As predicted by all IPCC models, Arctic sea ice will most likely disappear during summers in the near future. However, it seems like this is going to happen much sooner than models predicted, as pointed out by recent observations and data reanalysis undertaken during IPY and the Damocles Integrated Project. On February 25, 2009, there will be a celebration in Geneva, Switzerland to officially close the 4th IPY that started on March 1st 2007 in Paris, France. It is not a surprise that one of the main topics of this 4th IPY was climate change, since the polar regions play a very important role in Earth's climate. This role is magnified by the combined effect of two main processes: one is due to the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trapping longwave solar radiat...

February 18 — Scientists have become increasingly concerned about the potential impacts of climate change on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the largest remaining body of ice on Earth. They warn that ice filled basins within the ice sheet could melt in a warmer world and release large volumes of water into the sea, raising global sea levels. The ICECAP team has successfully completed the first of three field seasons in East Antarctica using an upgraded World War II-era DC-3. Photo: Jack Holt. See more photos. Researchers with the ICECAP (I...

Winnipeg, Canada — 18 February 2009 — The University of Manitoba-led project that gained worldwide appeal and interest will be one of the highlights of a conference in Europe Feb. 25, 2009 as International Polar Year (IPY) wraps. An IPY committee will release its State of Polar Research report at that time to summarize all the IPY studies, one of the largest of which was led by a climate change expert at the University of Manitoba. “Our data is coming in and our team is looking forward to the next phase of our research,” says Barber, David Barber, Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science and director of the Centre for Earth Observation Science (CEOS) at the University of Manitoba. “IPY gave us this tremendous window into climate change. What we learned about...

February 17, 2009 — FAIRBANKS, Alaska — The Greening of the Arctic (GOA) IPY initiative is comprised of four projects each contributing to documenting, mapping and understanding the rapid and dramatic changes to terrestrial vegetation expected across the circumpolar Arctic as a result of a changing climate. These changes will likely affect the permafrost, active layer, carbon reserves, trace-gas fluxes, hydrological systems, biodiversity, wildlife populations and the human habitability of Arctic ecosystems, says GOA principal investigator Donald “Skip” Walker, director of the Institute of Arctic Biology’s ...

Below are documents that we will be discussing and developing at the IPY/Oslo 2010 meeting for Education, Outreach, and Communication in Geneva, February 23-24th 2009.

The meeting will occur at WMO headquarters. Directions to meeting building.

Please become familiar with these documents prior to the meeting. Hard copies will not be made available,- it is your choice to bring them either as hard copies or electronically.

Logistics & Committee Business
Agenda & Participant List
EOC Committee Mandate

Oslo 2010 Conference
Overarching principles for EOC activities during OSC 2010 K Ulstein
Categorising EOC activities during OSC 2010 K Ulstein, R Malherbe, S Zicus
APECS Participation in Oslo 2010 J Baeseman
Catalogue of EOC Session proposals K Ulstein
Virtual Component L Murphy

Polar Resource Book
Vision Document - discussion paper R Salmon, B Kaiser
All content collected so far

Photo-exhibit
Poles Apart flyer

An IPY initiative extending field event helicopter support from February into April allowed scientists to find out what happens to aquatic ecosystems during the summer-winter transition. Small pond immediately after freezing. The thick carpet of microbial mat is very clear through the ice Antarctica is a continent with plenty of “water” but precious little in the liquid state that most life requires. Where liquid water does exist, microbial ecosystems develop that are oases of biological diversity in otherwise barren landscapes. One of the commonest type of liquid water habitat are small ponds that fr...

Content: 1. IPY feature projects throughout February 2. Issue of the State of Polar Research Report, Feb 25th 3. Update from HAIS meeting 4. Archiving IPY: a process for storing your critical files for the future 5. Polar Oceans Day : a chance to engage the public 6. IPY Success? Report no. 22, February 2009 From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. IPY feature projects throughout February Many thanks to all projects and participants who have been busy preparing concise summary and media material for our February profile. In the lead-up to the release of the State of Polar Research report on February...

International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA) IPY Press release – Feb. 10, 2009, Boulder, CO Download IASOA Press Release as PDF For more information visit our IPY Media Day page at www.iasoa.org Climate observatories at Barrow, Alaska, Summit, Greenland, and Tiksi, Russia all lie between 71° and 73° North, a few hundred miles above the Arctic Circle—but the sites are hardly similar otherwise. A...

MEDIA ADVISORY UPCOMING RELEASE OF NEW EVIDENCE ABOUT CHANGE IN THE POLAR REGIONS download in multiple languages: Arabic

A study suggests that extreme weather events in the Arctic will become more common as the winter ice cover retreats, with potentially severe consequences for human activity. One of the most visible signs of climate change is the dramatically reduced ice cover in the Arctic. The retreat of the sea ice leads to rapid changes in the weather conditions in these areas. A new study published in Climate Dynamics reveals that regions that have been covered by sea ice until now will be exposed to new kinds of severe weather. This may have dire consequences for human activities in the Northern regions. The study was l...