Contents: 1. Current Expeditions 2. APECS update 3. The Second SAON Workshop 9-11 April 4. The Legacies of IPY 5. UNEP Children's Conference,- call for material 6. IPY Science Day: Changing Earth, March 12th 2008 Report no. 11, March 2008 From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. Current Expeditions The initial season of IPY activities on the Antarctic continent gradually comes to an end. If you follow the blogs on ipy.org, you have read the stories of traverses, sea ice cruises, and geophysical sensor deployments. Many of those researchers and staff start their way northward. We ...

By John Mitchell, Voyage Leader. Now we are out of the inner Ross Sea the focus of the voyage has changed to sampling seamounts (underwater mountains) and the abyss (seafloor in the deep ocean 2000–4000 m). We’re surveying a series of seamounts, concentrating on the Scott complex around Scott Island north of the Ross Sea, at about 68 ºS, 180º followed by the Admiralty chain further to the west. Even further west are the Balleny Islands and associated seamounts, which will not be visited this trip as they have already been sampled during previous Tangaroa voyages. The composition of the fauna has gradually changed and reduced in quantity (but not quality) as we have moved north and is now ‘transitional’ i.e., is a mixture containing fauna typical of both the Ross ...

Chief Scientist Kevin Speer, geared up for brisk weather on an upper deck of the R/V Roger Revelle, watches whales near the ship on the CLIVARIS6 cruise in the Southern ocean. (Photo Credit: Brett Longworth, a participant from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Greetings. I’m Kevin Speer, Chief Scientist on the current CLIVAR cruise, Professor of Oceanography at the Florida State University. I’m a physical oceanographer and earned my Ph.D. at MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution - Joint Program, 1988. I joined the FSU Department of Oceanography faculty in 1999 as an associate professor and am ...

As part of an ongoing coverage of China's IPY Polar research projects and activities, SciencePoles interviewed Professor Yang Huigen, the new Director of the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC), responsible for carrying our scientific research in the Polar Regions, operating Chinese research stations and vessels, and promoting cooperation with international Polar research organisations. In this interview, Professor Yang discusses the current upgrade of China's Polar research infrastructure, including existing Chinese research stations in the Arctic and Antarctic, the Chinese ice breaker Xue Long, and the planned...

My name is Austin Todd, and I am a first-year M.S. student in physical oceanography at FSU. This is actually my fifth year at FSU, where I completed a B.S. in meteorology and mathematics, and I am currently working under Dr. Eric Chassignet in ocean modeling in the Gulf of Mexico. On this I6S cruise, I am part of the CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth) operations group. We basically run most of the operations of the CTD, including preparation, deployment, monitoring, and recovery of the CTD sampling apparatus. Our group is responsible for obtaining water samples from all depths of the ocean selected for sampling...

In collaboration with this year's Celebrate the North theme of Ice Alaska 2008, the University of Alaska International Polar Year office has scheduled several activities at the ice park to provide visitors with a chance to learn about polar research. The activities will begin with an IPY celebration ceremony at 2 p.m. on March 8, at the IPY ice stage at the ice park. The event will feature a presentation of flags from all of the circumpolar nations followed by the Borealis Brass premier of Polar Synthesis, a full-length composition by UAF Associate Professor James Bicigo, based on the Polar Fanfare Bicigo composed last March in recognition of IPY. The local Pavva dance group will perform in celebration of Alaska's unique cultures and Nanook the bear wi...

March 2, 2008 By John Mitchell, Voyage Leader Having left the inner Ross Sea, we passed through the ever-thickening ice barrier between the open water in the polynya to the south and the open ocean to the northeast. In the ice barrier, we had to push through ribbons of thick pack ice with relatively open ‘leads’ that were filled with grease ice and newly formed soft pancake ice. Although our progress was slow at times, it was only about 24 hours before we arrived at our first seamount site, dubbed South Scott Seamount. Photo: Tangaroa proceeding through close pack ice towards an open lead in the dista...

We’ve dealt with the Agulhas Current in blog posts #1, #3, and #5, but by now we’ve been out of the Agulhas for quite a while. We’ve been cruising due south along Longitude 30 East in the Southern Ocean and have been moving over and through a variety of water masses. With its powerful eastward-flowing Antarctic Circumpolar Current and, further south...

ITASE Synthesis Workshop Castine, Maine 2-5 Sept. 2008 Purpose: To integrate and synthesize research produced by ITASE (International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition) and associated scientific activities. Goals: To take Antarctica from the most sparsely sampled continent with respect to instrumental era climate to the best sampled for the last 200-1000 years, because of the extremely critical role that Antarctic climate change plays in global climate change (oceans, atmosphere, biological systems), and for the purpose of refining predictions of future climate change.To determine where and how Antarctic physical and chemical climate has or has ...

April 28-May 1, 2008 Houghton, Michigan USA This is the first announcement for the 2008 Workshop of the LASHIPA (Large-scale historical exploitation of Polar Areas) group. An international organization centered around the historical and archaeological study of industrialization in Polar Areas, the LASHIPA group has cooperated successfully on several seasons of research and teaching based in fieldwork on Svalbard (see www.lashipa.nl for details). LASHIPA members have garnered research funding from several national agencies and continue to pursue support for joint efforts during the next two years, at minimum. LASHIPA has been officially sanctioned as an IPY research activity, with explicit attention to international cooperation and...