Mark your diaries:

SEPTEMBER 21ST WILL BE THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL POLAR DAY, HIGHLIGHTING SEA ICE.

IPY and Sea Ice

Over 30 large, international IPY projects are studying some aspect of Sea Ice. This includes ship expeditions, remote sensing, sea ice ecosystems, the importance of sea ice to polar bears and marine mammals, climate research, exhibitions, and books. On September 13th, a web-page dedicated to Sea Ice will be published on www.ipy.org listing projects that are involved, real-time expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic, contacts for media, sources for images, and background information. There will also be educational and community activities including classroom experiments and a virtual balloon launch.

When asked about this IPY Day, sea ice scientist, Don Perovich (IPY project 95), replied:

"There is currently a tremendous amount of sea ice activity going on in IPY. This summer there have been icebreakers from Canada, Sweden, Russia, and the U.S. conducting research in the Arctic and deploying autonomous sensors to monitor the changing sea ice cover. There have been ice camps at the North Pole and in the Beaufort Sea, along with work out of terrestrial stations around the periphery of the Arctic. Right now, the Russians are deploying an ice station that will drift for a year or more. The Tara, part of the EU sponsored DAMOCLES project, starts her second year of drift across the Arctic Ocean. Satellite observations show that ice loss continues and September 2007 has reached an all-time record minimum ice extent. Scientists working with field measurements, satellite data, autonomous observing systems, and models are working together to understand the causes of the changes in the ice cover. It is truly a wonderful time to be studying sea ice."

The Sea Ice day will occur while the research vessels Aurora Australis (from Australia) and Polarstern (from Germany) are carrying out sea ice expeditions in the Antarctic and Arctic, respectively. Contacts for media will be provided.


About IPY and International Polar Days:

The International Polar Year 2007-8 is a large international and interdisciplinary coordinated research effort focussed on the polar regions. An estimated 50,000 participants from over 60 countries are involved in research as diverse as human health, remote sensing, ecology, biodiversity, astronomy, reindeer herding, economics, climate modelling, and history. This fourth IPY was launched in March 2007, and will run until March 2009. During this time, quarterly International Polar Days will raise awareness and provide information about a particular aspect of the polar regions. These events will include press releases, contacts to experts in several languages, activities for teachers, on-line community participation, and links to researchers in the Arctic and Antarctic.

The first International Polar Day, on September 21st, 2007, will focus on Sea Ice.
Future polar days will occur around the solstices and equinoxes (December, March, June, September) throughout IPY, marking the seasonal extremes in the polar regions.


About Sea Ice:

Sea ice, the thin layer of ice that covers most of the Arctic Ocean and surrounds most of the Antarctic continent, represents a distinctive feature of our planet. Sea ice spreads and retreats seasonally. It drifts and packs under the influence of wind and currents. It isolates the atmosphere from the ocean and produces the coldest saltiest ocean waters. It restricts the movement of ships but supports the traverses of arctic polar bears. In the Antarctic, sea ice is central to the breeding success of penguins. It contains unique organisms that sustain under-ice ecosystems. Poised where a few degrees of warming converts ice to water, sea ice has an exquisite sensitivity to climate. Its disappearance from any region, at any season, will represent a profound planetary change. Understanding the processes and impacts of sea ice, monitoring its extent and variability, and predicting its future represent substantial and crucial challenges for IPY.


Contact:

For more information regarding this event, please contact
Rhian Salmon, IPY Education and Outreach Coordinator, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , +447711181509

Sea Ice experts available for interviews will be provided in the sea ice webpage.