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...

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...

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...

“Friends from the World is an intercultural exchange project conceived, within the project Map of Arctic People, aimed at promoting the reciprocal knowledge among children belonging to different cultures. The project was originally dreamt up as a bridge between the arctic world and the rest. Over the years, also thanks to the collaboration of the Italian nonprofit association Perigeo Onlus, engaged in the safeguard and valorisation of indigenous peoples cultural heritage, it succeeded in involving children belongin...

The Map of Arctic People (MAP) project has been set up to study the culture and the lifestyles of the peoples of the Arctic and subarctic regions and to establish lasting relations based on reciprocal cultural exchanges. The project is promoted within the IV International Polar Year, in collaboration with the Geographic Polar Institute of Fermo, CNR-Polarnet and under the patronage of CAI (Italian Mountain Sports Association) Executive Presidency. The purpose of the project is to draw up a map meant to be a work of reference for students and researchers, where the concept of Arctic is defined not only from the geographical viewpoint but especially in its essence as the cultural backbone of the peoples who live there. Many fundamental elements will serve to ma...

Hayley Hung writes: Amanda and I finished working at the rosette the night before at 4 a.m. At around 9:30 am, I heard my name announced on the P.A. system saying that I was expected at the flight deck?! Rushing out of bed, I’ve got a call from Gary saying that the captain and he would like to scout out Banks Island for a possible excursion for the scientists to hike the highest point in the Western Arctic, Durham Heights (724 m), before ending the leg. Nurse, Ève Bolduc, and I were honoured to be invited to join them on the helicopter ride. Setting out at 10 am, the helicopter headed towards the rugged southern cliffs of Banks Island. The landscape was very dramatic with high-rising cliffs bordering plateaus carved out by rivers and dotted with ponds. Several herds of mu...

Hayley Hung writes: We woke up to more “rock n’ rolling” this morning. I wonder why they use office chairs with wheels on the ship... I was literally sliding from one side of the room to the other while working on my computer. The wind finally subsided in the afternoon and the sun reappeared around dinner time (17:00)… the rapidly changing face of the Beaufort Sea! Now that the rosette is finally working, we are playing catch-up this evening. It is already 21:42 (Mountain time) and there is still no schedule as of what work is to be done tonight. I am waiting for the nutrient rosette to go down for Amanda’s water samples; hopefully, around midnight. If not, may be another night of endless waiting…At least, everyone is excited that finally some work can be d...

Hayley Hung writes: To everyone's surprise, it was and still is extremely stormy today. The weather forecast said 25 C and sunny!! It was in fact raining with ice pellets, cloudy and 30 knots of wind gusting to 40+ knots. The ship was rocking back and forth like a leaf! Many people felt dizzy. All the rosette work was cancelled. When lowering a mooring, one of the shackles broke, losing part of the mooring to the bottom of the ocean. Luckily, this part was replaceable. There is a strong low pressure over the Beaufort Sea area as INCATPA team member, meteorologist Jianmin Ma, indicated in his comments on the blog earlier. We may need to move further back into the gulf b...

Hayley Hung writes: The ship was close to Tuktoyaktuk today. Many scientists took the barge and helicopter to the river delta to collect samples. Very quiet day for me to concentrate on the Arctic air concentration data of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) that I did not manage to work on back in the office. Gary, the captain and Tony went to Inuvik to find Tony’s luggage which was lost on his way up to the Amundsen. Poor Tony has been borrowing clothes from people for the whole last week. Tony was so happy when he showed up at the bar tonight in his new found wardrobe! ...