A visual story by Vanessa Götz, POLARIN Ambassador and doctoral researcher at Umeå University.

In the Arctic, where temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else on Earth, some of the most important changes are happening out of sight. The Deep Roots in Thawing Permafrost (DROP) project focuses on the hidden processes belowground, investigating how plant roots and soils respond to warming conditions in Arctic tundra ecosystems. Funded through POLARIN’s first Transnational Access call, the project was carried out at Toolik Field Station in northern Alaska during the summer of 2025, combining long-term field experiments with hands-on observations from the tundra.

Through a visual field story, Vanessa Götz, POLARIN Ambassador and doctoral researcher at Umeå University, offers us a glimpse into her daily life and field research in the High Arctic. From warming experiments and plant-removal plots to encounters with wildlife, wildfire smoke, and sudden summer snowfall, the visual story captures both the scientific urgency and human experience of Arctic fieldwork. By highlighting how changes belowground may influence carbon storage and future climate feedbacks, DROP helps connect local tundra processes to global warming and environmental change.

DROP  was one of the projects successfully selected through POLARIN’s first call for Transnational Access to Polar Research Infrastructures.