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.

On Day 36 of Polar Discovery's third expedition, we were nearing the edge of the ice pack, which means we were also entering bear country. We saw nine in a 24-hour period, beginning Saturday evening. In the United States, we call them "polar bears," but that's a bit misleading because they don't exist at the southern pole.

Andrea Burke, a second year graduate student in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program discusses her interest in paleoceanography, past climate change, and her excitement about going to Antarctica to learn more.

Together with a team of scientists, University of Alaska's Matt Nolan has been spending the past 6 weeks on Alaska's McCall Glacier, extracting ice cores and installing thermistor string. And he's been blogging it, using some very innovative multimedia tools to bring home what life on the glacier is like. The main blogging challenge has been getting his posts, photos and videos from the glacier to your browser. Connections to the outside world are very sparse, so the first batch of blog posts and content, from April 22 to May 11, have only just now been delivered to IPY.org, via USB thumb drive flown back to civilization. The wait has been worth it: ...

IPY.org Introductory Presentation IPY Multimedia; videos and podcasts of IPY participants in various languages. Also available from 'Browse by' menu at top of ipy.org. Arctic Portal webcasts IPY Opening Ceremony, March 2007 (follow links from webcast archive) PolarTrec Live From IPY! Presentations by IPY scientists talking...

On the 31 May to 1 June, 2008, Latitude60!, the Portuguese Educational Project for the International Polar Year, will carry out a big and interdisciplinary event that will bring together polar scientists, students of all ages, teachers and the general public interested in polar regions. This Scientific Forum will take place at the Pavilion of Knowledge, in Lisbon, Portugal, with various activities for all ages, such as: - Theatre play for children of 5 to 10 years old; - Workshops of cinema and polar science for children, teenagers, and adults, including persons with special needs; - Lectures by polar scientists; - Scientific exhibition related to the International P...

Camp is on a bit of a funny schedule, with half the folks working at night and the rest during the day. It feels like the issue we face all the time in Alaska, with considering the 4 hour time difference in the east coast. So we leave notes for each other to read when we wake up. This morning we got a note saying that the drill had hit a rock at 70 m and it could not get past it to drill the remaining 60 meters or so of ice. Most drills working on ice are not designed to penetrate rock, and this is certainly the case with the two types of drills we have here. For holes 2 and 3, our main scientific interest is just the hole itself, so that we can install a thermistor string into it to measure temperature. In my initial request for support (and several times afterwards), I had recommended th...

Click on the panorama and drag to look around, press Shift to zoom in, Command (Mac) or Control (PC) to zoom out. With the drill crew on the night shift, Jason, Kristin, Turner and I tried to keep things moving on the day shift. The morning began mostly by sorting through boxes, trying to organize stuff that had been disorganized by the move (or never organized in the first place). But by lunch time we were all headed up to the Upper Cirque. There we tried to do some ‘final’ sorting of gear for what needed to be left there to support Jason’s studies of internal accumulation and what should be brought to each of the 4 other cac...