Biosphere 2, Up to Date

Do you remember Biosphere 2? It started out in the late 1980's and continued into the 1990's as a project to demonstrate how humans could migrate to alien worlds and create their own livable environment. An interesting idea. NASA was among the hopeful sponsors.

Or was that Biosphere 1?  What's the difference between 1 and 2? What happened to those people? Is this thing still going on? Well! With so many questions we wanted to visit. And luckily, it's in Arizona only about 50 miles from where we're staying.

Our Visit to Biosphere 2

Turns out, Biosphere 2 is carrying on, and open to the public with scheduled tours. We took a tour with a tour guide, Julianne and I, our Seattle friend Cynthia, and about 15 other people. The guide has been with Biosphere 2 since the beginning, and was very enthusiastic about both the past and the future. We had about an hour and a half inside, and more wandering and thinking time outside. It's a beautiful and solidly built complex of structures.

Main environment, with rain forest and ocean, among other things

The Original Biosphere Project

Biosphere 1, it turns out, is the Earth and its atmosphere.  "2" was the effort to create a viable living space separate from Biosphere 1.  Eight people did actually live inside Biosphere 2 for two years, recycling their own O2/CO2, recycling and using the same water over and over, growing their own food.  Two years seems like an eternity. But they managed it, despite some problems.

The way Biosphere 2 was designed to work, eight people would live sealed off from the outside world, growing all their own food and conducting biological and biophysical experiments. The environment would be like the real world, with the plants, animal life and water resources in balance, creating an earth-like atmosphere of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen.

They set up small versions of a rain forest, an ocean, a grassland, a farm.

Living quarters and "lung," with our friend Cynthia

To equalize air pressure inside and outside in the expanding heat of the day and the contracting cool of the night, there were expandable membranes, the "lungs," connected to the biosphere by underground passages. These expanded in the day time and contracted at night. 

Four men, four women, many plants, some mammals including one other primate, fish, insects. The eight lived in quarters connected to the greenhouse, also shut off from the outside world, except for computer contact and email.

Rain Forest

The rainforest understory

Ocean with wave-maker at rear

To avoid inside plants from accessing outside water, or outside plants accessing inside water, a basement of steel plates sat under the whole thing. Amazing. They really tried to think of everything.

Underground Biosphere 2 with tour guide and tourists in the room where water is recycled.

Inside the lung, which can adjust air pressure in Biosphere 2

How Did It Turn Out?

It was not as easy as the Biospherians hoped.

They had a farm where they grew their food and raised domestic animals. But during the first winter of Biosphere 2, the weather in Biosphere 1 (the Tucson area) was rainier and cloudier than typical, so photosynthesis lagged. Thus the percentage of oxygen fell inside the complex.

It fell also for another factor which they had not accounted for:  Concrete, used extensively in the construction, absorbs quite a bit of O2 as it is curing, and this depleted the atmospheric oxygen even more.

So the biggest problem, which showed up early in the experiment, was that there was not enough oxygen.  The amount of oxygen in the air dropped from 19% (normal) to 14.5%. At 13% humans die.

Of course, the project managers violated the isolation of the biosphere to add more oxygen. Outsiders called this a failure, but the Biospherians didn't agree, and stayed on, emerging in 1993 after two years.

Other than that, they were close to self-sufficient, but not quite. Basic life tasks -- farming and the other tasks required to sustain life -- took 66 hours/week for each person. They had adequate nutrients but not enough calories, and so they were hungry - beyond hungry. In desperation, they ate their seed corn, and dipped into the emergency food supply.

Further, simple self sufficiency wasn't enough. A central part of the project was their scientific experiments. But they couldn't get around to them, they were working too hard. The science was not progressing.

Non-rain forest area of the Biosphere

Hunger, poor air, and frustration made them cranky, and they divided into factions. Is that human, or what? (We think the guide said that the lack of oxygen was the strongest factor in the crankiness but our memories are weak.  Maybe we need more oxygen ourselves. Or maybe we have personally experienced the crankiness of hunger.)

Lots of learning in these two years, but finally the managers decided to stop the project since the science experiments were not being carried out. So two years was how long it lasted.

For a more complete review of Biosphere 2 history, see this Wikipedia article. A TED talk by participant Jane Poynter is here. A fascinating description of the whole concept of biospherics is here.

Now--15 years later

After years of effort, several changes in ownership and direction, and financial crises, a new template has emerged for Biosphere 2. The facility is managed now by the University of Arizona, and they are open to scientists from anywhere in the world who may want to conduct research there.

