OZZY GOES POLAR Ozzy and Zoe Ozone invite the World's Children to Take Action on Ozone, Climate and Pollutants Ozzy goes polar comic book launched on World Environment Day, a special day by which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness and action to protect the environment. Tromso, June 5th 2007 Ozzy Ozone is the United Nations Environment Programme's flagship illustrated booklet series for children regarding stratospheric ozone protection. It is targeted at children between 8 to 14 years old and is devoted to raising awareness about the importance of the protection of the ozone layer. This issue of Ozzy Ozone, entitled "Ozzy Goes Polar", has been prepared on the occasion of the World Environmen...

16th April Lance, the research vessel of the Norwegian Polar institute, is laying in the harbour. I am standing on the deck and watch it from the front to the back, from the bridge in the top down to the cargo room. On this space 29 persons are going to live for to weeks. It is calm and sunny. If it wasn’t because of the cold you could take it for a nice summer day on the mainland. The sun makes the water and snow sparkle and the waves in the harbour give a relaxing sound of summer vacation. Maybe it is getting summer, but not the kind of summer I am used to. We are going north, and if this is summer it’s a summer with ice. The plan was to go to Rijpfjorden at Nordaustlandet but it is closed by ice so we will try to find a fjord further sout...

Here are 12 posters prepared for the IPY launch event on March 1st, 2007. These accompany Dave Carlson's IPY Opening Ceremony Presentation. They represent seven IPY projects as well as the work of artists, educators, youth, and early career scientists in IPY. There is also a composite poster of all these aspects. They are very large as can be printed in high resolution in poster size. Composite poster compressed: 17.5 MB ...

The early history of polar exploration leads, strange though it may seem, to space exploration. And the early history of polar exploration is firmly netted to cod fishing. Ergo, cod fishing took us to the moon! I first heard this interesting historical perspective from my arctic explorer father, Willie Knutsen. I was writing a book on his 30 plus years in arctic work, 1936-1969, that came out in 2005 via The Explorers Club as Arctic Sun on My Path: the true story of America’s last great polar explorer. As my Brooklyn-born father put it, albeit with a smile, "Space travel began with salted cod!" What he meant was that for centuries, Norway, where he was raised, had a lively trade with the Mediterranean dealing salted cod, the now famous baccalao of Spanish menus. Cod Fi...

The Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam annually organizes a final year project report contest for secondary school children to get the school youth interested in arctic ecology, specifically in global change impacts at high latitudes. The prize winners (2 in total) win a one-week trip to Lapland. They join in with excursions and ongoing climate change research in Abisko, N Sweden and adjacent Norway. They participate in an expedition team with Vrije Universiteit teachers Dr. Hans Cornelissen and Dr. Matty Berg who both conduct IPY research in the area. The days in Abisko include a brief but genuine participation in actual current research on global warming impacts on peatlands, centred on our long-te...

Since the next expedition to Rijpfjorden is starting today, it is time to publish the last part of the story! If you missed second part, try this. This part is dedicated to the people somewhere in the dark basement in the city of Tromsø. Let’s finish the story: 10.3.2007 Day 10. Saturday Since we had almost done all must-do sampling and we needed some free time after last evening’s event, we decided to take off Saturday morning. We slept 30 minutes longer and took a walk on the mountain on north side of the camp. Regardless of their earlier names, we decided that we have a claim to rename some particula...

The twilight of Tromsø is shrinking into a more and more narrow and deeper and deeper red band at the horizon as we are moving further north. I am watching through the airplane window on my way to Svalbard. I see the black sea is shining in the moonlight when we go in for landing. It is about 2 pm and still not a sign of daylight. There is minus degrees in the air and the snow is making a weak sound under my feet. Just like a winter is supposed to be. Gone is rain and slush. Gone is naked ground and floods. The arrival hall is pretty small and full of people. It takes a while before everybody gets their bag and the university drives us by bus to Nybyen, the place where we are going to live. It is situated about half an hour walk from the centre of Longyearbyen and co...

Until today any journey in the ice-infested waters of the Arctic Ocean was a journey into the unknown with no up-to-date detailed map of the ice conditions readily available in such a remote region of the world. Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) are now able to provide the latest satellite image from the European Space Agency satellite, Envisat and the Canadian Radarsat-1 satellite to any International Polar Year (IPY) expedition in the Arctic Ocean. Users will be able to connect to KSAT in Troms

If you missed first part of this story, read it from here. The first part was published about three weeks ago. The second part is coming right now. Let’s continue the story… 6.3.2007. Day 6. Tuesday Today we continued the work that had been interrupted by the polar bears. This was the best day for sampling so far. Excellent weather (calm & warm) and no problems with equipment. There were a lot of ringed seals resting on the ice all over the fjord. We used one of their holes as a place for zooplankton sampling. That’s why the station has the name Seal-hole. We got zooplankton samples with WP 2 and WP ...

I promised to write something for this blog from our field trips in Northeastern Svalbard. I have been terribly busy (and maybe little lazy in writing) with my project, so this piece comes little late. Anyway – it comes – and it is quite long. That’s why the whole story is published in three parts. I am planning to add one part a week to the blog, so you won't (maybe ;-) ) drown in the text. This piece is dedicated to all the friends, to other members of the project, and to everyone who is interested in the biological fieldwork in the High Arctic. I hope that you enjoy it. Rijpfjorden is a one of the many fjords in Svalbard. It is located on the Northeastern isla...