What's it like to be a research scientist working in the Arctic and Antarctica? In celebration of the International Polar Year, the Exploratorium gave polar scientists cameras and blogs and asked them to document their fieldwork in real time. The result is a groundbreaking Web-based project, Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists (http://icestories.exploratorium.edu), where you can follow along on the scientists’ research, ask questions, and share ...

From the mountains to the coast - the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research based in Bremerhaven inherits the World Radiation Monitoring Center, Switzerland The international archive for radiation data, the World Radiation Monitoring Center (WRMC), provides climate research with high-precision meteorological series of measurements. After a term of fifteen years at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association ensures the successful continuity and enhancements of this unique archive. These data serve the monitoring of the climate, the surveillance of anthropological influence on the earth's surface as well as the improvement of climate forecasts. ...

International Award for Information Technology Goes to Research Institutions in the German Federal State of Bremen for the Data Library PANGAEA® The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) and the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) received the 21st Century Achievement Award of the Computerworld Honors Program in the category Environment, which is one of the most prestigious awards in information technology. The award has been granted in response to PANGAEA¹s implementation and successful operation of a unique information system for archiving, publishing and processing of earth system data. Designed to support an integral view on earth, this information system was named after the supercontinent, combining all ...

Sooty particles emitted during the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels (petroleum, coal), biofuels, and biomass (wood, animal dung, etc.) can do more than just create unsightly pollution and provoke respiratory problems. Known within the scientific community as black carbon, research and modelling conducted in recent years shows that this dark-coloured aerosol has been playing a significant role in climate warming through its absorption of solar radiation. Its impact is heaviest in the cryosphere, where its presence can reduce snow albedo and can lead to faster melting of snow on land and on sea ice. ...

One of the key legacies of the International Polar Year 2007-2009 is the development of a cadre of early career researchers working together to tackle the pressing scientific problems of today and tomorrow. In order to further catalyze this formation, the US National Science Foundation funded the IPY New Generation Polar Research (NGPR) Symposium, which was held May 4-11, 2008, in Colorado Springs, USA. The symposium, which is also part of the “University of the Arctic: Providing Higher Education and Outreach Programs for the International Polar Year” (IPY Project #189), provided a venue where 35 early career polar scientists, currently working in 7 different countries, (a) learned from each other and from 12 veteran polar scientists, some of whom took part in the 1957...

Contents: 1. IPY events in St Petersburg, July 2008 2. Land and Life Day 3. APECS Report 4. Videos on IPY.org 5. IPY events and activities Report no. 14, June 2008 From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. IPY events in St Petersburg, July 2008 Several IPY meetings and workshops are occurring before and during the SCAR/IASC Open Science Conference in July. Below we list those that we know of, with location information to the best of our current knowledge. Much of the energy and networking central to IPY is stimulated in events like these - please do consider attending as appropriate....

The main objective of the weekend was to emphasize the importance of the polar regions, and to showcase the various Portuguese science and education outreach activities currently underway. The weekend proved to be a wonderful opportunity for the wider public to get to know the Portuguese polar science community...

Mark Kurz from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution discusses how he can find out the ages of rocks in Antarctica to discover when ice sheets and glaciers advanced and retreated on the icy continent. That knowledge, in turn, helps scientists learn more about how and why Earth's climate changed in the past, providing clues to determine how humans are affecting Earth's climate today, and the impacts climate change will have on humans in the future.

Oceanographer Mary-Louise Timmermans discusses the importance of research to determine how much the Arctic's climate is changing.

As part of the International Polar Year, Polar Discovery brings you the stories of science on ice. The polar regions are experiencing unprecedented environmental changes that are having significant impacts on global climate, ecosystems, and society. Using the latest engineering advancements, scientists are studying the changing climate at the heart of the icy Arctic Ocean, the melting glaciers of Greenland, and the creatures of Antarctica's Southern Ocean.