Understanding the state of the cryosphere, and its associated past, present and future variability, is essential to understanding physical and biogeochemical interactions between the oceanic, atmospheric, terrestrial, social, cultural, and economic systems. This project will provide a framework for assessing the state of cryosphere. It will establish links with IPY projects involved in monitoring, assessing, and understanding the global cryosphere, and with projects involved in socioeconomic and cultural issues.

“Meltdown: Global Warning” is a 3D/2D National Geographic film for giant screen theaters worldwide. Using state-of-the-art computer animation to bring audiences on a wild ride to the far ends of the Earth and into the future, we'll meet scientists at the cutting edge of climate science and come face-to-face with the future effects of climate change.

The Impacts of Oil and Gas Activity on Peoples in the Arctic Using a Multiple Securities Perspective From 2007-2010 a broad-based group of students and researchers from diverse backgrounds (political science to ecology) will take a human security approach to studying how oil and gas development will affect Arctic communities in Norway, Russia and Canada. By making human security central, we expect to connect Arctic peoples, researchers and policy makers in ways that will result in genuine listening and interaction among the groups.

Extending IPY Themes to the Undergraduate Earth System Science Education Community "The NASA/USRA Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century program (ESSE 21) engages interdisciplinary college and university teams to develop courses, curricula and degree programs that consider air, water, land and life processes on Earth. IPY research on polar processes will enrich ESSE 21 learning materials with relevant and compelling content that explores the global impact of polar science. "

ArcticWOLVES is an international initiative developed for the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. The project will build a network of circumpolar wildlife observatories in order to assess the current state of arctic terrestrial food webs over a large geographical range. The network will provide baseline information to evaluate current and future population trends for a large number of species at several locations using standard protocols. Another aim of the project is to determine the relative importance of bottom-up (resources) and top-down (predators) forces in structuring arctic food webs, and how climate affects these trophic linkages.

Biogeography and Geological Diversity of Hydrothermal Venting on the Ultra-Slow Spreading

The eight arctic countries have been working together to evaluate the source and impacts on humans and the environment of contaminants (eg. PCBs, DDT, mercury etc.) since the early 1990s. Several reports released by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) have documented the distant sources of these contaminants and outlined the human and evironmental concerns. This meeting in Arctic Canada during the fall of 2008 will outline the state of knowldege on the human health concerns related to these enviromental contaminants.

This project will bring together researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Pacific Oceanological Institute in Vladivostik to study the energy budget of the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas while onboard a Russian icebreaker, the Kapitan Dranitsyn during late summer of 2007 and 2008. Measurements of incoming and outgoing radiation, carbon dioxide fluxes, and light intensity in the water column will be studied in relation to ocean surface condition. These observations will be placed in the context of the observed and predicted further reduction in Arctic sea ice.

Synchronized observations of Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMC), Aurora, and other large-scale polar phenomena from the International Space Station (ISS) and ground sites. Astronauts on the International Space Station will make observations of bi-polar phenomena in concert with scientists at polar-based ground sites. Space-based observations, on the length scale of half a continent, will augment ground-based measurements.

The Kinnvika project will re-open an old research station from the previous polar year to study Arctic Warming and Impact Research. The spectrum of projects from geosciences to the humanities, investigates how the environmental and anthropogenic dynamics have changed recently in comparison with past records of change from existing expedition logs and photographs, proxy climate data from ice-, lake- and sea-sediment cores, and dynamic studies both on terrestrial as marine ice. This is a major multi-national multi-disciplined project involving 26 working groups and more than 80 Principal Investigators.