Changes for 2013

Things are changing and changing fast. I've applied to graduate school and things look promising. I will be going to Japan for a while before any programs start. I'm leaving this horrible little life as a health inspector! Yes! My life has direction, however, I'm pressed for time, energy and creativity.

I'm currently working on a pre-proposal for graduate school with one of the programs that is very promising. The work is interesting, it's on winter limnology. I'm focusing on the water chemistry of these frozen lakes. The three nutrients I'm focusing on are carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. How will these nutrient dynamics change with a changing climate? What happens under the ice? How will less ice cover each year change the nutrient dynamics of the lakes? What is the end result?

I think most of the dynamics really depend on the concentration of oxygen available in the system. So many of the natural cycles of these particular nutrients depend on the concentration of oxygen. So, yes, oxygen will be measured and monitored...

As for the other nutrients... How does one monitor those changes? I'm thinking that a monitoring plan will need to be developed for before ice in autumn, with ice and ice melt in spring. The dilemma I'm coming up against for writing these mini-proposals is that it seems like all I want to do is monitor these nutrients over the year and see what happens... That doesn't seem very complicated to me....

First of all there are several nutrient forms that I think would be interesting. Nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, ammonium, nitrogen gas, ammonium hydroxide could all reveal how the nitrogen cycle changes over the course of winter. The phosphorus cycle is less complicated, as there is only one form of soluble phosphorus, orthophosphate, also known as soluble reactive phosphate.
The carbon cycle is also interesting, but in terms of greenhouse gases, methane and methantrophy are the factors I find most interesting.

This does not take into consideration the spatial variability, the daily variation that could be changing. How does one find the perfect time to measure? How does one measure these unique forms of nitrogen (or other nutrients) without changing their chemical make up (exposure to warmer temperatures, pressures, etc.)?

I think part of my problem is the scope of these mini-proposals, I only need one page to two page documents.  How do I concentrate all this down to so little text? OR I could sum it all up in one sentence: "Measure the concentrations of the different forms of nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, carbon and other particular micronutrients as the pertain to the above macronutrients over the course the formation and melt of lake ice."
Done...
For some reason, I think that my potential adviser is looking for something beyond a sentence, and a little less than a full-blown proposal... So, what do I write, what do I cite? I'm at a loss.

I've been studying nutrient dynamics for a while, but the introduction of lake ice is very interesting. It's a twist  because of the rapidly declining ice days per year. Over the last 30 years or so (my adviser says) we've lost a day of ice cover each year, resulting in the loss of a month of ice cover! That's crazy! Such rapid changes will definitely result in some paradigm changes in the world of limnology.