The NASA HOW (History of Winter) program is held each February (since 2000) in Lake Placid, New York, USA. The HOW Program brings together teachers and learning professionals from around the United States to study SNOW, ICE and the WINTER ECOSYSTEM through intensive classroom and fieldwork exercises led by experts in the field. This year the program is held February 10-16. Also this year, The Global Snowflake Network (GSN) will be launched. Peter Wasilewski and Robert Gabrys created and developed the NASA HOW (History of Winter) program held each February since 2000. The primary foci of the weeklong program (February 10 - 16, 2008) are threefold: 1) SNOW - in the air and on the ground 2) ICE - crystal structure and axial orientation 3) WINTER E...

February 1, 2008: Hello! We are graduate students from the Department of Oceanography at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, USA. We are participants in the CLIVARI6S Repeat Hydrography Research Project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation as one of the many activities of the International Polar Year (IPY). Professors Kevin Speer, William Landing, and Thorsten Dittmar, Post Doctoral Researcher Angie Milne, and Associate in Oceanography Peter Lazarevich will direct us, and we graduate students, Kati Gosnell, Katy Hill, Juliana D’Andrilli, Jun Dong, Ji-Young Paeng, and Austin Todd, are looking forward to a lot of invaluable hands-on experience. In Durban, South Africa, our port of departure, a fifth student, Loic Juillon, will join us, ...

January 30, 2008: Today the Tangaroa, New-Zealand's Antarctic research vessel, departed from Wellington and is heading due south to undertake the New Zealand IPY-CAML project. New Zealand is conducting a major biological survey of the Ross Sea, in the Antarctic, as part of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) and International Polar Year (IPY). Forty four people including 24 scientists and 18 crew will take part in an eight-week voyage aboard RV Tangaroa from January 30th to mid March 2008. The data collected will provide baseline information from the Southern Ocean and Ross Sea environment that can be used to help monitor the effects of climate change in the Ross Sea region. With a biodiversity focus, the voyage will collect samples of...

International Polar Year celebration concert to be held Feb. 1 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The University of Alaska International Polar Year office is sponsoring a concert by the Inuit tribal funk band Pamyua at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 1, at the Hering Auditorium, Fairbanks, Alaska. The concert is a celebration of the unique cultures of the north and their people’s ability to adapt to changes in both cultural and natural landscapes. An Alaska-founded group, Pamyua started 10 years ago as a dream by two brothers to share the ancient stories of their people through music and dance. Stephen and Phillip Blanchett, who are of Yup’ik Inuit and African American descent, quickly gained international attention and after being joined by Chefornak, Alaska, dance...

Tuesday, 29 January On my way to breakfast I meet a smiling Svenja. “Looks like a benthic station today!” she exclaims and disappears in the stairwell to the labs. My heart skips a beat. How wonderful! We start around half past ten, I run a multicorer, the winch control room is humming with happy busy people, outside a bright blue sky spans over a sea of a like colour. The mighty foam-crested swells look beautiful in the sunlight and are not the least bit unnerving anymore. Together with Annika I lower the gear gently on the sea floor (actually, it is Otto at th...

Sunday, 27 January What an exciting day! Not only because of the storm, but especially because of the amphipod traps which we had almost given up on and left on the sea floor for two months. Today we got them back. This was due to the Captain´s great expertise, the board electrician´s genius and a good portion of luck, with the storm allowing us a little time before it pushed the wave heights over 7 metres. It was not easy. When we worked on our first station near the beginning of this voyage, the traps did not respond to the ship’s signals. At that time, they had been on the ground for some 12 hours. There was nothing we could do, time was in short supply, and we proceeded without retrieving the trap. We had planned from the very beginning to revisit thi...

29th January 2008 Wow, I know that last entry was a bit of moan-fest, but hey – as they say ‘round here, it’s a harsh continent. Today was better, actually quite a bit better. We managed to get a bunch of our gear out to the site at Lonewolf Nunatak (my vote for windiest place on the planet) and also built a new GPS station at an old NASA GPS site in the Kukri Hills just to the west of McMurdo. There’s nothing like a bit of productive work to lift morale a bit. It was a warm(ish) day with no wind on the mountain, just a little snow now and again. We finished the guts of the station pretty quickly, the drilling of the monument took a whole lot longer than expected though. Even so we ended up with a good install and had time for a bit of a walk. ...

Please consider presenting your research results at the Special Session described below on the ASLO Summer Meeting to take place at St. John\'s NewFounland, Canada, 8-13 June, 2008. ABSTRACT DEADLINE FEBRUARY 28, 2008 For more information: http://www.aslo.org/meetings/stjohns2008/ SS34. Impacts of Climate Warming on Polar Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems Organizers: Carlos M. Duarte, IMEDEA, CSIC-UIB, Mallorca, Spain, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Susana Agust, IMEDEA, CSIC-UIB, Mallorca, Spain, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it The 4th International Polar Year (IPY, March 2007 - March 2009) is taking place at a time when climate warming is clearly affecting polar regions. Warming rates and the associated ice loss appears to be accelerating i...

Saturday, 26 January Hi, and good morning. Yaaawn... it’s me again, Nils. Yaaaawn... We had a long night here on board FS Polarstern, followed by a cold, wet and stormy morning. Now it is 11 a.m., I am frozen to the bones, my stomach is unhappy about the waves, and I have been on my feet for 27 hours. Well, about that long. I should tell the story from the beginning. We are on our way home, at a station at 52° southern latitude. Two months ago we have already been here once to take samples. Now, on our way back, we are taking samples again at the same spot to see if anything has change...

Saturday, 26 January Hi, and good morning. Yaaawn... it’s me again, Nils. Yaaaawn... We had a long night here on board FS Polarstern, followed by a cold, wet and stormy morning. Now it is 11 a.m., I am frozen to the bones, my stomach is unhappy about the waves, and I have been on my feet for 27 hours. Well, about that long. I should tell the story from the beginning. We are on our way home, at a station at 52° southern latitude. Two months ago we have already been here once to take samples. Now, on our way back, we are taking samples again at the same spot to see if anything has change...