We will study the responses of the terrestrial, aquatic and glacial communities of organisms, including the microbes, at both poles to global environmental changes. Our key questions include (a) diversity and biogeography, (b) food webs and ecosystem evolution, and (c) links between biological, chemical, and physical processes in icy ecosystems. This is a huge collaboration involving 17 nations and a wide range of field work.

Thermal State of Permafrost Permafrost conditions underlie upwards of 25% of the Earth's land surface. Permafrost temperatures are a function of past and present climates and vary greatly depending on location. Lacking is a comprehensive set of pemafrost measurements against which to assess present and future regional and global changes. Duirng IPY, TSP researchers will obtain a "snapshot" of permafrost temperatures in hundread of borehole throughout the world.

This project – which involves scientists from two dozen countries – will examine how atmospheric processes in the Southern Hemisphere affect current climate, and provide an important baseline for assessing future climate change. COMPASS will obtain the first circumpolar snapshot of the Southern Hemisphere atmospheric environment – covering physical, chemical and ecological properties – a major observational milestone. Only by harnessing the resources of the global polar community can this multinational project achieve the depth of investigation required to improve knowledge of future climate change and its impacts.

Even though climate change is dramatically affecting the biosphere, our understanding of its effects on biological communities is poor. The Southern Ocean is an ideal natural laboratory to the impact of regional and global climate change because of the sensitive interactions between temperature, ice extent and species. Measuring variations in penguin populations can tell us a great deal about climate change, but could tell us even more if we understood the mechanisms the underlie the dynamics of penguin colonies. Taking advantage the major advances that have been made in microelectronics recently, this project will fit penguins with hugely powerful yet tiny state-of-the-art transponders and data recorders. The project will provide the first complete global and unified picture of penguin population dynamics, uncovering the processes that drive their numbers and the effects climate change is having on them.

ESSAR addresses how climate variability and change affects the marine ecosystems of the polar (Subarctic and Arctic) seas and their sustainability. To provide accurate projections on the impact of climate warming on these ecosystems requires improved knowledge of its components and their linkages. Because of the complexity of the interactions, accurate predictions of what will happen to individual species requires knowledge on key life-history traits and of what will happen to the ecosystem as a whole, as species do not function separately from their ecosystem. ESSAR, therefore, encompasses retrospective and field studies on physics, plankton, benthos, fish and shellfish, marine mammals, sea birds and humans. The field studies will be carried out in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans during 2007-2008. The data gathered will be used, together with bio-physical models, to make quantifiable predictions of the effects of both climate variability and long-term climate change on arctic polar marine ecosystems.

Inter-discipline Survey along Prydz Bay, Amery Ice Shelf and Dome A The 2000km interconnected Prydz Bay-Amery Ice Shelf-Lambert Basin-Dome A (PANDA) section in Antarctica plays an important role in Antarctic mass balance, sea level and climate change. About thirty observation systems for glaciology, oceanography, geology/geophysics, sun-earth physics, atmospheric science and astronomy will be installed and implemented along the section by the international cooperative expeditions leading by China during IPY2007-2009 and beyond.

The overall goal of this initiative is to advance our knowledge of climate warming in the Arctic, by studying past climate change. We will focus mainly on the ocean circulation and climate of the NW Eurasian continental margin. The present climate in the Arctic shows signs of rapid change with decreasing sea ice cover and increasing temperature of the Atlantic Water. The implications of this warming are highly uncertain, as modelling experiments projecting temperatures for the next 100 years show a largescatter at high northern latitudes.

The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the Earth’s three most rapidly warming regions: most of the glaciers there are in retreat and large ice shelves have broken up. This project investigates the impact of these changes on the plants and animals that live on the land, the shore and coastal sea around the Antarctic Peninsula. Organisms are facing a barrage of complex effects including warming, decreased ice and snow cover, increased iceberg grounding, sedimentation and freshening. A wide range of apparatus and techniques will be used from remote operated vehicles (ROV) and simple underwater light meters to satellite imagery and counting microscopic life. ClicOPEN scientists from 15 countries will study changes in the environments and organisms around a number of retreating glaciers of the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Most of Antarctica's very rich biodiversity lives nowhere else in the world and we know little about how it will responding to such exceptional and unprecedented warming.