SIKU is one of several IPY 2007–2008 projects aimed at documenting indigenous observations of environmental changes in the polar areas, with its specific focus on sea ice and the use of ice-covered habitats by the residents of the Arctic. Incidentally, the project’s acronym SIKU is also the most common word for sea ice (siku) in all Eskimo/Inuit languages, from Chukotka to Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. As a collaborative international initiative, SIKU brings anthropologists, human geographers, sea ice and climate scientists, marine and ecosystem biologists from the U.S., Canada, Russia, Greenland, and France in partnership with almost two dozen indigenous communities in Alaska, Arctic Canada, the Russian Chukchi Peninsula, and Greenland. SIKU, like many IPY 2007–2008 projects, is organized as a consortium of local or national initiatives with their respective budgets provided by the national funding agencies. Presently, the main operational components of the SIKU initiative are the Inuit Sea Ice Use and Occupancy Project (ISIUOP) in Canada (see summary report on the ISIUOP activities), the Alaska-Chukotkan portion of SIKU made of several local efforts (see field reports by Nicole Stuckenberger and Josh Wisniewski), and the Greenlandic component that is being developed as a part of the continuing SILA-Inuk project administered by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC)-Greenland office in Nuuk. Recently, a small French team secured its funding to join the SIKU initiative and to conduct sea ice knowledge studies in Greenland.

Collecting oceanographic data from ice-filled polar waters is costly and logistically challenging. Rather than relying solely on human scientists, this project uses beluga whales and four seal species as ocean explorers to collect information about the conductivity (salinity), temperature and depth (CTD) of Arctic and Antarctic waters. By fitting state-of-the-art CTD tags on dozens of these deep-diving marine mammals, scientists will be able to gather a rich new data set that will extend our knowledge of the world's oceans as well as the top predators that live in them. MEOP will provide a unique source of fundamental physical and biological data from the polar oceans. Its unique approach will compliment efforts in many other IPY projects and will leave a legacy of useful biological and ocean data along with new approaches to understanding the interaction between marine predators and their ecosystem.

Ice Station Antarctica is an interactive travelling exhibition developed by in partnership with the British Antarctic Survey. The exhibition challenges visitors to see if they've got what it takes to live and work in Antarctica. Engaging young people with the science, mysteries and career opportunities in Antarctica. Launches May 2007 at NHM London and tours worldwide from May 08 to May 2013.

East Antarctica is the least explored part of the Antarctic continent. Its massive thickness of layered ice contains the Earth's oldest natural archive of past atmospheric composition and climate. Even subtle recent changes in climate over this large area will be significant for affecting sea level change. The TASTE-IDEA program will investigate present and past accumulation rate and climate variability, survey the inner and coastal unexplored part of the continent, obtain a chronological linkage between the ice core drilling sites in East Antarctica, and obtain geophysical and glaciological surveys required to identify the location of the longest coherent climate record in Antarctic ice and information about subglacial lakes. TASTE-IDEA is an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, involving glaciology, atmospheric chemistry, meteorology, climate, paleoclimatology, geophysics, geology, remote sensing and a variety of other disciplines. The program provides the opportunity to explore unknown parts of our planet, to help in answering crucial questions related to sea level, present-past and future climate variability, and cryosphere-atmosphere interactions.

This is a collective project to produce and promote quality books reflecting IPY themes with global audience appeal. Project members provide resources from their books for use in IPY education and outreach. This is an open project and we invite new authors to have their books considered for inclusion by completing this Polar Books Project Application and returning it to {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Lauren Haney"}.

For more information, please visit the Polar Books webpage.

Temporal and spatial distribution of mercury and methylmercury source types, transfer and impact in the North American arctic and sub-arctic food web using seabird eggs and feathers Mercury appears to be increasing in the environment, world-wide. Scientists from North America and Europe will use seabird eggs and feathers to track sources of mercury and assess regional differences in mercury in the western Arctic by applying highly sensitive, newly developed analytical techniques. Eggs and feathers archived from past collections will be used to study changes from the past.

CASO aims to enhance understanding of the role of the Southern Ocean in past, present and future climate, including the overturning circulation of the Southern Ocean, water mass transformation, atmospheric variability, ocean-cryosphere interactions, physical-biogeochemical-ecological linkages, and teleconnections between polar and lower latitudes. CASO will deliver improved climate predictions, from models that incorporate a better understanding of southern polar processes; proof of concept of a viable, cost-effective, sustained observing system for the southern polar regions; and provide a baseline for the assessment of future change.

GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) is the first geodetic mission dedicated to the measurement of the time-variations of the Earth’s gravity field, it enables the detection of water mass transfers. The on-going GRACE mission (launched in 03/2002 for a nominal lifetime of 5 years; quasi-polar orbit) provides monthly maps of tiny spatio-temporal variations of gravity due to the redistributions of mass inside the surface fluid envelops of the Earth. These satellite measurements represent vertically-integrated gravity effects of water mass reservoirs (oceans, atmosphere, continental waters and ice sheets) and of the solid Earth that need to be unravelled.

SALE United International Team for Exploration and Discovery;

Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments (SALE): A Unifying Phenomenon in Antarctic Earth Science

Beneath Antarctica's ice sheets, water has slowly accumulated over millenia pooling in catchment basins within the continental bedrock. Antarctic subglacial environments are natural macrocosms that, in some instances, trace their origins to more than 35 million years before present, when the continent became encased in ice. Life, especially microbial life, has successfully radiated into most aquatic habitats on Earth. There is little reason to doubt that subglacial environments are exempt from this process.The exploration and study of subglacial environments provides an unparalleled opportunity to advance our understanding of how the expression of life, the environment, climate evolution, and planetary history have combined to produce the world as we know it today.

There is now clear evidence that the effects of recent and past climate changes have varied in magnitude across of the world. Some changes over periods of thousands of years seem to have affected the Arctic and Antarctic regions alternately, and this has been called the “bipolar see-saw” effect. The BIPOMAC project will collect and examine climate records in sedimentary sequences spanning the past five million years from both polar regions. These records will provide a basis for analysing the complex interactions of environmental processes that have caused the observed patterns of climate variation. Improved understanding of such processes and their interactions will increase our ability to forecast future climate and sea level change.