An explorative and research expedition bordering on the inhabited world, in order to investigate the lands and the people living face to face with the ice. How could some hunter groups reach a remote area of Eastern Greenland, known as the Ammassalik District? The answer is not easy, but an Italian scientific expedition is trying to find a possible explanation to the question, while exploring the ice land. The expedition, called Saxum, is led by Gianluca Frinchillucci, director of the Polar Museum “S. Zavatti” of Fermo and responsible for the project CNR-Polarnet “Map of Arctic People”, on his seventh polar explorative mission, and involves several researchers and Italian universities. The initiative falls into the few Italian projects p...

International Award for Information Technology Goes to Research Institutions in the German Federal State of Bremen for the Data Library PANGAEA® The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) and the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) received the 21st Century Achievement Award of the Computerworld Honors Program in the category Environment, which is one of the most prestigious awards in information technology. The award has been granted in response to PANGAEA¹s implementation and successful operation of a unique information system for archiving, publishing and processing of earth system data. Designed to support an integral view on earth, this information system was named after the supercontinent, combining all ...

An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption. ³Explosive volcanic eruptions on land are nothing unusual and pose a great threat for whole areas,² explains Dr Vera Schlindwein of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association. She participated in the expedition as a geophysicist and has been, together with her tea...

At the start of the season, we are trying to assess the season as quick as possible. Which goose is nesting where, and how many eggs are in the nest. During a visit on the island Storholmen in the Kings Bay at Spitsbergen, I came across this old lady. I ringed this goose green PA in 1991, when she was already an adult. She knows the drill as well as I do and does not want to spend much energy on resistance. I lift her up, read the ring and count the eggs. At other arctic sites, there seems to be a lot of snow and incubation has been delayed. In my study area, despite the large amount of snow, nesting sites were available and nesting started at about a similar time as last year. Clutch size is low with an average of 3.6 goose eggs per nest after the first checks. Glaucous gull...

The Arctic field season is now in full flow.. IPY researchers are busy in Northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Russia, Scandinavia, and the Arctic Ocean. They are also, like their Antarctic colleagues, committed to public outreach. So where are the stories? Well.. they're just starting to come in, as the researchers return to a more-connected world. This image shows BAS personnel Crispin Day (left), Richard Hindmarsh (centre) and Fabien Gillet (right) who went to NSF Summit Station in Greenland to deploy the BAS phase-sensitive radar (pRES). This measures deformation in ice, and the team will exploit a glaciological phenomenon known as the "Raymond Effect" to achieve a high-accuracy determination of the viscosity (stickiness) of ice. Knowledge of this is essential in predi...

MEDIA ADVISORY JUNE 18TH: POLAR LAND AND LIFE DAY On June 18th, 2008, the International Polar Year 2007-8 (IPY) launches its fifth ‘International Polar Day' focusing on Land and Life: the plants and animals of polar lands and the changing permafrost and hydrologic systems. This Polar Day occurs as hundreds of researchers focus on Arctic environments. It has been timed in conjunction with the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP) in Fairbanks, Alaska, and the UNEP TUNZ...

Sooty particles emitted during the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels (petroleum, coal), biofuels, and biomass (wood, animal dung, etc.) can do more than just create unsightly pollution and provoke respiratory problems. Known within the scientific community as black carbon, research and modelling conducted in recent years shows that this dark-coloured aerosol has been playing a significant role in climate warming through its absorption of solar radiation. Its impact is heaviest in the cryosphere, where its presence can reduce snow albedo and can lead to faster melting of snow on land and on sea ice. ...

There are three graduate students on this trip: Darek Ignatiuk, Ryo Kusaka, and Jason Geck. Our project is part of the IPY Glaciodyn effort, an international project focusing on the role of arctic glaciers in the global system, involving more than a dozen countries. To facilitate exchange of ideas and comparisons between glacier systems, as part of this larger project we try to exchange personnel on field trips whenever possible, and Darek and Ryo are part of that exchange. Darek is from Poland and is a graduate student at the University of Silesia in Katowice, studying under Dr. Jacek Jania. His interests are broadly based but have an emphasis on surface energy and mass balance. His primary glacier field work has been in Svalbard, working on glaciers around the Polish Polar...

With the deep drilling finished, it was time to start transitioning fully into our process studies on McCall Glacier. What we are particularly interested in this year is the fate of surface snow melt. How much of this drips into the snow pack and refreezes? How much reaches the bottom the glacier and helps the glacier move faster? To answer these questions we are planning to track this meltwater throughout the year. We will do this by repeatedly coring the upper 10 meters or so of snow in the accumulation areas, and by studying the stream at the outlet of the glacier. This is logistically complicated because these two areas are at opposite ends of the glacier – the very top and the very bottom. Separated by seven kilometers, this means a lot of hiking back and forth to try to watch both ...

Jason and I were near our second camp location installing a continuously-recording D-GPS system on the ice when we heard Darek’s voice on the radio “We finished!” The third and final hole of this trip was completed. We quickly finished hooking up the wires and cables for the GPS system and confirmed it was working, then headed up to lower cirque to drop down our thermistor string. Yesterday had been largely a bust in terms of drilling, as well as most other things. The weather continued to remain snowy and windy, and conditions on the glacier were poor for travel as the snow was deep, the trail drifted over, and visibility was frequently zero. I used one break in the weather to pack down the skiway, but that was the extent of my travel away from camp. The drill team tr...