In Colorado\u2019s academic world, there\u2019s a class of workers deemed essential and required to continue work on college campuses. At Colorado State University in Fort Collins, there\u2019s the expected, like a group of virologists working on the Foothills campus on a COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n
But researchers at the Colorado Climate Center are also still hard at work maintaining a 130-year weather record in Fort Collins.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, the first thing I notice is it\u2019s dead here on campus,\u201d said Zach Schwalbe, a Climate Center researcher who records in-person temperature and cloud cover measurements many mornings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of eerie, actually,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While the vast majority of Colorado Climate Center\u2019s work is automated through temperature gauges, assistant state climatologist Becky Bolinger said there\u2019s one place where machines still can\u2019t replace humans.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally you need that human element for an official observation,\u201d Bolinger said.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no sugarcoating it: Academic science in Colorado looks different under the new restrictions in place because of the coronavirus. Labs are temporarily shutdown. Grants are on hold. Many summer academic research expeditions have been downsized or canceled.<\/p>\n
University of Colorado Boulder ice core scientist Bruce Vaughn had to cancel his summer research trip to Greenland. He said it was a no-brainer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided that taking 30 scientists from 12 different countries all over the world to get to Greenland, and then sequestering them in a remote location living in close quarters with limited medical supplies and lack of ability to evacuate, may not be the best idea,\u201d Vaughn said.<\/p>\n
Greenland\u2019s summers are short, just a few months. It takes weeks to set up tents and work stations on the ice sheet. While the ice cores provide invaluable climate change data, the work will have to wait until summer 2021.<\/p>\n
Some cancellation decisions are more complex.<\/p>\n
Mike Gooseff is a professor of hydrology at CU Boulder who coordinates the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research Project. He\u2019s at the very beginning stages of planning his field season to Antarctica, which starts in October.<\/p>\n
Gooseff knows he\u2019s working on a schedule right now that will never see the light of day. But it\u2019s helping his team prioritize data must-haves for the field season. For example, one record related to the Onyx River stretches back 50 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other things that happen on a shorter-term basis that we want to try to capture so we understand why the response occurs the following year,\u201d Gooseff said. \u201cThat\u2019s the challenge here of one lost year \u2013 it could be challenging for many years in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are so many unanswered questions that plague his current schedule: Will airports and travel be unrestricted in October? Will workers be healthy?<\/p>\n
While the coronavirus may seem unprecedented, Gooseff actually does have a precedent. In 2013, the government shutdown delayed his timetable by weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went into planning mode. We said, \u2018If the delay lasts this long, we\u2019re going to do this plan. If the delay lasts this long, we\u2019re going to do this plan.\u2019 That was kind of how we had to approach it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s one silver lining to all the delayed and canceled plans, Vaughn at CU Boulder said it could be this: Researchers with months at home and no distractions may begin whittling away at their stack of half-written and unwritten papers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ll probably see a splurge in publishing in the next few months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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