Issue 14 of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine is now available! In Polar Oceans, learn about two very different oceans - the Arctic and Southern Oceans - at opposite ends of the Earth. As always, our magazine features science and literacy content knowledge for teachers, as well as a variety of other professional resources. This month, learn about ...

A Capstone of NSF-supported International Polar Year Deployments, AGAP Project May Help Determine What Caused Ice Sheet to Form Flying twin-engine light aircraft the equivalent of several trips around the globe and establishing a network of seismic instruments across an area the size of Texas, a US-led international team of scientists has not only verified the existence of a mountain range that is suspected to have caused the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet to form, but also has created a detailed picture of the rugged landscape buried under more than four kilometers (2.5 miles) of ice. ...

Geoff Green, Executive Director of Students on Ice Expeditions writes: We leave tomorrow on our next SOI Antarctic Expedition! This expedition is special for many reasons! It is our first University credit course program. We have 71 students participating from 12 countries. Lots of interesting people, including two young Inuit youth from Canada's northernmost community Grise Fiord. They will be participating in an IPY project during our expedition to compare and contrast the Polar Regions and the impacts of climate change. Thanks to the support of Canada's IPY Federal Program, we are making a one-hour documentary about their journey and their connection to the late Dr. Fritz Koerner. We also have students and staff from across Canada, ...

February 18 — Scientists have become increasingly concerned about the potential impacts of climate change on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the largest remaining body of ice on Earth. They warn that ice filled basins within the ice sheet could melt in a warmer world and release large volumes of water into the sea, raising global sea levels. The ICECAP team has successfully completed the first of three field seasons in East Antarctica using an upgraded World War II-era DC-3. Photo: Jack Holt. See more photos. Researchers with the ICECAP (I...

Polar Bears and Penguins May Live at Opposite Poles, But Census of Marine Life Explorers Find Hundreds of Identical Species Thrive in Both Arctic and Antarctic Contacts: Mr. Terry Collins, +1-416-878-8712; +1-416-538-8712; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Ms. Darlene Trew Crist, +1-401-295-1356; +1-401-952-7692; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Mr. Gregg Schmidt, +1-202- 448-1231; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Experts are available for advance interviews. Video and high-resolution images are online at www.coml.org/embargo/polar2009 Download PDF of CoML IPY Press Release for i...

EBA is a complex interdisciplinary project involving over 40 research groups from approximately 22 nations, as well as links to the Arctic research community. Its work crosses traditional disciplinary divides within biology, in particular working across the marine and terrestrial realms. EBA has multiple aims reflected in its structure of 5 work packages. At a broad scale, these packages are aimed at understanding how the various ecosystems of Antarctica are structured and function, what historical processes have shaped them to be as they are now, what evolutionary processes have taken place in the Antarctic environment and, in turn, what that tells us about the environment itself. Finally, in the context of parts of Antarctica currently facing the fastest rates of environmental change on ...

Photo Credit - AGAP team There were many times in the last two months where it seemed that the Antarctic Continent would win, keeping hidden the extensive landscape of subglacial lakes and mountains beneath the several kilometers of ice on Dome A. All the advance planning and negotiating with program leaders and logistics groups for enough days in the field to run the airborne geophysics were of little importance once we arrived on Antarctica. At this point we were negotiating with the continent herself, and we learned she can drive a hard bargain! The group at AGAP S camp had anticipated...

In order to move work teams to the AGAP camps we must move everyone through the South Pole in order to acclimatize to the high altitude. This has presented a bottleneck of sorts, and along with other delays is putting the project considerably behind schedule. With equipment calibrated and people antsy to move out of McMurdo the next focus is how to move people through the next short stop at South Pole. A spreadsheet has been made and people have been moved back and forth on the sheet in response to weather delays and changing shifting. For days people have had bags sorted and checked waiting...

Solar Linkages to Atmospheric Processes (SLAP) is an International Polar Year project investigating the links between changes in solar output and weather and climate. Thunderstorms and lightning strikes drive electricity around the world and form part of a global 'atmospheric electric circuit' that flows between the ground and the lower reaches of the ionosphere – about 80km up. Thunderstorms and electrified clouds are the 'batteries' of the atmospheric electric circuit, which drive the current from the ground to the ionosphere, while lightning is a visual representation of the current. The flow of current around the world is modulated by cosmic rays, whic...

The Royal Society of Victoria, involved on polar (Antarctic) science since 1874 is conducting a flight to the South Magnetic Pole on 17 January 2009, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first party (Australians Prof. Edgeworth David and Douglas Mawson and Scotsman Dr Alistair Mackay) to locate the Magnetic Pole in January 1909. The 12 hour return flight ex Sydney and Melbourne has been arranged as an in-flight scientific program with international scientists presenting papers. Also onboard the 350 seat aircraft will be 60 final year students as "young science ambassadors" drawn from schools from all Australian States, New Zealand, Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom. A few seats are still available for interested scientists. Contact details:...