It gets a bit tiresome starting every new entry with 'what a great day' but the truth is, most are... and it wouldn't be appropriate to focus on any lower moments in this forum. That said, yesterday we tried a smaller group exercise, "high - low - wow - now" which gave the students and mentors the opportunity to be that bit more reflective and open about how the trip is going so far. What was your high point, low point, wow moment... and where are you at right now? For many, the lows were the lectures. Not the content, just the format. In fact, they wanted to stay awake... they want this information and knowledge... but after long hikes outside or big meals it's hard to stay alert in a warm, dark, rocking room. I empathize. The information has been heard and we already notice that ...

photo credit: Alex Taylor We've been on this 'expedition' for a week now, half way through, and I can feel the dynamic shifting. Faces are pretty much all familiar and I'm not doing badly on names either... only a few students left whom I haven't had at least a brief conversation with. Amongst the students cliques have formed, as expected, but there is also a sense of change — more pondering, clearer questions, greater attentiveness, thoughtful poetry, and increasing questions about the educational content of the coming week. ...

Press release Bremerhaven August 7th 2008. The German Research Vessel Polarstern had to prove its ice breaking capabilities in Arctic waters to gain data on two series of long-term research measurements. After working in regions up to latitude 82° N, Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association will enter port in Reykjavik (Iceland) on August 10th. “This year, we had to cope with exceptional heavy ice coverage”, says chief scientist Prof. Gerhard Kattner. The sea ice covered the Arctic almost down to latitude 72° in southern direction. Perpetual winds from the Northwest have moved the ice into the central area of the Fram Strait since the beginning of summer. The main focus of the expedition lied ...

The intercom system has just announced that wake-up tomorrow has been postponed by half an hour to 8am. Everyone cheered. We have a happy, but very tired, shipful of folk today. It was a wonderful day, awe-some, in its true sense. In the morning we glided down Hirbilung Fjord, sheer cliffs on both sides, glaciers and waterfalls pouring off them. It was almost too much to take in, to process. For the first half hour on deck everyone milled, took photos, chatted, gaped... but what to do after that? How to take this in? Spontaneous groups of painters, writers, singers, players gradually filled the decks... a singsong on the back-deck, group games on the very top, somehow laughter and fun was the magic missing ingredient that made it all digestible again. In the afternoon we wer...

Another great day and we'll all go to sleep buzzing. Qikiqtarjuaq was fab: the people, the place, the food, the air, the weather, the crafts, the welcome, the kids. Kids everywhere, excited about strangers in their town, better yet, students. Craftspeople displaying sealskin hides, jewelry from bone and baleen, walrus tusk carvings, polar bear claws. The naturalists among us also came home with skulls from polar bear and walrus and, most impressive, narwhal tusk. NARWHAL TUSK. No, really. The first time I saw one, never having heard of a narwhal, I battled with my inner belief system. What from this earth could this beautiful spiralling ivory possibly have been created by if it wasn't a unicorn? I saw three or four on display today,- the smallest about the length of my fore-arm, the tall...

Today is the first full day of our expedition, and I have just returned from our first expedition of the expedition — a zodiac cruise around Hantsch island to observe a colony of thick-billed murres, or 'akpak' in Inuktitut. They are the Penguins of the North. Well, they look like penguins, but they fly. And genetically they're not penguins, they're part of the Auk family, like puffins and other black and white sea-birds. In fact, the thick-billed murre is the most abundant marine bird in the northern hemisphere. But they stay so far north that they are little appreciated or recognised. We also saw black-legged kittiwakes, really sweet looking seagulls. Amazing what you can learn when there's an ornithologist on board and a briefing before the outing. ...

Investigating sea ice decline A revised outlook for the Arctic 2008 summer sea ice minimum shows ice extent will be below the 2005 level but not likely to beat the 2007 record. DAMOCLES will dispatch eleven research missions into the Arctic this autumn to better understand the future of the sea ice. Chances that the 2008 ice extent will fall below last year's record minimum is about 8 percent, researchers forecast after having run a number of different models predicting the fate of the Arctic sea ice this summer. But there is still reason for concern; the scientists are almost certain the ice extent will fall below the minimum of 2005, which was the second lowest year on record. With a probability of 80% the minimum ice extent in 200...

Contents: 1. IPO in August 2. September 24th: People Day 3. Oslo Science Conference, June 2010: Call For Session Ideas 4. AGU 5. Arctic Field Season Report no. 16, August 2008 From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. IPO in August Please note that the IPO will not be working at full potential during the month of August as Nicola, Dave, and Rhian are away from the office at different times. Please be patient if the response time is slow, and call our mobile phone numbers if an immediate response is required. 2. September 24th: People Day The next Polar D...

Hayley Hung writes: The last two days have been relatively quiet and uneventful. Everyone was disappointed as the ship was overcome by fog yesterday, making the expedition to Banks Island unfeasible. Everyone was trying to finish working on their last samples and pack away equipment. The crew lowered the tower on the front deck so that the meteorological equipment can be removed. Sylvia and I wrestled with the wires, nuts and bolts on the tower for several hours. The rough sea and rain made every step so much more difficult. With Stephanie Moore’s (Dalhousie University) help, we finally got all the wires off the tower but we were completely soaked by rain. There were still several wires that ran along the starboard side of the ship that should be removed. However,...

On occasion of the IV International Polar Year, Italian researchers of the Project “Map of Arctic People set up a touring historical-photographical exhibition focused on polar regions, called The Lords of Tundra, in order to spread the knowledge over arctic populations and lands. Protagonists of the lens are the Ural Mountains chain, the Arctic ocean being objects of significant transformations produced by the recent climate changes - and, above all, Nenets (or Nency) population, inhabiting the ice of Jamal Peninsula, in Siberia. Nency people are nomadic breeders founding their existence on reindeer breeding, thus constituting one of the last...