Following the launch of the International Polar Year (IPY) on the 1st of March, the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2007 will see a flurry of research activity across the Arctic ocean and the Northern circumpolar region.With around 120 research projects either planned, announced, or already deployed, this massive effort will cover a panoply of disciplines across the Earth, oceanographic, biological, atmospheric, and social sciences. It will involve logistics large and small ranging from powerful icebreakers to dog sledges. In response to the most pressing questions and challenges of our ...

In order to salvage German scientific research and the specialized knowledge and experience gained from it, the German Scientific Research Aid Council was formed in 1920. The Council's task was to put public and private funds to their best possible use to this end. In 1924, Vienna-born oceanography professor Alfred Merz asserted that the ocean offered an open door of opportunity for exploration and suggested a well-planned voyage invited solutions to important problems of the deep. The president of the Council recognized an extraordinary opportunity and things rapidly moved forward. The survey vessel Meteor (with a specially trained crew) was chosen as the expedition ship, and the expanse of the South Atlantic Ocean was her target in April 1925. A strenuous arou...

Space scientists performing boundary layer experiments at the edge of Greenland ice cap. Introduction The Greenland Space Science Symposium was arranged in Kangerlussuaq as part of the International Polar Year activities from the 4 to 9 May. The Symposium solemnized the rich history of Greenland as a forum for versatile instrumentation monitoring various processes in the near-Earth space. For example, the behavior of ionospheric electric currents have been monitored now for 35 years with Danish magnetometer chains operating in the Greenland coastal regions. Almost equally long data records (25 years) of plasma densities, velocities, and temperatures have been collected with the US incoherent scatter radar operating in Kelly Ville. Roughly 70 space scie...

Two articles about a new dog sledge route in Greenland from Sermitsiaq A real sledging expedition Now tourists can sledge all the way to Uummannaq By Poul Krarup 'It's going to be a tough ride,' says Ole Jørgen Hammeken of the new dog sledge route between Uummannaq and Ilulissat in north-western Greenland. Hammeksen recently completed the first voyage over the ice sheet in two weeks, but he believes he can cut it down to seven days, making it attractive for tourists. 'The proposed route has everything that's needed for a real expedition,' Hammeken says. 'It has all the elements a sledge ride could offer: sea ice, mountain sledging and i...