This week, a Nordic tissue paper company called Metsä Tissue, launched it's campaign announcing a one million kronor donation to IPY. The majority of these funds were directed to the IPY project, KINNVIKA , but about one third was used to support the first meeting of the International Youth Steering Committee and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists. The meeting was essential for bringing together key volunteers who have been working hard over the last two years to establish an international network of polar researchers, and aspiring polar researchers, between the undergraduate and early-career stages of their careers. At the meeting, the two groups agreed to merge under the common title: APECS, Association of Polar E...

Roughly twenty attendees from all over Finland got together to enjoy a secondary school summer course in scenic Utsjoki in Finnish Lapland. During the two week course in June 2007, the theme aurora borealis (revontulet, i.e. fires of fox in Finnish) brought in basic understanding of near-Earth space, upper atmospheric physics, as well as circus, performing arts and music. "One of the main ideas of this course was to let the science meet the arts," says Juhani Harjunharja, the director of the summer school who works as a physics teacher in the Lappish secondary school at Utsjoki. "The miracles of the space and the methods in the auroral research can stimulate the artists. Maybe the art performances can add to the scientific enthusiasm, too." Scientific ...

The Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland is pleased to announce the opening of its fully renewed permanent exhibition on 18th of April, 2007, in Arktikum house in Rovaniemi. The exhibition opening is one of the highlights of Finnish IPY activities. "The Arctic in Change" exhibition offers the visitors a journey through the Arctic world today. The exhibition promotes the natural beauty and the cultural richness of the Arctic, while it informs the visitors about the ongoing rapid social and environmental changes occurring in the fragile Arctic. Set up in a friendly environment, the exhibition combines multimedia shows, interactive stations, artefacts and photo enlargements. The exhibition revolves around the ongoing changes in the Arctic and illuminate...

On March 1 2007, students at schools around the world marked the advent of International Polar year by conducting an ice experiment. They then told the IPY community and the world by pinning a virtual balloon onto a web-based map showing exactly where they were. It proved to be quite a success, with hundreds of schools contributing so far. IPY enthusiasts also joined in, turning the map into a riot of red balloons. See the whole map here. For technical reasons, browsers don't like it if you show too many balloons at one time, so only the most recent 200 balloons are shown. However, you can see all contributed posts directly by browsing the directory from ...

The International Polar Year has begun. What a week! With US and UK launches on the Monday stirring up media attention, followed by an event in Portugal on the Wednesday and over 20 more national events on the day itself, March 1st 2007, we definitely hit the news! While traveling to Paris with Nicola, to prepare for the international launch, the phone didn't stop ringing, both sides of the Channel Tunnel and even on the Paris subway system! I was contacted by journalists as diverse as New Zealand Radio, an In-flight magazine, BBC World Service, Vatican Radio, Al Jazeera English, an Italian science magazine, Chinese TV networks, and Scientific American to name a few. During the International Ceremony itself, my phone kept shaking, and afterwards, on a tour of Paris, I saw ...

Thank-you to everyone who was involved with launch events, who launched virtual balloons, who launched real balloons (see the Swedish launch web-cast!), those behind the scenes, and those on stage. IPY Celebrations around the world on March 1st, and throughout this week, have been a huge success. You can watch those you missed on the Arctic Portal, or still launch your virtual balloon now, and throughout IPY, to recognise the importance of the polar regions to the whole planet. Here is a map showing balloons that have been launched around the world (you can zoom in on where you live or zoom out to see the world map!): ...

IPY launch events around the world can be viewed live at the Arctic Portal. We also encourage everyone to launch a virtual balloon and show how many people around the world care about the polar regions and are interested in IPY. Everyone is welcome to join in, young or old, polar or tropical! The Official Opening Ceremony takes place in Paris at 11am local time. That is UTC 10:00, or, 1am in Anchorage, 5am in New York, 7am in Santiago, 3.30pm in Calcutta, 7pm in Tokyo, and 9pm in Sydney. You can watch it live or after the event on the web at the Arctic Portal, where you will also find webcasts of other national launch events from around th...

For the official launch in Paris at Palais de la d'couverte on 1st of March, the french postal administration, in connection with the french branch of the International Association for Polar Philately, "A.I.Phi.Pol", will open a special postal station with a special cancellation and postal stationary (pre-stamped envelope) especially designed for this historic day. The special postal station will be open in the morning for the conference attenders and in the afternoon for the public. The "A.I.Phi.Pol" have also arranged to have a small quantity of booklets available containing IPY stamps from the eight arctic countries. The booklets will be available on the opening day at the face value. To reserve a booklet, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it "

Watch IPY launch events on-line at the Arctic Portal and elsewhere. Throughout this week, over twenty nations around the world are celebrating the launch of the International Polar Year 2007-2008. New Zealand, Indigenous People, Argentina, and the Ukraine have already held extremely successful events. This week, Monday will see Press and Participants gathering in London, Strasbourg, and Washington DC, and Portugal will be holding their kick-off event on Wednesday. Thursday is the big day, with the Global Launch occurring in Paris at 1000 UTC (1100 local Central European Time) and national celebrations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Greenland, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Norway, ...

A kick-off meeting of the IPY Core Project "Heliosphere Impact on Geospace" (IPY ID#63) was arranged in Helsinki on February 5-9 2007, with about 40 scientists from 14 different countries attending. The meeting was held at the facilities of the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The "Heliosphere Impact on Geospace" project coordinates multinational research on solar-terrestrial events which affect the composition and dynamics of the earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere, and atmosphere in the Polar regions. This is a consortium of 29 research projects from 22 countries which expressed their interest to the IPY, and the consortium's management responsibilities are carried by two complementary programs:"...