Feb. 26, 2008: What started as a quick idea to spice-up an International Polar Year event has resulted in a full-length musical composition in celebration of polar science and the uniqueness of the north. University of Alaska Fairbanks Associate Professor James Bicigo recently completed a composition for brass ensemble based on his “Polar Fanfare,” which premiered at UAF’s IPY kick-off celebration last year. The full-length piece, titled “Polar Synthesis” includes five movements, each based on a northern theme. “The movements are titled Polar Fanfare, Aurora, Polar Bears, Break up- Climate Change and Synthesis- Understanding,” says Bicigo. “I’m really excited about the way the last movement ties together the themes from the fi...

During the Antarctic summer season 2007-2008, the International Polar Foundation and its partners have pulled through an amazing achievement: the Princess Elisabeth station building can now be seen atop the Utsteinen Nunatak. After a pre-mounting phase in Brussels last September, the objective of this year's expedition was to transport the station's modules to the construction site and to build the foundations, anchoring points, garages and outer shell of the first "zero emission" Antarctic station. The team has been working nearly every day since November 2007 to complete these tasks, with a c...

The International Polar Year is upon us and many of you are involved in this large scientific program. Many of you have wondered where you can get IPY merchandise for various meetings, workshops, outreach events. You can now order coffee mugs, magnets, pins, shirts, and much more. The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) has created an online store for IPY and APECS gear. All profits go towards supporting early career researchers and increasing polar literacy, administrated by the IPY International Programme Office. Show your support for the IPY, young researchers, and polar...

Kansas is proclaiming Tuesday, February 19 as Polar Education and Research Day. The governor of Kansas will sign a proclamation recognizing the importance of Polar Education and Research. The text is below. TO THE PEOPLE OF KANSAS, GREETINGS: WHEREAS, The world has banded together for the fourth time in history to jointly pursue science at the Earth's extreme latitudes as part of the International Polar Year; and WHEREAS, Kansans, since Lewis Lindsey Dyche in the late 1800s have participated in that scientific exploration, a rich tradition that extends to today's Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, headquartered at the University of Kansas; and WHEREAS, These engineering and scientific efforts can serve to excite yo...

Bremerhaven, February 4, 2008: In the Southern Ocean, large quantities of surface-drifting plankton algae are able to significantly reduce the carbon dioxide content of the surface waters, which can affect the global carbon dioxide cycle. This is one of the results from an Antarctic expedition which has just drawn to a close in Cape Town on February 4, and which was led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, part of the Helmholtz Association. On February 5, an international team of scientists will discuss the results obtained to date and pressing questions of Antarctic research as part of a workshop aboard the icebreaker Polarstern. Federal research minister Dr Annette Schavan will use the opportunity to meet representatives of leading research institutions and South African mini...

12 February 2008 The American Geographical Society and the University of Delaware are pleased to announce that Captain Lawson W. Brigham, U.S. Coast Guard (Ret.), will sign the AGS Flier's and Explorers Globe at 7:30 pm EST on February 12, 2008. The event will take place on the campus of the University of Delaware in Newark, DE The ceremony will be web cast, and can be viewed in real time at http://www.udel.edu/UMS/udlive. The video of the event will be archived and available for future viewing through the University’s web site. The signing of the AGS Globe forms the introduction to the W. S. Carlson International Polar Year Events,a year-long series of public lectures, seminars, exhibits, films, and other events held at the University of Delawar...

Thousands of tourists visit the continent every year, most of them on board large, comfortable cruiseships. Dutch travel photographer Thijs Heslenfeld wanted true adventure. He boarded the Dutch threemast barque Europa for a journey of discovery to some of the loneliest, coldest and most beautiful places on earth. Heslenfeld sailed to Antarctica twice on board the Europa. Last year he did the full two month trip from Argentina all the way to South Africa. His Antarctica images have been published in magazines wordwide, including National Geographic Adventure and GEO Saison. Now his best pho...

The Candian component of the IPY OASIS project has recently released brochures in four languages. OASIS is an international research program that studies how chemicals move between the Ocean , the Atmosphere, the Sea Ice and the Snow pack. OASIS English OASIS French OASIS Inuktitut OASIS Cree To learn more, please visit the OASIS ...

Submitted February 13, 2008: Now that we are in the open waters of the Inner Ross Sea, the sampling program can start in earnest. In the typical style of all marine surveys, some of the gear gave us problems on the first deployment but once teething problems were sorted everything worked as we wanted. As expected, the weather has already had an impact. From a relatively calm sea we suddenly expe...

The University of the Arctic’s International Polar Year (IPY) Higher Education and Outreach project cluster encompasses a wide variety of IPY-approved projects, and among them is an exciting new college-level science course, “Environmental Radioactivity, Stewardship, and People of the North,” that successfully debuted during Fall Semester 2007 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). Development of the course was funded by a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, “Adapting SENCER to the Arctic—Improving Polar Science Education as a Legacy” (NSF 632397), to Principal Investigator and UAF professor Lawrence K. Duffy. SENCER (Science Education for New Civic Engagement and Responsibilities) is a national movement in U.S. education to reform the teaching of...