60 Years of Data from Lake Baikal: Russians Take Science Seriously

The next time I grumble about whitecaps or ice keeping me from breaking out the kayak or the waders to go take water samples for the Lake Herman bacteria monitoring project, remind me of these Russians:

In 1945, when Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, Mikhail M. Kozhov began keeping track of what was happening under the surface of Lake Baikal, the ancient Siberian lake that is the deepest and largest body of fresh water on earth.

Every week to 10 days, by boat in summer and over the ice in winter, he crossed the lake to a spot about a mile and a half from Bolshie Koty, a small village in the piney woods on Baikal’s northwest shore. There, Dr. Kozhov, a professor at Irkutsk State University, would record water temperature and clarity and track the plant and animal plankton species as deep as 2,400 feet.

Soon his daughter Olga M. Kozhova began assisting him and, eventually her daughter, Lyubov Izmesteva, joined the project. They kept at it over the years, producing an extraordinary record of the lake and its health [Cornelia Dean, "Family Science Project Yields Surprising Data About a Siberian Lake," New York Times, 2008.05.06].

Walking a mile and a half out on Lake Baikal in the middle of Siberian winter, chopping through the ice for water samples, keeping it up for 60 years -- that's dedication.

(Oh yeah, and their data support global warming. Darn scientists with their inconvenient truths.)