On Sept 1 it was announced in Melbourne that Meredith Hooper won the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction 2008 for her book ,The Ferocious Summer, (Profile Books UK, Allen & Unwin Australia, Greystone Books USA and Canada). These prestigious awards were established in 1985 by the Premier of Victoria to mark the centenary of the births of Vance and Nettie Palmer – distinguished writers and critics in Victorian and Australian literary culture. Meredith’s citation reads: This book effortlessly gives the reader a lucid yet crucial understanding of what climate change is doing to penguins in the Antarctic and by extension to our world. Important information is engrossingly conveyed on every page through the engaging yet unsentimental voice of a super...

Bremerhaven, October 17th 2008. The German research vessel Polarstern has returned today to Bremerhaven from the Arctic Sea. It has cruised as the first research vessel ever both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages and thereby circled the North Pole. The third part of the research vessel’s 23rd Arctic expedition, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute in the Helmholtz Association, started its journey on August 12th in Reykjavik and ended it on October 17th in Bremerhaven. The ship travelled a distance of 10.800 nautical miles, equivalent to 20.000 kilometres. On board were 47 researchers from 12 nations, for example from Belgium, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Korea, the Netherlands, Russia and the USA. Because of the small ice cover, the expedition members were a...

The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) has published several further issues of the Australian Antarctic Magazine: The latest issue of the Australian Antarctic Magazine (Issue 15, 2008) looks at the changes wrought in Antarctica by the signing of the Antarctic Treaty 50 years ago; ocean acidification; and Australia's science program for 2009. It is also available as a PDF. Issue 13 looks at the connections between Antarctic science and policy and how the Australian Antar...

Dana Centre Event Tuesday, 21 October 2008 7:00 - 9:00 pm Tickets are free Reserve your place And so we return from our Arctic expedition - Western Greenland has worked its magic. 10 days of exploration, discussion and debate, and it turns out we were right all along, climate change is happening! In the icy cold - catching a satellite link where we could - we beamed back daily blogs, images, video and sound to our Disko Bay site. Visit our website to find out more about what we got up to in the Arctic and the first responses of voyagers to climate change. Thank you to all those who have followed the expedition online and continue to support our work. On Tuesday, Oc...

Exhibition opens October 24, Athy Heritage Centre & Museum, County Kildare, Ireland "Face to Face: Polar Portraits" brings together both rare, unpublished treasures from the historic collections of the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), University of Cambridge, ‘face to face’ with cutting-edge modern imagery from expedition photographer Martin Hartley. This stunning exhibition and publication will be shown for the first time in Ireland at the Athy Heritage Centre & Museum, Co. Kildare, in October at the official opening the ...

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has released a second set of sea ice animations for Google Earth. As before the images are available in 30- 60- and 90-day animations of sea ice concentration and extent. While the first set of animations, released in late August, are based on data from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F13 satellite, the new set is based on data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite. The significant differences between the two datasets are: AMSR-E has twice the resolution as SSM/I (12.5km vs 25km) and AMSR-E has a wider swath so there is better coverage near the pole. Monthly average sea ice...

Live From The Poles website Project Goals The polar regions are experiencing unprecedented environmental changes that have significant potential impacts on global climate, ecosystems, and society. Thousands of scientists from dozens of countries will focus their attention on the Arctic and Antarctic for two years beginning in March 2007 in an effort known as the International Polar Year (IPY). Live from the Poles will help heighten public awareness during IPY by bringing cutting-edge science to diverse, worldwide audiences of students, teachers, and the public. Our program is designed to share the excitement of polar exploration, communicate the importance of the Poles to the...

Contents 1. IPY Oslo 2010 Science Conference: Deadline for Session Proposals 2. Conferences: SACNAS, COP 14, AGU 3. Polar Days: People; Above The Poles 4. Please update your project page 5. Data Reminder 6. Schedule for February Report no. 18,October 2008 From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. The IPY Oslo 2010 Science Conference: Deadline for Session Proposals Please note the deadline for session proposals for the IPY Oslo 2010 Science Conference: 24 October 2008. We heard many potential session ideas in St Petersburg: the need or opportunity for comparisons, integrations, intercalibrat...

At Cape Farewell HQ we are busy answering last minute questions from our intrepid crew; it seems that nine months of preparation have gone all too quickly and we're counting down the hours and not days or months to departure. Our launches are launched and so we set sail. On 25 September we are departing on the seventh Cape Farewell expedition.cOur Disko Bay expedition crew includes musicians KT Tunstall, Laurie Anderson, Feist, Martha Wainwright, Vanessa Carlton, Jarvis Cocker, Robyn Hitchcock and Ryuichi Sakamoto, beatboxer Shlomo, poet Lemn Sissay, comedian Marcus Brigstock, artists Michèle Noach, Sophie Calle, Kathy Barber, David Buckland, Julian Stair and Tracey Rowledge, architect Sunand Prasad, engineer Francesc...

Bremerhaven, September 19th 2008. The Arctic summer nears its end and the minimum extent of sea ice is reached. The Arctic ice cover amounted to 4.5 million square kilometres on September 12th. This is slightly more than the lowest ice cover ever measured:  4.1 million square kilometres in the year 2007. Scientists are anxious about the development of sea ice because the long-time mean is 2.2 million square kilometres higher. This development did not come about completely unexpectedly, however. A model calculation conducted at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association in early summer showed that the ice minimum of the year 2008 would lie below that of the year 2005 with almost one hundred per cent probability. A new minimum bel...