forest behind the trees

it all started quite innocently. I wanted to find out about UV radiation, the BIG issue of the ozone hole discussion (remember: more hair spray => less ozone => more sun lotion. so if you want to make a contribution, shave your hair and buy a hat. oh, and stay out of the sun...)

No seriously, my question is about this UV radiation: it is established as a problem especially in polar regions, right? Mostly for the Antarctic and adjacent areas, but more and more also for the Northern polar and even boreal areas. In both areas there are vast expanses of sea ice, which interestingly enough is full of life. Never heard of it? Just bear with me anyway for now.

So to get to the point: if the ozone hole is mostly a problem for polar areas, is the increased UV level affecting the sea ice fauna, i.e. animals (=fauna) that live under, inside or in between that sea ice?

A simple enough question. You cannot ask the critters themselves (some people might claim they can, but hey, some people wil even talk to their potted plants and claim it "works" so what do I know) so you have to find out indirectly:

you have to make an experiment.

experiments are great. everybody has been doing some at some stage, maybe without knowing. the difficult part is to know what to observe.

You have to know whether an outcome actually is happening, or whether that 'bang' was just your head hitting the table as you collapsed with boredom and exhaustion.

So you define a hypothesis, like, "more hair spray, less ozone, more UV, more sun tan"

In my case, sun tan in critters was hard to estimate, but in fact it is a possible angle, so let's keep it in mind.

Fortunately, the part from "hair spray" to "more UV" is already well-established - there are people with balloons and lasers that measure the gases in the upper atmosphere, like CFC's and ozone, and others with radiometers and lots of other sensors and they are doing a pretty good job there.

So the tricky part is: do the critters get sunburnt?

I thought I rather start easy and establish whether they in fact received enough sunlight and hence UV to actually feel a difference. After all, it might be that this is really a non-issue, right?

So to measure the amount of UV radiation in that habitat was the first challenge.

In theory you look around for the right sensor for that purpose (a tough job), get it into your hands (even tougher) learn how to use it (this is the fun part, really!) and put it where you expect to see your signal. in my case, into the ice-covered waters of the North (and eventually also the South).

So far so good.

But this is where the trouble starts: you have generated data. NOT information, mind you, just data (I have been ranting about the small but significant difference previously already, in this post.

So here I am, surrounded and covered with DATA, none of which makes too much sense at the moment. Why?

Simple. Each measurement I ever took contains the spectral range from 250-580nm, in other words part of the visible (>400 nm) and all of the invisible, but much more powerful and therefore harmful UV light (<400 nm, i.e. UVA 320-400nm and UVB 280-320nm, and so on).

This is measured with a resolution of approx. 2.15, i.e. the instrument does not record every incremental nm (nanometer) but roughly only every second or so. That makes ca. 152 data points, from one single measurement. Multiply this by the number of (spectral) measurements that I took and you eventually end up with the fantastic number of 559.426 data points entered into my database.

(math cracks will soon have realised that this six-digit number divided by 152 gives a decimal value...

...well guess what that puzzled me too!)

So the answer to my naive and simple question "do they get enough UV to get sunburnt?" is answered in half a million data points, all of which add up to absolutely NO INFORMATION at the moment.

See what I mean about data and information?

it seems that in order to find the promised forest, I first have to learn how to (re)build tress from heaps of cellulose that somebody is pouring over my head in copious quantities, all of which had been ordered and hauled around by myself...

And the ironic part is, this is only about the "what if" part of my little hypothesis. the possible result (sunburnt critters) is still haunting me like the legendary unicorn that is supposed to be roaming the valley behind the forest ;-)

If you wonder how on earth somebody can figure out whether and how critters DO get sunburnt, or what they use as sun lotion, or if they all get issued their little hats and parasols...

...WATCH THIS SPOT!