by Adrianna Gorsky

My journey to the LOREX orientation in Palma de Mallorca began with a sunrise over Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin and ended with a sunset over the bay of Palma. In a way, a symbolic farewell leading into my summer as I will be heading to Abisko, Sweden, which lies about 200 km north of the Arctic Circle and so by June the sun doesn’t set.

Hi my name is Adrianna Gorsky, and I am a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Freshwater and Marine Science program. Although my dissertation is focused on urban waterbodies, my summer will be spent in some of the most pristine lakes in the world in the Swedish Lapland. I am grateful for the LOREX experience, which will broaden my understanding of the concepts I study and expose me to a completely different ecosystem. For the next 6 weeks, I will be at the Climate Impacts Research Centre at the Abisko Scientific Research Center with Dr. Jan Karlsson’s lab through Umeå University. My plan is to work through an existing dataset to estimate whole-lake metabolism between two very different meteorological years. I also plan to deploy more dissolved oxygen sensors in three lakes with varying bathymetries to better understand spatial variation of metabolism. As an exchange, I hope to provide field assistance as well to other projects in order to gain as much experience in this new place as possible.

I think for most people the pandemic has changed travel. Leading up to the orientation my nerves kept growing making sure I had everything I would need for the next 2.5 months. I took almost every type of transportation possible from car, bus, airplane, tram, and train and each step felt like a new adventure. The in-person orientation was much needed to calm my nerves and get me more prepared for this experience. I left Palma with more colleagues/friends and confidence for what would lie ahead.

I am excited to share my experience with you over the next few weeks! My overnight train from Stockholm arrived 48 hours ago, and I’ve already been on a hike, in a lakeside sauna, and eaten two full bags of gummies…I think we are off to a good start!