Our tour guide didn't focus on the hard times, but about the chances for future projects and what can be learned from them.

Two really interesting projects are in process now.  Probably others too but these are the ones we were able to absorb.

Climate science and water resource use are the focus now.  The Biosphere 2 site is well-suited to experiments on earth atmosphere, which has become one of the key issues for our planet.

Rain forest, I couldn't resist the rain forest

Rain Forest

Scientists have found that the trees in rain forests (temperate and tropical) do not take up water from rivers but rely fully on rainfall reaching their roots. Learn more here.

Using the enclosed rain forest in the Biosphere 2, this project is now measuring the plant usage of water in rainfall conditions (how much intake, expiration, etc).  (We were visiting during one of the rainfalls--yikes!) Later they will induce drought conditions and measure what the trees do especially to see whether their roots reach for the "rivers" under extreme conditions.

Water Cycle

This experiment is just starting.  The area which was the farm area when folks tried to live in Biosphere 2 is being transformed into an area with bare soil.  The scientists will measure rainfall and where it goes on soil with no vegetation, to create a baseline.  How much evaporation, how much percolation, etc.  The total amount of water can be held constant; amount and type of dirt remain constant. Next grass and grass-size plants will be introduced and similar measurements will be made. Later yet--trees. Learn more here.

I do not recall what they said about temperature, sunlight and so on but we suppose they also will be measured. Those factors depend on the Biosphere 1 climate in the Tucson area. The research will take several years so stay tuned.

Beginning project with high school students, water and plant growth.
Different contributions of water have different tracers.

More views from the tour

We saw the rain forest and ocean. We went down into the underground passages that link the living quarters to the rest. We went up into the lung and felt the hurricane wind as we left through the outside door.

Tour guide, Cynthia, Julianne, rain forest and Biosphere 2 skin

Wind when exiting

Photos by Nancy
Text by both

Photographing Birds in Southern Arizona

We've been visiting places near Tubac, Arizona, where birds can be seen and photographed. We are in an area important to birders, the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert, with mountains and lowlands next to each other, different species at different elevations and various degrees of moisture.

It's fun catching these little guys in the lens, still the outcomes are partly a matter of luck and circumstance.

Pyrrhuloxia, a desert relative of cardinals

That one felt to me like a successful picture. Is it always like that? How does picture-making generally go? At Sonoita Creek State Natural Area, there's a bay, with coots. Coots are rather bad-tempered birds, and often chase each other. Thus they are very watchful of each other, though not very shy of humans. I watched them for some time, made maybe 15 shots, and here are two.

American coot

Same flock, note odd half-webbed feet

Isn't that interesting? Same flock, they all looked the same color, yet there's a huge difference in the photographs. This has partly to do with the reflectance of the feathers and the angle of the sun. The swimming bird is broadside to the sun but the walking bird heads into the sun, its feathers at more of an angle to the light. 

That's not all. See how there's less detail in the bill of the swimming bird? That's because the camera read the dark water as lighter, and made the whole shot lighter, than would have been ideal. 

Then it read the pale dock as darker, and so the whole second shot is darker, including the bill. The automatic exposure is always adjusting toward middle grey.

Lots of issues with color. With this Sage Thrasher, the late afternoon shadowy light makes everything look bluer than real. It's actually a rather brownish bird.

Sage Thrasher, with increased contrast using paint.net

So is there a little bit of uncertainty?...oh, yes. Next here's a sequence trying to capture this Canyon Wren if possible. One bird and a couple minutes.

Sit up!

Where'd he go?

Turn around!

Could you please step farther into the sun?

This somewhat frustrating series was at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson. Eventually I did better with a different Canyon Wren.

Persistence, that's the key. Here's another Canyon Wren, more successful, later the same day. Not perfect, but better.

Canyon Wren in shadow 

This is a fun game. Birds don't hold still. You have to use a telephoto because they're so small, but then frequently you can't even find them.

Or, they just will refuse to move into the sun, or they turn their back, or you know, they ignore what I have in mind for their big opportunity. 

Gila Woodpecker, wrong side of tree

Sometimes my little automatic camera insists on focusing not on my subject, but on something else, such as branches.

Inca dove in thicket, focus on tree and branch

But then, sometimes everything goes well. The bird holds still enough. The light is good enough. Focus is adequate.

