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Claire Eamer, one of the authors in POLARIS: A Celebration of Polar Science, describes where she got her inspiration: When I was asked to think about a story on polar science for an IPY anthology, the first thing that came to mind was climate change. There’s a reason for that. Several reasons, actually. The first reason was that I’d just spent more than three years helping coordinate a network of researchers looking into climate change, so I already knew quite a bit about the science. And I live in the Yukon, the far northwest of Canada, where the level of warming is among the highest in the world. The main reason, though, i...
Claire Eamer, one of the authors in POLARIS: A Celebration of Polar Science, describes where she got her inspiration: When I was asked to think about a story on polar science for an IPY anthology, the first thing that came to mind was climate change. There’s a reason for that. Several reasons, actually. The first reason was that I’d just spent more than three years helping coordinate a network of researchers looking into climate change, so I already knew quite a bit about the science. And I live in the Yukon, the far northwest of Canada, where the level of warming is among the highest in the world. The main reason, though, i...
A science fiction compilation inspired by the polar regions will be released in the next few months. It is called POLARIS: A Celebration of Polar Science, is part of a series called Tales from the Wonder Zone, and is edited by by Julie E. Czerneda and illustrated by Jean-Pierre Normand. We will be publishing blogs here by the different authors, asking what inspired them and what their story is about. This project, described below, is part of the IPY International Youth Steering Committee (project 168). - Nine original science fiction stories based on the science and technology used to understand and explore polar regions...
Water is a phenomenal molecule, and the International Polar Year offers an opportunity for us to revisit this element of life that we often take for granted, especially its crystalized and frozen state. Water is both remarkably simple (two parts hydrogen-- the first element in the universe, one part oxygen-- the eighth element) and amazingly complex; its behavior at the "triple-point," where it flickers between liquid, solid and gaseous phases, amazes even atomic physicists. Unlike other molecules, water is more dense in its liquid than solid states, which allows ice to float. Therefore, lifeforms can survive, even thrive, beneath the ice. Scientists studying global climate change and the impact of human activities on the climate and ecosystems pay particula...
Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) remain an efficient technology to uncover the secrets of Antarctic sea floor fauna. A video sequence at the foot of the Larsen B ice-shelf remnant reveals deep-sea sea cucumbers as abundant inhabitants. ROVs have become standard non-invasive imaging tools for the Alfred Wegener Institute’s biological expeditions. For our expedition, devoted to the study of continental shelf sea floor communities (which were once under the now collapsed Larsen B ice-shelf), the ROV model Cherokee was selected (shown in the photo). “Inspection ROVs like the Cherokee are fast to deploy and easy to recover” explains the marine ecologist Julian Gutt, who has 15 years ROV experience in Antarctic sea floor fauna investigation. Already used on a...
The IPY is ambitious in scope and in scale. The IPY Programme Office has endorsed 99 projects with Antarctic or bipolar focus for the IPY. These projects encompass at least 350 research activities, of which 82% plan to conduct fieldwork in Antarctica. Of these activities, 105 (37%) activities are planning to leave behind physical infrastructure. To date, only two have completed any environmental impact assessments. The Antarctic Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) is conducting a project to enhance the environmental legacy of the IPY through outreach efforts to scientists, tourists and other visitors of Antarctica. We presented a poster on this subject at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, USA in December 2006. Our goal was to ra...
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In many places on this web site you will find reference to 'IPY launch' and launch events. Many of us work on an IPY Opening Ceremony scheduled for 1 March 2007. But, if you follow this blog, you have read reports from the vessel Tara, frozen into Arctic sea ice, and from Polarstern, already working near Antarctica in the southern ocean. You might have noticed in recent news and blogs that a Chilean and US expedition, on the Swedish vessel Oden, departed a ...
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Thursday, 11 January 2007 18:32
Acidification of the oceans - what's the impact on fish?
Written by Polarstern Expedition
Climate change-induced increase of carbon dioxide, according to modelling approaches, is going to cause the acidification of the world’s oceans. By the year 2100 the current pH might drop by 0.5. Our research is focusing on the question ‘how do fish respond to such changes?’ At the department "Marine Animal Physiology" of the Alfred Wegener Institute, researchers developed a device that enables onboard measurements of the impact of decreased pH values on the gill functioning of freshly caught fish (see overview photograph). In order to simulate blood circulation, specially prepared gill tissue is constantly flushed with a saline solution. Special devices allow measurements to be taken of gill performance in plain and acidified seawater for more than 6 hours (see det...
On December 22nd 2006, after completing the Stellar Axis star map on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, artist Lita Albuquerque conducted a performance using an Archimedian Spiral and 51 volunteers from the nearby US McMurdo station. Starting at the center, the participants walked out along the spiral arms to the boundary of the installation taking 10 minutes to complete the journey. The star map around which they spiraled mirrored the sky above on the Southern Hemisphere's Summer Solstice. The event was filmed from a helicopter and from the ground. Photographs were taken by Jean de Pomereu of the International Polar Foundation. For more information, visit the Stellar Axis website and ...
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