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What happens at the poles affects us all - Methane!
Written by David CarlsonIn a paper in the journal Science, published on 5 March, researchers from Russia, Sweden and the USA reported their results from 5000 at-sea measurements of dissolved methane in the coastal waters off of Eastern Siberia. They showed that most of the bottom waters and more than half of the surface waters of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf contained supersaturations of methane - a supersaturation represents more methane than expected and indicates a source other than the atmosphere. They determined that the methane entered the ocean waters from below, from the large reserviors of methane and other carbon in the sub-sea permafrost.
In places, they also observed high concentrations of methane in the atmosphere, methane that had first entered the ocean and then escaped to the atmosphere - see the figure below.
Because methane becomes a global greenhouse gas, release of methane from any northern sources, the sub-sea permafrost or the land permafrost, will have global impact. What happens at the poles affects us all! The authors of this study conclude "Leakage of methane through shallow ESAS waters needs to be considered in interactions between the biogeosphere and a warming Arctic climate." Indeed!
For more information, see this USA National Science Foundation announcement. For background information, and for the source of the image used here, see this WWF Report, 'Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications'.
Please join us in celebrating IPY Polar Week throughout this week and launch a virtual balloon to show your participation! Please take a look at the March Polar Week pages for all the ways you can get involved. For example, today (Tuesday 16th March), from 1230 UTC, and for the rest of the week, the State of the Arctic conference will be webstreamed and will allow virtual participation for classrooms, general public and anyone interested in Arctic science, policy and people. We will have students from Zambia connecting to a Portuguese scientist currently in the UK, as well as several public lectures taking place across the globe and lots of classroom activities for you to try out! Information on all of the above and more can be found at http://www.ipy.org/hidden/item/2293-march-polar-week-2010-what-happens-at-the-poles-affects-us-all
We hope you enjoy celebrating IPY Polar Week with us!
Indian IPY Programme: Past, Present and Future
Written by Administrator
The Indian IPY Programme was coordinated from the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) and launched 1st March 2007. Included are some wonderful examples (see poster) of some of the outreach activities carried out by the Indian National Commitee which included an innovative Soccer Tournament to help generate awareness of the polar regions. Thanks to the activities carried out during IPY, NCAOR now has a well defined student participation programme widely advertised across schools and colleges throughout India. For more information about the Indian IPY programme, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Massive Iceberg Breaks off from Mertz Glacier in Antarctica
Written by Melissa DeetsA very large iceberg, measuring 78 kilometres long and 39 kilometres wide has broken off from the Mertz Glacier Tongue in the Australian Antarctic Territory after another iceberg measuring 97 kilometres long (B9B) collided with it on the 12th or 13th of February. The event was discovered by Australian and French researchers during a joint study that began in 2007 during the International Polar Year.
For further information on this event, please visit the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) website at http://www.acecrc.org.au/drawpage.cgi?pid=news&sid=news_media&aid=797707 or the Austrlian Antarctic Division's website at http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=37551. You may also view images and a more in-depth description of the event in the media release here.
Photo: Neil Young
Photo: Neil Young
Photo: Barbara Wienecke, Mertz Glacier Tongue
Canadian IPY researchers gathered in Ottawa, Canada, to report their IPY activities and to share initial results and highlights.
More than 250 people gathered in Ottawa, Canada, for an IPY Early Results Workshop. Stimulated and organized by the Government of Canada Program for IPY, the workshop allowed leaders of more than 50 Canadian-led IPY projects to report their activities and share their initial results and highlights. One could hear the latest research news in sea ice, ocean circulation, atmospheric transport of contaminants, marine ecosystems, freshwater ecosystems, hydrology, butterflies, permafrost, caribou, vegetation, sea birds, and northern health - fresh views of the many facets of Arctic systems. Although focused within the broad Arctic expanses of Canada, most of these projects had extensive international connections and partnerships. One heard many references to activities and presentations planned for the Oslo Science Conference in June 2010, as well as growing interest and an emerging vision for the Canada 2012 IPY conference planned for April 2012 in Montreal.
