Understanding the state of the cryosphere, and its associated past, present and future variability, is essential to understanding physical and biogeochemical interactions between the oceanic, atmospheric, terrestrial, social, cultural, and economic systems. This project will provide a framework for assessing the state of cryosphere. It will establish links with IPY projects involved in monitoring, assessing, and understanding the global cryosphere, and with projects involved in socioeconomic and cultural issues.

The Impacts of Oil and Gas Activity on Peoples in the Arctic Using a Multiple Securities Perspective From 2007-2010 a broad-based group of students and researchers from diverse backgrounds (political science to ecology) will take a human security approach to studying how oil and gas development will affect Arctic communities in Norway, Russia and Canada. By making human security central, we expect to connect Arctic peoples, researchers and policy makers in ways that will result in genuine listening and interaction among the groups.

Extending IPY Themes to the Undergraduate Earth System Science Education Community "The NASA/USRA Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century program (ESSE 21) engages interdisciplinary college and university teams to develop courses, curricula and degree programs that consider air, water, land and life processes on Earth. IPY research on polar processes will enrich ESSE 21 learning materials with relevant and compelling content that explores the global impact of polar science. "

ArcticWOLVES is an international initiative developed for the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. The project will build a network of circumpolar wildlife observatories in order to assess the current state of arctic terrestrial food webs over a large geographical range. The network will provide baseline information to evaluate current and future population trends for a large number of species at several locations using standard protocols. Another aim of the project is to determine the relative importance of bottom-up (resources) and top-down (predators) forces in structuring arctic food webs, and how climate affects these trophic linkages.

The eight arctic countries have been working together to evaluate the source and impacts on humans and the environment of contaminants (eg. PCBs, DDT, mercury etc.) since the early 1990s. Several reports released by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) have documented the distant sources of these contaminants and outlined the human and evironmental concerns. This meeting in Arctic Canada during the fall of 2008 will outline the state of knowldege on the human health concerns related to these enviromental contaminants.

Synchronized observations of Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMC), Aurora, and other large-scale polar phenomena from the International Space Station (ISS) and ground sites. Astronauts on the International Space Station will make observations of bi-polar phenomena in concert with scientists at polar-based ground sites. Space-based observations, on the length scale of half a continent, will augment ground-based measurements.

The Kinnvika project will re-open an old research station from the previous polar year to study Arctic Warming and Impact Research. The spectrum of projects from geosciences to the humanities, investigates how the environmental and anthropogenic dynamics have changed recently in comparison with past records of change from existing expedition logs and photographs, proxy climate data from ice-, lake- and sea-sediment cores, and dynamic studies both on terrestrial as marine ice. This is a major multi-national multi-disciplined project involving 26 working groups and more than 80 Principal Investigators.

ANDRILL’s website provides a wide range of information and activities from simple interactives, photos and images, videos, interviews and blogs from the field, and hands-on inquiry activities developed by the ARISE teachers, to an explanation of the science of drilling for sediments and developing a paleoclimate record from the evidence found in the sediment core samples. This site includes information on ice sheets and ice shelves, drill rig technology. Educators’ journals from the field in Antarctica explain the science in words and photos for non-technical audiences and children. Teachers can sign up to receive polar science curriculum materials and e-mail updates and link to many other worthwhile websites. Activity: On ...

Solar variability influences the atmosphere, particularly the global electric circuit and ozone. Our IPY cluster seeks to quantify solar variability linkages to weather, climate and ozone. Scientists from Russia, America, United Kingdom and Australia are investigating whether solar variability affects the Earth's weather and climate, principally via the atmospheric circuit and ozone. We are measuring the current in the Earth's atmosphere - lightning strikes are an indication of this current - and how this is affected by changes in the sun. Instruments to measure the atmospheric circuit are being deployed on the Antarctic Plateau and the Greenland Ice Plateau.

CAML will investigate the distribution and abundance of Antarctic marine biodiversity, how it will be affected by climate change and how climate change will affect the ecosystem and the planet. Its key focus is a major ship based research programme in the austral summer of 2007-2008. Scientists from 30 countries and 50 institutions will collate data providing a robust benchmark against which future change can be measured.