We have news from India about the various aspects of its involvement with IPY - through both scientific projects and outreach. The launching of the Indian chapter of the IPY 2007-2008 took place at National Centre For Antarctic & Ocean Research (NCAOR), Vasco-da-Gama, India and parallely at Jawaharlal Nehru National University (JNU), New Delhi, India on 1st March 2007.

Details of the scientific and outreach projects can be read in this pdf document.

Further details can be had at National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research website and WWF-India website.


Indian Contribution to IPY


India is involved in a major way in both the aspects of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 i.e., scientific as well as outreach activities. The launching of the Indian chapter of the IPY 2007-2008 took place at National Centre For Antarctic & Ocean Research (NCAOR), Vasco-da-Gama, India and parallely at Jawaharlal Nehru National University (JNU), New Delhi, India on 1st March 2007.

Two Indian scientific proposals have been endorsed by IPY, which are:

(i) Project #70 "Monitoring of the upper ocean circulation, transport and water masses between Africa and Antarctica" by Luis Alvarinho, National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Goa. During the 26th Indian Antarctic Expedition (IAE), data collection campaign for the above project was launched. Surface meteorological parameters from ship's AWS and density data using XCTD for the upper 1000m of the water column were collected along the ship route: Mauritius-Durban-India Bay (onward journey) and India Bay- Prydz Bay- Mauritius (return journey) on board Emerald Sea. These data are being processed and results are planned to be published by end of 2007.

(ii) "Land Based Anthropogenic Impact of Coarse Particles on Antarctic Shelf" by Anoop Tiwari, National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Goa. Work has already started in this project with aerosol data collection, using Aetholometer and High Volume Sampler, installed on the ship Emerald Sea during the 26th Indian Antarctic Expedition (IAE) in 2006-2007. This project has been joined with Project #171 - "POLAR-AOD: a network to characterize the means, variability, and trends of the climate-forcing properties of aerosols in polar regions" by Claudio Tomasi, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC-CNR), Bologna, Italy.

Besides above-mentioned endorsed research proposals the following project will also contribute to the IPY theme.

Study of the short-term Holocene climate variability's in Antarctica and the Southern latitudes utilizing sediment cores from the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern ocean, the cores from the periglacial lakes and the shallow ice-cores from Antarctica by scientists of National Centre for Antarctic & Ocean Research and other participating organizations such as Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleobotany, Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, Geological Survey of India, Annamalai University, Center for Cellular Microbiology etc.

The proposed project seeks to illuminate rapid decadal to millennial scale climate changes at high latitudes by employing high-resolution studies on the ice cores and lake sediment cores from Antarctica and marine sediment cores from the Southern Ocean.

India has been successfully carrying out Antarctic Expeditions since 1981 and 26th IAE during 2006-2007 achieved many scientific milestones. Several ongoing projects & many new ones have been initiated that will contribute to the goals of the IPY. Two shallow ice cores have been collected from the ice shelf region north of the Schirmacher Oasis, which contribute to one of the most significant multi-national scientific initiative by the SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) called ITASE (International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition). The first ice core as part of the above project was retrieved near the Humboldt Mountains during the 25th IAE. Since it is essential to have representative ice cores from the coastal region, it was decided to collect two ice cores from the ice shelf region north of the Schirmacher Oasis during the 26th IAE. The first ice core recovered was of 75m length & the other one from a nearby location is 55m long. Studies on these ice-cores would help in deciphering past global climatic fluctuations that would help to understand the future of the earth's climate vis-a