For the longest time, it was thought that the waters of the Polar Regions were relatively low in biodiversity. Research that has been conducted over the past few decades has proven otherwise, particularly research that has been conducted in the Southern Ocean. Researchers are only beginning to understand the incredible biodiversity that lies beneath the surface and its importance in local, regional and global ecosystems. Making sure that we don't negatively influence the biodiversity of the very delicate Antarctic ...

Tuesday, 20 Nov 2007 3177 meters above sea level. After a late arrival last night, we slept for an extra hour or two to get ready for the day ahead. We are now at Site I, which is our first stop where we do more than a few hours of science; in fact we plan to spend a full day and a half here. Today gave everyone a chance to work on the traveling conditions in the modules, vehicles and science gear. In particular, Helgard and Karsten took the opportunity to fix radar antennas that had been acting up in the last few days; Atsu worked at getting a measurement of the firn temperature at 10 meters depth; Stian replaced the power supply in one of the UAVs; Mary made measurements of the physical properties on the top 2 meters of the firn, and Glen, Tom, Lou a...

Nicola Munro, the volunteer coordinator, communications centre, finance officer, and all-around administrator for the IPY International Programme Office, travels south in the next few days to work as the administrator at the Halley Research Station of the British Antarctic Survey. We in the IPO regard this as a fabulous opportunity for Nicola and as a good connection for IPY - we hope Nicola will post some of her stories on this blog. We thank BAS, Kathy Salisbury, and Cynan Ellis-Evans for helping the IPO support this adventure and survive Nicola’s absence. (If you like Nicola’s anorak in the picture, you can f...

Polar bear family feeding on a seal, Northwest Passage, 1999. © Hinrich Bäsemann, www.polarfoto.de In the September issue of Polar Research, the politics of science is one of the themes in an essay by historian Stian Bones, who examines Norway's role in past International Polar Years, starting with the first one in 1882-83. Bones describes the strengths of the scientific traditions of this polar nation, and he examines the varying motivations that have driven Norwegian involvement in International Polar Years. Also in this issue, scientometrician Prabir Dastidar presents the results of his research on sc...

Nicola Munro, the volunteer coordinator, communications centre, finance officer, and all-around administrator for the IPY International Programme Office, travels south in the next few days to work as the administrator at the Halley Research Station of the British Antarctic Survey. We in the IPO regard this as a fabulous opportunity for Nicola and as a good connection for IPY - we hope Nicola will post some of her stories on this blog. We thank BAS, Kathy Salisbury, and Cynan Ellis-Evans for helping the IPO support this adventure and survive Nicola’s absence. (If you like Nicola’s anorak in the picture, you can f...

Submitted Friday, Nov. 16, 2007 Altitude: 2400m Air temperature (23:00 local time): -21 degrees C It was the long awaited day for us all, the departure of our traverse from Troll Station. At 10:10, the traverse train started rolling under a beautiful Antarctic blue sky. Emotion of team members were a mix of the excitement of embarking on a journey we have been preparing for more than 2 years, and sentimentality, to say good bye to people of Troll station who were so generous and provided us with all the helping hands we needed. Today we gained almost 1200m in altitude, from ~1250m at Troll to 2400m at the camp site. At some of steep climbs we had to get through today, one vehicle was caught in soft snow and needed a towing support by another one....

By Louise Huffman, ANDRILL Coordinator of Education and Outreach During survival training known as Happy Camper School. ANDRILL (ANtarctic Geologic DRILLing) is in Antarctica for the second back-to-back drilling season. It is a multi-national science research team drilling rock cores from the McMurdo Sound area. With each new meter of core recovered, the scientists are working to unlock the climate secrets stored there. By understanding past climates, they hope to fill in missing pieces of the climate puzzle that will help us explain the rapid changes around the globe we are experiencing tod...

An immediate reduction of methane, tropospheric ozone and black carbon may delay the melting of the Arctic, is the unanimous recommendation from a group of leading climate scientists after an international conference in Oslo, Norway. The 2nd Short-lived Pollutants and Arctic Climate Workshop, gathering 40 leading climate scientists from Europe, Asia and the U.S., was hosted by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) in Oslo, Norway, 5-7 November. Reductions in the atmospheric burden of CO2 are the backbone of any meaningful effort to mitigate climate forcing. But, even if swift and deep reductions were made, given the long lifetime of CO2, the reductions may not be achieved in time to delay a rapid melting of the Arctic. Hence, the goal of constraini...

Contents: 1. Report from the JC Meeting 2. IPO announcement 3. International Polar Days 4. Ice Sheet Day: December 13th 2007 5. AGU 6. EGU/SCAR-IASC 7. Call for 2012 Science and Policy Conference Venue From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. Report from Joint Committee Meeting The IPY Joint Committee held its 6th meeting in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, on two days in late October. For most of one afternoon we joined the Canadian National IPY Committee to learn and discuss the many facets of Canada's IPY programme. The JC focussed on IPY legacies, and pa...

In order to share their enthusiasm for the IPY with other young people, a group of NZ young polar researchers (the NZ Youth Steering Committee for the IPY) ran a contest for secondary schools this year. Students were asked to design digital interactive educational materials that can be used to communicate the international importance of the Polar Regions to other people of their age group. The winners were officially announced last week at a ceremony held at Gateway Antarctica at Canterbury University. Second prize was awarded to Carina Donald from Middleton Grange School in Christchurch who received a $1...