Documentary filmmaker Mark Terry, president of Polar Cap Productions, Inc., took a team to Antarctica last December and January to document the recent findings made by the world’s scientific community during International Polar Year. The documentary will focus on new discoveries made related to the ozone hole, the diminishing populations of penguins and other marine life, the greening of the world’s largest desert, warming temperatures, glacial melting and increased world sea level. Featuring interviews from polar scientists from Canada, the US, the UK, Ukraine and Russia, a global cross-section of research on climate change will be presented. One of these featured interviews will be with Dr. David Ainley, renowned...

The Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment working group of the Arctic Council has released the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report. This extensive and well-illustrated document, supported by Canada, Finland and the United States and recently approved by the Arctic Council, represents a four-year effort to consider and review all aspects of Arctic shipping. It includes extensive documentation of shipping activities from a baseline year (2004) and future projections in key areas such as environmental protection, marine infrastructure, human dimensions, and governance. It contains a series of very useful maps and charts. I like this quote: "less ice doe...

We’ve had a couple of trips recently to deploy instruments and make measurements at the edge of the multiyear ice (more than 6 metres thick) and the annual ice growing over the ocean. Our site is about 30 kilometres away from Scott Base where the ice breaker cut a channel in January to let the fuel tanker get in to unload at McMurdo station. The first trip was very interesting: a beautiful calm day with gorgeous low light colours, and that anticipation of being the first people to see what’s out there. There were old skidoo tracks from the summer along the edge of the Tanker Channel but the fresh ice was like a canvas with just the under-painting done. We made our marks, drilled holes, placed instruments, collected data all the while marvelling at things that are harder to measu...

The National Academy of Sciences together with the National Science Foundation held a celebration on 6 April 2009 to recognize the achievements of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY). The meeting included highlights of IPY projects, including such topics as climate change, sea ice stability, Antarctic ecosystems, and people in the Arctic. Presentation videos detailing various aspects of IPY research are available on the NSF website. Posted presentations include: - "Welcoming and Opening Remarks," by James White, Ralph J. Cicerone, and Arden L. Bement, Jr.; - "How the Past Informs the Future," by Richard Alley, Pennsylvania State University;...