Lesser Goldfinch, winter plumage, not seeming so brilliant

Lesser Goldfinch, winter plumage, males and females

by Nancy, with her darling little Panasonic Lumix DMZ-TZ6, Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens, bought in Rome a year ago. 

New Orleans

In the French Quarter, New Orleans

We're taking a few months traveling in the South, Southwest, and up the West Coast before at last we get to our home in Seattle. We'll arrive there when good weather does (we hope). This is clearly a trip with a goal, but there's no reason not to have a good time, too. And we'll learn more about the United States itself. 

We spent Christmas week in New Orleans. In New Orleans, it was almost summer, in the 70s. We were not complaining.

Julianne's son Tim came for Christmas, and we had a lot of fun. Our place, rented for two, was tiny for three, but never mind. The owners have a fine artistic eye, and they were wonderful for conversation about New Orleans. If there was only one sauce pan and no dinner plates, never mind, we had great visuals and lots of books.

Just a few snaps of our cottage interior

New Orleans is fun for visuals. My camera couldn't resist the houses in our neighborhood. 

SWAMP TOUR

And then there was the Honey Island Swamp Tour, Creole-run, in a flat-bottomed little barge-type boat that had a roof.  Good thing too, as it rained. Tim arranged this wonderful event for us. We saw alligators and turtles, and lots of birds. Also rain.

In the office

Mist on the water as we started out

The chill air slowed down this cold--blooded female until it seemed she couldn't move.

Can you make out the snake sliding along under the water? See upper left, coil rising.

KATRINA

Both of us had been in New Orleans before Katrina, before we had to learn that elements of our government could be so feckless, so cruel. Hurricane and aftermath, such tragic, infuriating events. Neither of us could bear seeing it, and though we had friends and acquaintances who traveled down to help rebuild, we stayed away. For years.

Well, that was then. Ten years later we're looking for signs of recovery. 

Good luck to us.

We drove around the Lower 9th Ward, which was so destroyed by Katrina, and still is. I found myself reluctant to photograph misery after reading a New York Times Magazine piece describing disaster touring in New Orleans (here it is). So a couple empty lots was what I could manage:

A renewed home with vacant lot and egrets

Site of the levee break, with rebuilt homes background
(Julianne and Tim - I'm on the levee)

And, by chance we drove around the top of Lake Pontchartrain, on little-back-road-type roads, and there we found a jillion dead cars from the hurricane piled up willy-nilly, rotting in place. I think every single car in New Orleans died and ended up in these long rows looking like a new type of levee. Archaeologists of the future will have something to ponder.

There is ever so much to see in New Orleans, grandeur and charm just next to continued devastation. East New Orleans (a separate town) seems to be principally empty foundations and weeds. The French Quarter didn't suffer much, and there are also many lovely neighborhoods and parks. But New Orleans has a way to go. 

The population, which dropped two thirds after the hurricane, is still down by a third. There's a lot of emptiness, including just across the street from our rental, where vacant lots used to hold homes, now just concrete slabs among the weeds. 

SIDE TRIP TO GRAND ISLE

Our last full day the weather was fine, about 70 and light haze. We drove down to the end of the world, which is called Grand Isle, the very last land the Mississippi River has formed that has a road, the very end. 

Gulf of Mexico rolling into Grand Isle

That world is all water and small grassy islands and birds - egrets and rosy spoonbills and the occasional heron and dowitcher. Also, fishermen looking for flounder and catfish, and little fish jumping to get away from the big fish, and wind-surfers, and shut-up summer places, and a cafe or two. 

The main economy down there is oil services and refineries for the platforms out in the Gulf. But these are not as far out along the road as Grand Isle. We stopped at Port Fourchon to look at birds, surrounded by these huge installations. Lots of birds, despite industry.

Water and land mix together with oil installations

Near Port Fourchon, a marina and piles of gravel

And upwater from there, closer to the mainland, sugar cane, shrimp boats, and rice fields. Funny to see these huge boats nearly at the same level as the roadway - the water table can't be more than a foot under the surface of the ground. Nobody has a basement here.

Out by Port Fourchon

The same is true of New Orleans, no basements, water table amazingly high, and further, most houses are built not more than a few inches above the ground, on slab. There's someone's front door, and then a stretch of yard, and then without transition, a canal or bayou. It would make me nervous. Though also, outside the city, lots of houses are built on stilts, as if they were in Thailand or the Philippines. Those are relatively new.

We liked New Orleans a lot, and will be happy sometime in future to go back. Now, on to Houston and points west.

by Nancy, who is unable to avoid this bright formatting from Blogger.