This image is the design for the Interpolar Transnational Art Science Constellation (I-TASC) mobile research station, which we are planning to deploy in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica and Igloolik, Nunavut during IPY. The I-TASC station is an autonomous, zero-environmental impact, communications, research and living unit capable of sustaining up to 8 crew members for long periods of work in isolation/insulation conditions (60-180 days). Onboard renewable-energy systems, bioreactor/biological sewage processing, water recycling systems, satellite and HF communication systems and radar infrastructure will provide the I-TASC crews of artists, scientists, engineers and tactical med...

The news that global concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) increased last year has heightened concern about the vulnerability of polar regions amongst scientists managing International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. IPY is co-sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). "The rise in global concentrations of CO2 and nitrous oxide (N2O) over the past few decades will continue to stoke global warming, which has a pronounced effect in polar regions," says Dr David Carlson, Director of the International Polar Programme Office that oversees IPY. "IPY next year, and the associated launch of hundreds of scientific research projects focussed on polar conditions and polar ecosystems comes none t...

Huge areas of sea floor (around 3,250 km²) have been freed up by the collapse 4 years ago of the Larsen B platform along the Antarctic Peninsula – leaving a blank spot on Antarctic maps.Polarstern, the research flagship of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, will shortly conduct there the first major biological research. The Science25 different research projects will be undertaken by 47 scientists, encompassing disciplines as diverse as benthology, plankton...

The International Polar Year 2007-2008, and a wide array of polar sciences, will have a strong presence during the Fall AGU Meetings in San Francisco in December 2006. More than ten oral and poster sessions carry the IPY label or the label of an IPY-endorsed project. More than 30 additonal sessions address polar themes, from ice core science to biogeochemistry of northern watersheds. The IPY IPO has assembled a list of all these polar sessions on a single sheet for your use; here it is, as a PDF. IPY IPO will also operate a display booth, cooperatively with the US NSF Office of Polar Programs. We will share many international materials promoting IPY and operate a polar message cen...

This winter, a major new telescope is being built at the South Pole to study deep questions about the history and composition of the universe. The 10-meter (33-foot) diameter South Pole Telescope (SPT) will be pieced together by a team of two dozen scientists, engineers, and technicians in record time. In a special series of four live webcasts, blogs, and video updates from the South Pole to the Exploratorium website in November and December 2006, follow along as a team of cosmologists from the University of Chicago and their colleagues race to complete their project before the short Antarctic season comes to a close. The South Pole Telescope is one of the major scientific projects launching during the...

Departing Oslo this morning under a blue sky and mirror calm sea, we cast off the mooring lines even more excited for our upcoming adventure. Tying up alongside the museum of the Fram, the ship of Fridtjof Nansen, has provided us with an inspiring insight into an expedition from the ‘heroic age’ of polar exploration. While the conception of Tara was based on the same principles as the Fram, to see this vast wooden ship in all her splendor has given us even more of a feeling of connection to this historic vessel. During our brief stop we also had the pleasure to meet Liv Arnesen, a Norwegian adventurer who was the first women to ski solo and unsupported to the South Pole in 1994. Liv is planning to Ski to the North Pole from Canada next year and will possibly finish her ...

1957 saw an explosion of activity in the Arctic under the banner of the International Geophysical Year. Scientists poured into the frozen and unforgiving landscape to study ice, weather, magnetism and glaciers among a wide variety of disciplines with the aim of increasing our knowledge of the region and its implications on the so-called civilised world. At the time, when scientists were making their tortuous journeys north and fighting to erect their heavy canvas tents, I was barely a year old. In the same year the launch of Sputnik heralded the beginning of an entire new era of technology. It was a time of optimism and the future looked bright, we could be forgiven for not understanding the sinister fate that awaited the Arctic – a fate that would be studied by a whole ...

The Yacht Tara has just set sail for a two year arctic expedition during IPY. Tara is now home to only a handful of people taking the expedition into the ice where they will become frozen in over winter. They are then intending on drifting across the arctic during which time they will carry out a huge range of science including meteorology, nivology (snow density, thickness and water content), glaciology, oceanography, atmospheric and oceanic chemistry, marine biology, zoology and physiological studies of the crew. The UN Environment Programme is provid...