Video

A Year at the Mount Noak Climate Monitoring Station, Cape Krusenstern National Monument

Arctic Inventory & Monitoring Network

Transcript

This video shows seasonal changes in Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Alaska using time-lapse photography from the year 2020. After zooming across a satellite image of North America to northwestern Alaska, we arrive at Cape Krusenstern National Monument, outlined in yellow. The location of the Mount Noak 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, arctic tundra plain toward the Igichuk Hills, where there are some dark-colored groves of spruce trees. 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. The 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 brown in August, and in September a muskox arrives and takes a nap. The snow cover returns in 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 Mount Noak climate monitoring station in Cape Krusenstern National Monument.

Duration

1 minute, 57 seconds

Credit

NPS/David Swanson

Date Created

05/26/2023

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