The National Maritime Museum celebrates International Polar Year 2007 with this series of talks by explorers, artists, historians and scientists. Covering environmental, cultural, social and historical responses to the polar regions, the talks aim to uncover and examine this fast-disappearing place on Earth. Each week they will be explored from a different perspective: cultural commentators and ecologists will engage with the burning issue of climate change; historians will discuss empire-building and notions of heroism through the characters of Scott, Franklin and Shackleton; anthropologists will highlight the culture and contemporary concerns of indigenous communities and explorers will discuss their experiences. 5-week course

The ICSU/WMO Joint Committee for the International Polar Year 2007-2008 has established the following ethical guidelines for IPY researchers: All researchers working in Polar regions have an ethical responsibility to avoid harming the environment and to respect and avoid disruption to the lifestyles and livelihoods of Polar peoples. These responsibilities are entrained in a variety of international, national and regional laws, guidelines and codes-of-conduct, and researchers have a duty to be familiar with these before commencing their projects. Every endorsed IPY 2007-2008 project will operate under and comply with the guidelines and policies determined by a combination of the location and subject of their work, the source of their research funds and ...

You are invited to participate and contribute to the first Virtual Observatories in Geosciences Conference (VOiG). The conference will be at The Curtis Hotel, Denver Colorado, USA - June 12-15, 2007 Each day features plenary and parallel (breakout) sessions to cover areas of broad interests as well as the opportunity for detailed discussions. Time will be allowed for posters, with breaks to facilitate interactions amongst the worldwide VO community. The conference is sponsored by the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY), USGS, NASA, NSF, SCOSTEP and NCAR. While this conference focuses on geosciences, all interested disciplines are invited to participate. ...

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 ...

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...

While carrying out oceanographic work in the Laptev Sea (above Siberia) in 1937, the Soviet icebreaking steamers Sedov, Sadko, and Malygin were trapped in the ice for the winter. In August 1938, the icebreaker Yermak got through to the ships (at that point drifting at latitude 83°N) and helped the Sadko and Malygin out of the ice to open sea. Unfortunately, the Sedov's steering mechanism was seriously damaged, with her rudder broken in two, as well as the sternpost supporting it. It was decided that she would be converted into a drifting research platform and a crew of 1...

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 ...

To: ICSU/WMO IPY Project Leaders REF: The SCAR/IASC International Scientific Organizing Committee request input from ICSU/WMO IPY science program leaders regarding the content of the science program. From 8-11 July, 2008; the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) will jointly sponsor the third Open Science Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia. The SCAR Open Science Conference is rapidly becoming a marquee event for the presentation and exchange of the latest developments in polar science. The previous two Conferences included on average 1000 participants and ~600 oral and poster presentations. Numerous workshops, meetings, planning efforts, and events occur in the margins of the meetings....