POLAR PERSPECTIVES is now well underway, taking place at 15 venues across the country, in each of Canada's provinces and territories! This National IPY event is supported by the Government of Canada’s International Polar Year Program, the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation, the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada, Students on Ice, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and Canadian Geographic Magazine.   The Speaker Series consists of an evening lecture program delivered to a general audience by prominent scientists, writers, artists, filmmakers, adventurers and leaders. It is intended to ...

Press release: Scientists report major steps towards first census of marine life Meeting in Spain, global crew shares progress towards historic Census in 2010; Among revelations in fourth interim global report: Antarctic ancestry of many octopus species, Behemoth bacteria, colossal sea stars, mammoth mollusks, more The 2,000-strong community of Census of Marine Life scientists from 82 nations today announced astonishing ex...

Experience and learn about climate change first hand in the Antarctic! Gatineau, Qc.—6 November, 2008—Students on Ice Expeditions is accepting applications for the International Polar Year (IPY) Antarctic University Expedition 2009, a two week ship-based field course leaving Argentina on February 14th, 2009 returning February 28. This expedition provides a wonderful opportunity to study in one of the most exceptional and remote places on Earth. Our theme for this expedition is ‘Environmental Leadership’ and weaves itself through our education program in conjunction with our ongoing exploration of the ...

A perspective for a network of ecological and physiological research Bremerhaven, October 28th 2008.  Changes to marine ecosystems caused by climatic conditions show how closely physiological and ecological processes are intertwined. This is described by Prof. Dr. Hans-Otto Pörtner, physiological ecologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, in the current issue of the periodical Science. Results of physiological and ecological research have shown in recent years that the temperature-dependent performance window of a species is crucial for its sensitivity to global warming. It determines its ability to grow, breed, forage and to compete for space or resources against other species under different temper...

Mosaic of Antarctica: a visual Installation of Glass Maps By polar artist Lucinda Wilkinson Mosaic of Antarctica is a visual installation comprising of at least 30 glass maps showing detailed areas of the Antarctic ice sheets and sea ice, highlighting the changing patterns of ice in its accumulation and discharge due to environmental warming. In the production of this installation explored areas have been transcripted onto glass panels using imagery from Mosaic of Antarctica (Radarsat and Modis) and the new satellite data Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA). This is the most detailed map produced yet from sc...

Later this month teams of scientists, engineers, pilots and support staff from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), USA, Germany, Australia, China and Japan will join forces for one of the most scientifically, technically ambitious and physically demanding Antarctic projects yet to be undertaken. The mission of this International Polar Year (IPY) project is to uncover secrets of the enigmatic Gamburtsev subglacial mountains that are buried by up to 4 km of ice; to hunt for the oldest ice on our planet; to study subglacial lakes and to discover new clues of past, present and future climate change. The Gamburtsev subglacial mountains are thought to be the birthplace of the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet. This project will reveal clues to how the mountains were formed ...

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...

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 Alfred Wegener Institute, the University of Bremen and Jacobs University inaugurate joint post graduate programme for earth and climate sciences Bremerhaven, October 1st, 2008. The joint graduate programme Earth System Science Research School (ESSReS) will be inaugurated today in Bremerhaven. The interdisciplinary graduate programme will train 24 PhD-students of geo- and climate sciences during the next three years. Apart from the doctorate, far-reaching skills in geo-, bio- and climate sciences will be confirmed for the PhD-students. The research training group is a joint project of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, the University of Bremen and Jacobs University Bremen. It is sponsored by the Helmholtz Associa...

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...