The head of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, Prof. Dr. Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten, is the new president of the International Permafrost Association IPA. His appointment took place at the 9th International Conference on Permafrost in Fairbanks, Alaska. Prof. Hubberten will lead the International Permafrost Association for the next four years. During his term in office he will coordinate, among other things, the analysis of the scientific results of the International Polar Year. “In these times of global warming, research on permafrost gains in importance”, explains Hubberten. Permanently frozen areas of the polar region and higher latitudes, which make up about 25% of the earth's surface, a...

Dr. Manish Tiwari, scientist at the National Centre For Antarctic & Ocean Research in Goa, India, writes: India is enthusiastically pursuing the outreach goal of IPY, which is being coordinated by National Centre for Antarctic & Ocean Research (NCAOR, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India) in collaboration with WWF-India (World Wide Fund for Nature). Several competitions were conducted for the school children throughout India that included poster & model making, projects, stamp designing etc. as outlined in the chart below. The award winning posters of the first competition i.e.,...

A 150-meter ice core pulled from the McCall Glacier in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this summer may offer researchers their first quantitative look at up to two centuries of climate change in the region. The core, which is longer than 1 1/2 football fields, is the longest extracted from an arctic glacier in the United States, according to Matt Nolan, an associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Northern Engineering who has led research at McCall Glacier for the past six years. The sample spans the entire depth of the glacier and may cover 200 years of history, he said. “What we hope is that the climate record will extend back into the Little Ice Age,” said Nolan. “Up until the late 1800s these glaciers were actually gr...

A 150-meter ice core pulled from the McCall Glacier in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this summer may offer researchers their first quantitative look at up to two centuries of climate change in the region. The core, which is longer than 1 1/2 football fields, is the longest extracted from an arctic glacier in the United States, according to Matt Nolan, an associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Northern Engineering who has led research at McCall Glacier for the past six years. The sample spans the entire depth of the glacier and may cover 200 years of history, he said. What we hope is that the climate record will extend back into the Little Ice Age,said Nolan. Up until the late 1800s these glaciers were actually gr...

What's it like to be a research scientist working in the Arctic and Antarctica? In celebration of the International Polar Year, the Exploratorium gave polar scientists cameras and blogs and asked them to document their fieldwork in real time. The result is a groundbreaking Web-based project, Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists (http://icestories.exploratorium.edu), where you can follow along on the scientists’ research, ask questions, and share ...

What's it like to be a research scientist working in the Arctic and Antarctica? In celebration of the International Polar Year, the Exploratorium gave polar scientists cameras and blogs and asked them to document their fieldwork in real time. The result is a groundbreaking Web-based project, Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists (http://icestories.exploratorium.edu), where you can follow along on the scientists’ research, ask questions, and share ...

From the mountains to the coast - the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research based in Bremerhaven inherits the World Radiation Monitoring Center, Switzerland The international archive for radiation data, the World Radiation Monitoring Center (WRMC), provides climate research with high-precision meteorological series of measurements. After a term of fifteen years at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association ensures the successful continuity and enhancements of this unique archive. These data serve the monitoring of the climate, the surveillance of anthropological influence on the earth's surface as well as the improvement of climate forecasts. ...

How will the Arctic sea ice cover develop this summer? ­ Climate scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute present their own prognosis for the first time Bremerhaven, July 7, 2008. The ice cover in the Arctic Ocean at the end of summer 2008 will lie, with almost 100 per cent probability, below that of the year 2005 ­ the year with the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured. Chances of an equally low value as in the extreme conditions of the year 2007 lie around eight per cent. Climate scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association come to this conclusion in a recent model calculation. They participate with their prognosis in an international scientific contest, in which some of the most renowned institutes on ...

In the International Polar Year, many people try to help with focusing on polar science. On June 26, we had a visit of Royal ambassadors, the heirs of the Scandinavian thrones: Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Crown Prince Frederick of Danmark and Crown Prince Haakon from Norway. They were on a boat trip with the Swedish ice breaker Oden and arrived per helicopter. There was a program with informal presentations and an excursion to the Zeppelin and marine station. During the city walk, they visited the Netherlands Arctic Station. Victoria immediately noticed my wooden shoes. On the picture from left to right: Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, the Governor of Svalbard (Sysselmannen), Oddvar Midtkandal (director of Kings Bay), Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Kim Holm...

This year's TUNZA Children's conference took place in Stavanger, Norway from 16th 20th June, 2008 focusing on the theme Creating Change. It brought together 1000 people from 105 countries, including 700 children between the ages of 10 and 14 and 300 chaperones. The children gave presentations and produced some wonderful posters on climate change and energy issues. It was a truly inspiring event and one which IPY was privileged to be a part of. The week started off really well with a well...