PRESS RELEASE: for immediate release End- March 2009: IPY FOCUSING ON POLAR OCEANS Human impact on the oceans has become a topic of global concern: the eighth ‘International Polar Day’ of the International Polar Year 2007-8 (IPY) draws international attention to Polar Oceans. In these ice-covered oceans one finds remarkable organisms adapted to cold and dark, the rich ice-adapted ecosystems that support penguins and polar bears, and fundamental cooling and freezing processes that control planet-wide ocean circulations and global climate. During the last two weeks of March, 2009, polar oceanographers around the world will join students and teachers in local and broadcast events in Italy, Canada, Malaysia, Scotland, France, Germany, Brazil, USA, and...

Throughout March, and the weeks of Polar Oceans Activities, we will be receiving regular updates from a research cruise on the Healy Icebreaker in the Bering Sea, as aswell as connecting live to researchers during our Live Events. This page introduces the 'Thin Ice' team who will be documenting the adventure, and sending us details about the researchers, and research, being carried our aboard. Quick links: Daily stories from the ship have started A documentary ...

Below are documents that we will be discussing and developing at the IPY/Oslo 2010 meeting for Education, Outreach, and Communication in Geneva, February 23-24th 2009.

The meeting will occur at WMO headquarters. Directions to meeting building.

Please become familiar with these documents prior to the meeting. Hard copies will not be made available,- it is your choice to bring them either as hard copies or electronically.

Logistics & Committee Business
Agenda & Participant List
EOC Committee Mandate

Oslo 2010 Conference
Overarching principles for EOC activities during OSC 2010 K Ulstein
Categorising EOC activities during OSC 2010 K Ulstein, R Malherbe, S Zicus
APECS Participation in Oslo 2010 J Baeseman
Catalogue of EOC Session proposals K Ulstein
Virtual Component L Murphy

Polar Resource Book
Vision Document - discussion paper R Salmon, B Kaiser
All content collected so far

Photo-exhibit
Poles Apart flyer

FOR RELEASE: Immediate Feb. 13, 2009 CONTACT: Julie Brigham-Grette, +1- 413/545-4840, Martin Melles, ; +49 221 470 2262 ; Christian Koeberl, +43-1-4277-53110. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it UNDER A FROZEN LAKE IN SIBERIA, SECRETS OF EARTH’S ANCIENT CLIMATE CAPTURES THE HEART OF AN INTERNATIONAL TEAM OF GEOSCIENTISTS AMHERST – On this Valentine’s Day, the thoughts of some global climate change scientists are in Russia (with love of their research), and the big passion warming their hearts today are the secrets to be learned from under the ice at a frozen lake in Arctic Chukotka. That’s because the first convoy of five huge equipment containers with the dri...

An IPY initiative extending field event helicopter support from February into April allowed scientists to find out what happens to aquatic ecosystems during the summer-winter transition. Small pond immediately after freezing. The thick carpet of microbial mat is very clear through the ice Antarctica is a continent with plenty of “water” but precious little in the liquid state that most life requires. Where liquid water does exist, microbial ecosystems develop that are oases of biological diversity in otherwise barren landscapes. One of the commonest type of liquid water habitat are small ponds that fr...

International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA) IPY Press release – Feb. 10, 2009, Boulder, CO Download IASOA Press Release as PDF For more information visit our IPY Media Day page at www.iasoa.org Climate observatories at Barrow, Alaska, Summit, Greenland, and Tiksi, Russia all lie between 71° and 73° North, a few hundred miles above the Arctic Circle—but the sites are hardly similar otherwise. A...

Circumpolar treeline research by the IPY core project PPS Arctic Fieldwork in Northern Norway: recording and mapping stand density, tree recruitment and age structure of Scots pine stand close to treeline. Photo: A. Hofgaard Are trees invading the Arctic? The ‘expected’ answer to this question is ‘Yes’: but is this really true? The expectation is based on some rather simple models that relate the position of the treeline to the local climate. In its simplest form, the idea is that it is too cold for trees to exist north of the present-day treeline, so a warming climate ought to p...

EBA is a complex interdisciplinary project involving over 40 research groups from approximately 22 nations, as well as links to the Arctic research community. Its work crosses traditional disciplinary divides within biology, in particular working across the marine and terrestrial realms. EBA has multiple aims reflected in its structure of 5 work packages. At a broad scale, these packages are aimed at understanding how the various ecosystems of Antarctica are structured and function, what historical processes have shaped them to be as they are now, what evolutionary processes have taken place in the Antarctic environment and, in turn, what that tells us about the environment itself. Finally, in the context of parts of Antarctica currently facing the fastest rates of environmental change on ...

MEDIA ADVISORY UPCOMING RELEASE OF NEW EVIDENCE ABOUT CHANGE IN THE POLAR REGIONS download in multiple languages: Arabic

The International Polar Year 2007-8 has seen an unprecedented level of community engagement in this huge scientific effort to understand the polar regions. Woods Hole Research Center scientist Max Holmes with students from Zhigansk, Siberia, a predominately Evenki community along the Lena River. Students and teachers from Zhigansk, as well as additional participants from communities located along other large Arctic rivers in Russia, Canada, and Alaska, work with IPY scientists to investigate the impact of climate change on arctic rivers and their watersheds as part of the Student Partners Project. P...