Guest Post by Elizabeth Traver
On Friday 28
July, the Rocky Mountain Research Station celebrated the 30th
birthday of the Glacier Lakes Ecosystem Experiments Site, or GLEES. It is located off the Brooklyn Lake Road in
the Snowy Range, about 35 west of Laramie.
It was established in 1987 and, since 1989, scientists have been
gathering data on everything from water chemistry to soil and air temperature,
from relative humidity to solar radiation and wind speeds and directions. In addition, permanent vegetation plots have
been periodically sampled for more than 25 years offering an long-term resource
for researchers.
On that Friday, Forest Service folks offered talks on the
history and significance of the GLEES site, while others gave mountain tours and
talked about the lake cores and vegetation plots as well as the ongoing field
research for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program and stream flow
measurements. Another offered tours and
talks about the ~100’ scaffold tower that holds a large number of sensors
including though which are part of FLUXNET a system of 800 Ameriflux towers
that measure a variety of atmospheric
components around the world. GLEES tower
is the windiest and I think the highest in elevation.
After all the tours and talks, everyone headed to the
Forest Service cabin located just outside Centennial which has room to house
collaborating researches and has both wet and dry labs as well as a
site-specific herbarium. We all enjoyed
the cook-out and cake and mingled with both current and retired FS researchers
and several from U W who have done many projects within the GLEES area.
Panoramic view of GLEES. Aerial photo
(L) and this photo: Josh King, University of Wyoming