Bye Bye
Two months can be a long time. On this cruise the days seemed to pass in minutes and so much happened. Until last night we sampled 1000 m sediment. We made a way of about 9950 NM. The last miles to Wellington we are compared by a lot of birds, especially the albatross likes to swim near the ship during the station work.
Teamwork on board
The work on board - you see it on the picture - is successfully finished and the teamwork was great. In the next ten years, you will read a lot of the research results in the scientific publications around the world. I hope the samples will answer a lot of the questions the scientists on board have asked in the past.
We like to thank everyone who helped to realize the website. We thank the readers and hope you found some interesting information about this cruise.
So, bye bye and have a good time!
Ulrich Breitsprecher & Abhinav GogoiSunday, 24 January 2010
The calm stormy seas have been very common during this expedition. So much so that we have had to abandon our cruise track once and most other times to alter station plans working around the weather. The constant battering of the waves against the ship has also demanded a sleeping manner of heaving, tossing and turning in bed much to the chagrin of a much-required rest after a long day or night’s work. Popular inkling labors on a ‘such-is-life-at-sea’ phrase and/or ‘such-is-the-Southern-Ocean’!
However, the stormy Southern Pacific Ocean also showed a new fascia of remarkable calm never seen before during this cruise. Any discernible waves or patterns of such had ceased to exist for miles and the ocean lingered simply as a mirror of an overcast greyish day! Mountain lakes shaded by crags and hills, where time just stands still, flood into memory! Either it was a natural ‘calm before the storm’ as the cliché demands or an often conspicuous platitude of ‘calm after the storm’, owing to the then recently escaped storm, because of which we had to alter our cruise track.
Yet, such calm ambiance also provided an opportunity to reflect on the immediacy of our track to New Zealand and the rising air temperatures (of about 10° C) evident of reaching sub-tropical regions after being on sea for exactly 53 days. It is the Tuesday January 19th 2010 as I write and we arrive in New Zealand on the 25th January midnight touching the dawn of the 26th January 2010.
Abhinav Gogoi
First view of an island (the Antipodes Islands)
After a few extra days to catch some late-arriving abstracts, the abstract submission process for the IPY Oslo Science Conference has now closed. We count approximately 2600 abstracts received, presenting us with the opportunity and the challenge of organizing and conducting one of the largest and most diverse conferences in the history of polar science.
In addition to the broad spectrum of IPY research, the conference will also offer:
Hundreds of early career researchers, excited to carry forward the energy and international cooperation of this IPY;
More than one hundred teachers, each of whom has submitted an abstract, and all of whom will join the full range of talks and events;
A polar information commons, featuring many polar data centers and the new Polar Information Commons (more information soon); and
Films, books, exhibits, food and fun.
Registration has opened. Early bird registration, and favourable access to hotel accommodations, will end on 8 March 2010. The entire team of session convenors, theme chairs, and steering group members make a vigorous effort to review all the abstracts, produce a draft program, and provide a quick response to all who submitted abstracts.
For more information, see the Konferanse web site.
For a media alert, and a press release, please visit the Konferanse media page or the press page on this site.
Leaders of an Arctic System Reanalysis activity, part of the IPY Climate of the Arctic Project, have presented their plans and issued an invitation to the IPY community for evaluation and participation.
In an article published recently in EOS (Volume 91, Number 2, 12 January 2010), David Bromwich and co-authors described plans for an Arctic System Reanalysis. This activity, part of the IPY Climate of the Arctic Project, and a component of the USA SEARCH (Study of Environmental Arctic Change) program, represents an ambitious plan to draw in many IPY partners and many of the IPY observations from the Arctic. Bromwich et al. describe a low-resolution (30 km) prototype, with an inner domain shown in the image above, focused on 2007 and 2008. Eventually they intend to complete a decade-long reanalysis (2000 to 2010) at 10 km spacing and 3 hour resolution. Please visit the Arctic System Reanalysis web page.
