By Jan Strugnell, British Antarcitc Survey Today was an exciting day for the biologists as we had our first day of trawling in the Bellingshausen Sea as part of the BAS core BIOPEARL project. We deployed the Agassiz trawl to sample the benthic marine communities and did 2 x 15 minute trawls at 1500 m depth, 3 x 15 minute trawls at 1000 m depth and 3 x 10 minute trawls at 500 m depth. The spirit of international collaboration does not just extend to the variety of different nations’ scientists on board, but no sooner than a tiny sea spider had been caught, was it photographed and sent to an expert taxonomist in Spain who was then able to confirm its identity to species level back to the ship in the same day. Meanwhile new photos of benthic species had already...

By Jan Strugnell, British Antarctic Survey Four different scientists with very different research interests have been collecting samples of seawater from the water column using the CTD. The CTD is an instrument used for measuring a number of parameters from the water column (including Conductivity/salinity, Temperature and Depth) and can also be used for collecting water samples from a number of depths throughout the water column. For this weeks diary entry I had a chat to each of them about their science. National Oceanograpy Centre/University Southampton and BAS PhD student, Rachel Malinowska has been collecting water samples for her PhD using the CTD. Rachel is taking a depth transect from 10 depths (from as deep as 4500 m) from 6 sites around the Bellingha...

By Jan Strugnell, British Antarctic Survey Before reaching Rothera Research Station (a British Antarctic Surveybase) on the Antarctic Peninsula we ran three short Agassiz trawls to collect live animals from a depth of 200 m for the marine biologists at Rothera. The two wintering marine biologists at Rothera, Alison Masseyand Birgit Obermuller, are studying seasonal physiology of a number ofanimals. They are investigating how much oxygen they use and how thischanges with temperature as well as changes in their seasonal processingof food. We still know very little about how animals cope with the most of strikingly seasonal of environments. ...

Submitted April 6 by By Jan Strugnell, British Antarctic Survey We’ve just spent the last few days at Rothera research station. Rothera is in a really pretty setting on Adelaide Island off the West Antarctic Peninsula. The base is covered in snow and is dotted with Adelie penguins, fur seals and a few elephant seals. The ice in the bay is really beautiful - lots of it is brilliant blue in colour and other pieces are completely transparent - and many of them are really spectacular shapes too. The icebergs are truly an astonishing variety of colours and shapes. We’ve mostly been working unloading cargo for Rothera and loading up lots of their cargo to take back to Stanley and the UK, including live animals for back at BAS and waste from the base to be dispos...

Uncovering mysteries at Earth’s poles Plenty — April 7 — One hundred and twenty-five years ago, Austrian explorer Karl Weyprecht called on scientists around the world to study the Earth's polar regions. Only through such concerted effort, believed Weyprecht, could problems of meteorology and geophysics be solved. Weyprecht's enterprise has since become the International Polar Year, held every 50 years and involving thousands of scientists from more than 60 countries. The latest kicked off in March 2007 and will last until March 2009-yes, it's two years long; keep reading to learn why-and it's now climate change that demands global solutions, with Antarctica and the Arctic hit first...

NOAA Probes Arctic Pollution For Global Warming Clues NOAA — April 7 — NOAA scientists are now flying through springtime Arctic pollution to find out why the region is warming - and summertime sea ice is melting - faster than predicted. Some 35 NOAA researchers are gathering with government and university colleagues in Fairbanks, Alaska, to conduct the study through April 23. Called ARCPAC (Aerosol, Radiation, and Cloud Processes affecting Arctic Climate Change), the project is a NOAA contribution to International Polar Year 2008. Ringed seals key to polar bears' fate: researchers Winnipeg Free Press — Apr...

NOAA Probes Arctic Pollution For Global Warming Clues NOAA — April 7 — NOAA scientists are now flying through springtime Arctic pollution to find out why the region is warming - and summertime sea ice is melting - faster than predicted. Some 35 NOAA researchers are gathering with government and university colleagues in Fairbanks, Alaska, to conduct the study through April 23. Called ARCPAC (Aerosol, Radiation, and Cloud Processes affecting Arctic Climate Change), the project is a NOAA contribution to International Polar Year 2008. Ringed seals key to polar bears' fate: researchers Winnipeg Free Press — Apr...

Contents: 1. Publications Database 2. Satellite Data 3. IPY Celebrations, February 2009 4. APECS information 5. UNEP Children's Conference,- call for material 6. IPO update Report no. 12, April 2008 From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. Publications Database Already, many researchers prepare publications of their IPY work. As described in the IPY Data Policy, we encourage all IPY researchers to acknowledge IPY and its sponsoring agencies (ICSU, WMO) in all of these publications and to provide bi...

Published quarterly in March, June, September and December, the multiple writing award winning journal "The Fan Hitch", now in its tenth year, has been enjoyed not only by Inuit Dog enthusiasts, but also has been appreciated as a valuable resource for information as well as a connection to other people, by scientists, historical researchers (including IPY contributors), tourism businesses, filmmakers, authors, veterinarians, universities, government agencies and NGOs. In addition to being principally a free "e-zine", "The Fan Hitch" is also available in paper form, which is imaged and distributed by the IPL students of the Ulluriaq School, Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik. As part of our mission to help restore and pr...

Antarctica receives almost 50,000 visitors a year, if you count both those who disembark and those who sail or over fly the continent without landing. Is it now for the Antarctic Treaty or the governments involved to regulate Antarctic Tourism? Should we start talking about quotas and/or other measures to protect the most pristine region in the world? Photographer, cruise manager and guide Juan Kratzmaier summarizes a conference talk he gave on the topic at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Barcelona for the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in ...