This project – which involves scientists from two dozen countries – will examine how atmospheric processes in the Southern Hemisphere affect current climate, and provide an important baseline for assessing future climate change. COMPASS will obtain the first circumpolar snapshot of the Southern Hemisphere atmospheric environment – covering physical, chemical and ecological properties – a major observational milestone. Only by harnessing the resources of the global polar community can this multinational project achieve the depth of investigation required to improve knowledge of future climate change and its impacts.

Polar View brings together multiple satellite observations and a network of expert providers to deliver a range of polar monitoring services. Via an international consortium, funded by the European Space Agency, Polar View is delivering accurate, near real time information about sea ice conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic. Additionally it provides snow and glacier information, plus data about river and lake ice break up for hydrology and flood risk mitigation.

As part of IPY, Polar View has extended the sea ice services to being together all operational sea ice information into the IPY Ice Logistics Portal. This provides a convenient point of access to operational sea ice information produced by the world's ice services and Polar View. Access to products is provided via a series of pre-defined regions for both the Arctic and the Antarctic.

During glacial periods ice sheets move faster along so called ‘ice streams’. Ice streams leave footprints on the seafloor when the ice is grounded below the sealevel. This project aims at developing new models of fast ice flow in ice-streams based on analyses of the geological record of past ice-streams.

Doing science in the polar regions depends on humans performing under the most extreme environmental conditions. By collecting data for a new epidemiological database of health events in Antarctica, this 18-nation project will improve our understanding of how individuals and groups interact in confined environments, and how human physiology adapts to such extreme conditions. The results should help improve the health of polar scientists, help deliver better healthcare in other remote areas of the world, and help space scientists understand the likely effects of isolation on astronauts during long-duration missions.

This project links together multidisciplinary interests in the region of West Antarctica where the ice sheet discharges into the Amundsen Sea. It is one of the most active ice sheet areas, is already contributing a significant fraction of the increasing sea level, and holds the potential to dwarf other sea level contributions in the future. Aside from routine satellite coverage that monitor elevation and surface features, information about the area is limited. Our project will greatly advance our knowledge of ice dynamics of the area, the basal conditions, sub-shelf oceanic interactions, atmospheric transport of incoming snow, and historical record of ice extent. These studies will be conducted with the direct intention of supplying the involved modeling experts with necessary data to construct, initialize and validate advanced full-stress tensor models of ice flow.

ANDRILL (ANtarctic geologic DRILLing) is a multinational collaboration of over 200 scientists, drillers, engineers, technicians, students and educators from Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United States. The goal is to recover long stratigraphic records along the continental margins of Antarctica by drilling from an ice shelf or sea ice platform. By interpreting these sedimentary rock records, scientists can understand how Antarctica’s ice sheet has advanced and retreated over time. The ANDRILL website has a fantastic range of information for scientists, teachers, and media.

Even though climate change is dramatically affecting the biosphere, our understanding of its effects on biological communities is poor. The Southern Ocean is an ideal natural laboratory to the impact of regional and global climate change because of the sensitive interactions between temperature, ice extent and species. Measuring variations in penguin populations can tell us a great deal about climate change, but could tell us even more if we understood the mechanisms the underlie the dynamics of penguin colonies. Taking advantage the major advances that have been made in microelectronics recently, this project will fit penguins with hugely powerful yet tiny state-of-the-art transponders and data recorders. The project will provide the first complete global and unified picture of penguin population dynamics, uncovering the processes that drive their numbers and the effects climate change is having on them.