As we continue to organise our life on board for the long polar night ahead, a constant preoccupation is the production, use and discharge of water. Ensuring that we have a sufficient amount of good quality water for our basic needs is a big task for at least two people each day. Like most large boats, we have a watermaker onboard that makes freshwater from seawater through the process of osmosis. In temperate climates we can produce up to 200 liters per hour. However, in our current position close to 83 degrees north the water temperature is -1.5 degrees celsius and the temperature in the forward hold (the location of the watermaker) has descended to -7 degrees, below the minimum operating temperature of 0 degrees. Therefore, we now produce our water by melting ice and sno...

As we continue to organise our life on board for the long polar night ahead, a constant preoccupation is the production, use and discharge of water. Ensuring that we have a sufficient amount of good quality water for our basic needs is a big task for at least two people each day. Like most large boats, we have a watermaker onboard that makes freshwater from seawater through the process of osmosis. In temperate climates we can produce up to 200 liters per hour. However, in our current position close to 83 degrees north the water temperature is -1.5 degrees celsius and the temperature in the forward hold (the location of the watermaker) has descended to -7 degrees, below the minimum operating temperature of 0 degrees. Therefore, we now produce our water by melting ice and sno...

If there is one thing that we can be sure about during this expedition, it is that we can never really relax as we drift across an ocean of ice. Sunday night at 3am the sea ice came alive. Beginning with an innocuous grinding and tapping on the hull, the pressure and sound rapidly increased to a deafening noise inside the boat. At times a constant tapping as the ice squeezed and the pressure increased, then rising to a high pitched screeching like fingernails running over a blackboard as the blocks of ice slide by. Tara handled the onslaught well, being pushed in all directions we have now come to rest on a pressure ridge with a nine degree list to port, not huge but big enough to give us the impression of being at sea. After a very busy week spent reinstalling scientific...

The news that global concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) increased last year has heightened concern about the vulnerability of polar regions amongst scientists managing International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. IPY is co-sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). "The rise in global concentrations of CO2 and nitrous oxide (N2O) over the past few decades will continue to stoke global warming, which has a pronounced effect in polar regions," says Dr David Carlson, Director of the International Polar Programme Office that oversees IPY. "IPY next year, and the associated launch of hundreds of scientific research projects focussed on polar conditions and polar ecosystems comes none t...

The International Polar Year 2007-2008, and a wide array of polar sciences, will have a strong presence during the Fall AGU Meetings in San Francisco in December 2006. More than ten oral and poster sessions carry the IPY label or the label of an IPY-endorsed project. More than 30 additonal sessions address polar themes, from ice core science to biogeochemistry of northern watersheds. The IPY IPO has assembled a list of all these polar sessions on a single sheet for your use; here it is, as a PDF. IPY IPO will also operate a display booth, cooperatively with the US NSF Office of Polar Programs. We will share many international materials promoting IPY and operate a polar message cen...