Now that we have completed sampling the southern stations, the focus of the survey has moved north to the central area adjacent to Iselin Bank, which lies east of Cape Adare. The original survey plan had an extensive sampling program in this area but this year’s ice conditions has resulted in the need to reassess and redistribute the sampling effort. This redesign is completed using all available satellite ice imagery we can access and interpretations we receive from a commercial company (Enfotec), who specialise in vessel navigation in the Arctic and Antarctic. Some of this data is readily available on the web and some has to be ordered in advance and are charged for. The higher the resolution required, then the higher the cost. Figures are examples of in...

The International Polar Year is upon us and many of you are involved in this large scientific program. Many of you have wondered where you can get IPY merchandise for various meetings, workshops, outreach events. You can now order coffee mugs, magnets, pins, shirts, and much more. The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) has created an online store for IPY and APECS gear. All profits go towards supporting early career researchers and increasing polar literacy, administrated by the IPY International Programme Office. Show your support for the IPY, young researchers, and polar...

By Andrea Juan, Curator, "Polar South, Art in Antarctica" at the Museum of National University of Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires, Argentina The light is so intense and bright that it modifies the colors throughout the day, while the horizon line blends into a white plane where the sun bounces and never sets. A deep and vivid feeling seizes us when, at the end of a long voyage, we step on Antarctic soil, a soil covered with fossils. As sea, rock, and time, Antarctica is today the largest natural freshwater reserve for humankind. Being there is to witness a different world on thi...

Thousands of tourists visit the continent every year, most of them on board large, comfortable cruiseships. Dutch travel photographer Thijs Heslenfeld wanted true adventure. He boarded the Dutch threemast barque Europa for a journey of discovery to some of the loneliest, coldest and most beautiful places on earth. Heslenfeld sailed to Antarctica twice on board the Europa. Last year he did the full two month trip from Argentina all the way to South Africa. His Antarctica images have been published in magazines wordwide, including National Geographic Adventure and GEO Saison. Now his best pho...

By Lucia Simion Far away from traffic jams, polluted cities and rat races, one thousand people are getting ready to live a fantastic adventure on the most remote continent of the world: They are the over-wintering population of Antarctica. Inhabiting some 35 different permanent stations scattered across a continent twice as large as Europe, they will be alone on the ice, where they will experience the polar night, the austral auroras, the blizzards, the solitude and the confinement. They will be more isolated than the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) as it is very hard to be evacuated from Antarctica during the polar night. One of these stations is Concordia, where the overwintering began on February 1, 2008 for a crew of thirteen people fr...

Submitted February 17, 2008: Over the past few days we have been working our way south into the lower Ross Sea and then eastwards towards 180°, paralleling the Ross Ice Shelf. During this period Tangaroa got to its southernmost point ever at 76° 52.164’S 179° 55.856’ W. As expected, the main controller of all our activities has been the weather. Heavy snow showers earlier in this period gave everything a white coating, but once the snow cleared and the clouds broke, we had good (but distant) views of Ross Island, with the mountains of the Asgaard and Olympic Ranges as a backdrop. ...

Submitted Feb 17: Among western boundary currents, the Agulhas flowing south along East Africa is 2nd only to the Gulf Stream in strength. It carries hundreds to thousands of times the water volume of the Mississippi River. Opposing waves generated by storms off Antarctica can be anomalously large. In meeting the thrust of the Agulhas Current, anomalies can be magnified to produce “rogue” waves of enormous proportions. Any given western boundary current’s volume is appreciably exceeded by that of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), also called the West Wind Drift (WWD). It circles Antarctica west to east and dominates the Southern, or Antarctic, Ocean.The ACC is the granddaddy of surface currents and the only major surface current having the geogra...

The first International Polar Science Day focussed on Sea Ice. The second focussed on Ice Sheets, and the third on our Changing Earth. The IPY Day on June 18th will focus on Land and Life. Return to Main Land and Life page The following lists IPY projects that explore the Land and Life at the Polar regions. Their webpages contain a huge amount of information, and the full propos...

On March 12th, 2008, the International Polar Year (IPY) will launch its third International Polar Day, focussing on 'Changing Earth'. The first two focussed on Sea Ice and Ice Sheets. In preparation for the next IPY Day, a page collating information about IPY and the Changing Earth has been prepared with information for Press and Educators, ...

The Candian component of the IPY OASIS project has recently released brochures in four languages. OASIS is an international research program that studies how chemicals move between the Ocean , the Atmosphere, the Sea Ice and the Snow pack. OASIS English OASIS French OASIS Inuktitut OASIS Cree To learn more, please visit the OASIS ...