Live From The Poles website Project Goals The polar regions are experiencing unprecedented environmental changes that have significant potential impacts on global climate, ecosystems, and society. Thousands of scientists from dozens of countries will focus their attention on the Arctic and Antarctic for two years beginning in March 2007 in an effort known as the International Polar Year (IPY). Live from the Poles will help heighten public awareness during IPY by bringing cutting-edge science to diverse, worldwide audiences of students, teachers, and the public. Our program is designed to share the excitement of polar exploration, communicate the importance of the Poles to the...

In a period of 48 hours, our weather has changed three times, from (almost) Miami Beach-type temperatures, to driving snow, and back to sun late this afternoon. Lingering morning snow prevented a survey of the region by helicopter. Instead, time on the ground gave the scientists an opportunity to finish building their instrument towers. We also have started to pack camp, stacking trash bags and tools about 200 feet from our tent in preparation for our scheduled helicopter ride off the ice tomorrow morning. There is still no word about Sarah Das’s dye, which she poured in a moulin several days ago to track drained lake water flowing from the base of the ice sheet to the coast. Our source on the coast south of Ilulissat (Sarah’s graduate student, Maya Bhatia) said recent s...

Sarah Das sat down on the ice sheet, opened her backpack, and took out a cinnamon Pop-Tart. She chewed quietly, needing a moment to recharge. For the last 90 minutes she had hiked around a massive, deep crack, split by a rushing river and smaller streams of melted ice sheet water. Somewhere in these channels she needed to find a place to dump in nine pounds of a harmless tracing dye. She will use it to trace the water’s flow under the ice, over 40 kilometers of bedrock, to Greenland's coast. Her goal is to see how long it takes, and in what concentration the dye appears, in order to begin mapping this under-ice pathway. But if she didn’t find an ideal spot in the river to dump in the dye, she worried that it wouldn’t make it into the moulin—a hole in the ice drainin...

Flying over the Greenland Ice Sheet several days ago, scientist Mark Behn was surprised to see South Lake still full of sapphire-blue water. The 2- to 3-kilometer-wide lake forms each spring and summer, fed by melting ice. The water eventually builds up so much weight that it cracks the ice at the bottom of the lake, and the water drains away through the ice. That should have already happened by now. Mark was thrilled to see the still-brimming lake. Rarely have scientists had an opportunity to witness a draining lake, which is why they put many instruments around the lakes to capture the action while they are not there. Mark and his colleagues had just gotten word that another lake they were scheduled to visit, North Lake, had just drained. “We just missed it,” he said....

Summer seems to have arrived on Mt. Morning. The air outside my tent today was cool, and if it wasn’t entirely springlike, temperatures were certainly above freezing. Margins of a few icy ponds had melted, and little sprigs of algae unfurled green fronds under the surface. We spent the day traversing the 25,000-year-old lava flows below Emperor Cone. Traveling with geologists, you don’t have to worry too much about forgetting your water bottle – our camp was almost always in sight. In about nine hours, we got no farther away from camp than 1 kilometer. But in that short space we found plenty to look at: wind-eaten rocks, two very different forms of lava, and a fence of hexagonal stone pillars, among other sights you’ll hear about another day. Read more...

Last night as the weather deteriorated, the helicopter pilots pointed us to the Magic 8-Ball when we asked if we would fly tomorrow. So I gave the 8-ball a shake. The answer: Yes, definitely. But outside, the snow streamed down as hard as ever. Sure enough, today brought blue skies and light winds. We boarded our Bell 212 helicopter at 1:25 and took off for Cape Royds. The 10-minute flight took us past the Dellbridge Islands, past Cape Evans, where Capt. Robert Falcon Scott's second expedition lived, past the Barne Glacier's immense ice cliffs, and over the smooth black lava of Cape Royds. After the helicopter left and silence returned, we could hear penguin cries floating softly to us over the black rock. To read on about our adventures, go to ...

I’m writing this from a snow cave on the Ross Ice Shelf. It’s midnight, and greenish sunlight is seeping in through thin patches in the roof of our shelter. We’re halfway through Happy Camper School, a two-day, 20-student training program taught to anyone who intends to spend even one night away from McMurdo Station. It’s a rite of passage for any Antarctic scientist. Over the course of the day, our two mountaineer-instructors, Karen Hilton and Danny Uhlmann, taught us the basics of being comfortable on snow as well as how to avoid hypothermia, recognize frostbite, and make a bombproof tent anchor out of a bamboo stick. But the schoolwork got serious at 6 p.m., when Hilton and Uhlmann left us alone to finish up our shelters, boil water, cook dinner, and prepare for t...

When it was established in December 1861, the Navy Medal of Honor was only intended for enlisted men of the Navy and Marine Corps; officers would have to wait a further 54 years before being made eligible. The original provisions of the medal (the first decoration authorized by Congress to be worn on the uniform) contained a scant few words which opened the window of opportunity for it to be awarded for lifesaving at sea: '. . . which shall be bestowed upon such petty officers, seamen, landsmen and marines as shall most distinguish themselves by their gallantry in action and other seamanlike qualities . . .'[emphasis added] Over a decade passed before Congress created the Gold and Silver Lifesaving Medals on June 20, 1874. As of 1880, along wit...

How much volcanic and earthquake activity is there on the ultraslow-spreading Gakkel Ridge? Scientists have little idea because they have been unable to record earthquakes in this remote region. Large earthquakes on the ridge can be detected by seismometers far away in the global seismic network, but they don’t occur frequently enough to get sufficient data. Smaller earthquakes, magnitude 2 or less, occur several times a day, but they are too small to be “heard” by distant seismic stations. While Oden is in the neighborhood, Vera Schlindwein from the Alfred-Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany is installing seismometers on ice floes to record some of those mini-earthquakes over several days. She will retrieve them before we leave the area. Even this bit of data will allow...

The first pair of scientists left on April 20 for the North Pole Environmental Observatory (NPEO), flying from Resolute Bay to Canadian Forces Station Alert on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island. After refueling and a check of the weather conditions at the North Pole, the two scientists and two pilots flew on to the Russian-operated Borneo ice camp at 89º15’ N latitude, 0º22’W longitude. It was the end of a long year of preparation and a long week of waiting for weather and ice conditions to allow planes to fly this sometimes treacherous journey. (View the travel map) Weather conditions at the Pole have improved, with lighter winds, greater visibility, and temperatures around -15ºC—colder than yesterday, but much better when you are trying to live and work on ...