1,000 years.
There are other discoveries that excite scientists. A recent paper published in the journal Polar Biology (“Rolling stones gather moss: movement and longevity of moss balls on an Alaskan glacier”) reports on the existence of what they call herds of moss balls that live on the top of glaciers in the Alaskan Root Glacier and on Icelandic glaciers. These large moss ball herds all move about an inch a day, and these scientists thought they might be blown by the wind or sliding down a slope on the glacier. As if these moss balls were like birds, 30 of them were tagged and their locations tracked for three years. The scientists were surprised to discover that the movement of the moss balls was not a result of wind or the sun’s orientation or the down slope. And the moss balls all moved together as a herd. We still don’t know why, but the herds are being studied as an important component of the glacier ecosystems. More science may tell us why these interesting patterns exist. If you would like to see a photo of what these herds look like, check out “Herd Of Fuzzy Green ‘Glacier Mice’ Baffles Scientists” on npr.org.
Another set of observations that excites and scares scientists and laypeople are the changes that are occurring in the Arctic. The Germans allowed their largest research ship and ice breaker to become trapped in the ice in October of last year. The ship was stranded in the ice for about a year so scientists could study what is happening in the Arctic ice over a full year. About 300 scientists came and went from the ship via helicopters and stayed for about three months. One of the surprising discoveries was that air temperature was warmer above the ice than at its surface which is closer to liquid water. Given the reality of climate change, it is important to have data from the high Arctic that was almost absent to develop hypotheses about what will happen in the
Arctic as it gets warmer. To study the temperatures in the atmosphere, balloons were flown daily to measure temperatures at different levels. The scientists were surprised to find that temperatures often differed in layers going up to about 70 feet in the air. It gets warmer higher above the ice. This is most interesting, but we don’t know why yet. Since heat levels in the Arctic have effects on weather in other parts of our world, we do need to do more research in this area.
A few years ago, other scientists studied the amount of ice in the Arctic over a little more than three decades. Amazingly, they found that sea ice had decreased by 95% over that time.
Since ice reflects sunlight, if the Arctic ice disappears, the consequences will be dramatic. Greenland’s glaciers will melt and the permafrost (frozen soil that stores lots of nutrients and carbon) will release a lot of methane that will further trap heat to remain in our atmosphere further advancing global climate change.
Since the sun does not come out during the winter months in the Arctic, and algae that are the source of food cannot grow, scientists had assumed that there would not be many living organisms in the ocean. When they studied life in the winter water, they were very surprised. Tiny creatures, called zooplankton (small jellyfish, worms, fish larvae, juvenile squid and lots more) were plentiful and even had food in the guts and some were even reproducing. The ship and its scientists were eager to explore more about the Arctic, but COVID-19 has interfered with their plans. After a delay of a few weeks, the ship and the scientists are back at it. We may have more information about an important region on our earth before too long. Given the increasing evidence of climate change we need more data.
Rollin Richmond is an emeritus professor of biology and emeritus president at Humboldt State University. He has worked as an evolutionary geneticist at several universities during his career. (Full disclosure: He happens to be responsible for 50 percent of Times-Standard publisher John Richmond’s genetic makeup.) Questions or comments about this column can be sent to rollinr@humboldt.edu.