Photo courtesy of ACE CRC (photographer Simon Marsland) Ice Investigation #1: If icebergs melt, will sea level rise? Materials (per pair or team): deep dish pie or cake pan, toothpick, modelling clay, 2-3 ice cubes, water, clear plastic wrap 1. Give each team of students a pan and a lump of clay. 2. Mould the shape of a continent, pressing the edges flat against the pan. 3. Pour in water to partially cover the clay continent. 4. Put several ice cubes in the water to represent icebergs. (Note: The more ice you use, the easier it will be to see any changes in water level.) 5. Trace the water level into the clay with a toothpick or pencil. 6. Cover the pan with clear plastic wrap to prevent evaporation of t...

Countries around the world are issuing special stamps to herald the arrival of International Polar Year 2007-2008. The initiative is being spearheaded by eight Arctic nations — the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. In addition to the individual releases, a booklet of souvenir sheets will be issued containing all eight sets. The U.S. Postal Service will issue a souvenir sheet of two 84-cent international letter rate stamps which will also be issued as a pane of 20 under the title ‘Polar Lights’. In 1958, the United States issued a three-cent stamp to commemorate the International Geophysical Year 1957-58. ...

Climate change-induced increase of carbon dioxide, according to modelling approaches, is going to cause the acidification of the world’s oceans. By the year 2100 the current pH might drop by 0.5. Our research is focusing on the question ‘how do fish respond to such changes?’ At the department "Marine Animal Physiology" of the Alfred Wegener Institute, researchers developed a device that enables onboard measurements of the impact of decreased pH values on the gill functioning of freshly caught fish (see overview photograph). In order to simulate blood circulation, specially prepared gill tissue is constantly flushed with a saline solution. Special devices allow measurements to be taken of gill performance in plain and acidified seawater for more than 6 hours (see det...

“The Octopods are for the most part benthic or bentho-pelagic, living in holes or crevices, beneath large rocks or in caves… ” This has been the dogma of octopus habitat use for decades because observations have been limited to areas of the oceans where octopuses could be easily found: shallow, near-shore and typically rocky, habitats. But what of the majority of the ocean floor, where the bottom is characterized by muddy and sandy sediments, is there a place for octopuses here? The answer is "yes". Today’s technology enables us to see the ocean floor almost everywhere with high-resolution still photography and ROV-mounted video cameras. Images from the Polarstern’s first deployment of the photosled show octopuses burrowed in fine sediment, as seen in the attached image. Waters...

On December 22nd 2006, after completing the Stellar Axis star map on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, artist Lita Albuquerque conducted a performance using an Archimedian Spiral and 51 volunteers from the nearby US McMurdo station. Starting at the center, the participants walked out along the spiral arms to the boundary of the installation taking 10 minutes to complete the journey. The star map around which they spiraled mirrored the sky above on the Southern Hemisphere's Summer Solstice. The event was filmed from a helicopter and from the ground. Photographs were taken by Jean de Pomereu of the International Polar Foundation. For more information, visit the Stellar Axis website and ...

Below is a list of Press officers responsible for launch events around the world. This is also available as a PDF of press_officers. Please also consult National IPY Committees for information on national events. ICSU: {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Carthage Smith"}, ICSU Paris WMO: {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Paul Garwood"}, WMO Australia: {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Sally Chambers"}, Government Antarctic Division Canada: {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Karen Edwards"}, Canadian IPY secret...

Penguins are the uncontested cutest birds worldwide. In the great colonies of the Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) in the high Antarctic it happens often that young chicks die a natural death. This provided a unique opportunity for us (Sven Klimpel and Markus W. Busch) to analyse the parasitic fauna and stomach contents of these fascinating birds. Such investigations are important because they provide information on the life of the parasites and also on the habitats and general trophic status of the penguin hosts within the Antarctic ecosystem. The Emperor penguin colony close to the German Neumayer Station is one of approximately 35 known colonies in Antarctica. We collected 12 dead chicks for parasitological and feeding ecology examinations on board. It was found th...

Polarstern’s biggest fish catch in 24 years of research in Antarctic waters. New hope for commercial fisheries? Quite the opposite, a good catch doesn’t necessarily mean that depleted stocks have recovered. Five tons of marbled Antarctic cod (Notothenia rossii), now that was surely a big surprise to scientists and crew alike considering that previous and subsequent hauls barely ever reaped such plentiful harvests. Their shimmering silver and dark blue bodies, which can grow up to 70cm, were piled on the aft deck of Polarstern. In combination with previous stock assessments, fisheries biologists onboard interpreted the catch as a sampling of a discrete, small-scale aggregation of this fish species. ...

Polarstern’s biggest fish catch in 24 years of research in Antarctic waters. New hope for commercial fisheries? Quite the opposite, a good catch doesn’t necessarily mean that depleted stocks have recovered. Five tons of marbled Antarctic cod (Notothenia rossii), now that was surely a big surprise to scientists and crew alike considering that previous and subsequent hauls barely ever reaped such plentiful harvests. Their shimmering silver and dark blue bodies, which can grow up to 70cm, were piled on the aft deck of Polarstern. In combination with previous stock assessments, fisheries biologists onboard interpreted the catch as a sampling of a discrete, small-scale aggregation of this fish species. ...

Aboard Polarstern, bathymetry — the mapping of the seafloor using sonar — is conducted by an international working group. In recent days, they have found a distinct elevation at the seafloor of the Southern Ocean. This structure rises 600 m above ground in an otherwise featureless seascape and is situated about 450 km north of the Antarctic continent. It closely resembles an underwater volcano, presumably still active, which has never been charted on a map. This finding was reported by Elena Pugacheva from the Geographical Institute Moscow and Jan-Hendrik Lott from the University of Karlsruhe. During the expedition, long distances are covered between the continents of Africa, Antarctica and South America. Mapping of the seafloor takes place throughout the journe...