While most biologists relish field studies, computer scientists are more known to spend long hours indoors, logged on the Internet, eating pizza. What happens when computer scientists and biologists team up to deploy an advanced monitoring system in the arctic? No pizza, no Internet, and beautiful, unpredictable nature — how does a computer scientist cope in the arctic? This is the story of the MANA diary, which gathered the impressions of an outsider during a 10 days stay at Zackenberg, Greenland, last August: from the logistics problems, the encounter with a polar bear, or outdoors volleyball to the amazing sight of a three-mast. ...

Live From The Poles website Project Goals The polar regions are experiencing unprecedented environmental changes that have significant potential impacts on global climate, ecosystems, and society. Thousands of scientists from dozens of countries will focus their attention on the Arctic and Antarctic for two years beginning in March 2007 in an effort known as the International Polar Year (IPY). Live from the Poles will help heighten public awareness during IPY by bringing cutting-edge science to diverse, worldwide audiences of students, teachers, and the public. Our program is designed to share the excitement of polar exploration, communicate the importance of the Poles to the...

Calling all photographers - we want your thumbnails! Poles ApartCall for submissions PDF We are looking for your thumbnails, but before inflicting any bodily harm, bear in mind that we are looking for thumbnail images. Are you interested in helping to build a legacy for this fourth IPY? Have you taken digital photographs that tell the story of your work, or more generally of polar science? Please consider submitting them to the IPY-endorsed exhibition Poles Apart // Pulling Together, a project that celebrates IPY contributions to the global good. It only takes a few minutes to make your submission of thumbnail images, to be considered for this exci...

IAMAS, IAPSO and IACS invite the international atmospheric, oceanographic and cryospheric research community to MOCA-09, their Joint Assembly, to be held 19th July to 29th July 2009 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The call for Abstracts is now open. Please note the following session: Session: J03 International Polar Year Early Results Convenors: Michel Béland (IAMAS), Ian Allison (IACS), Karen Heywood (IAPSO) Abstract: This symposium provides the first opportunity after the official end of the observing period of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 (1 March 2007 to 1 March 2009) to report new results from IPY projects. The session will particularly highlight interdisciplinary results addressing the IPY themes of assess...

Contents 1. IPY Oslo 2010 Science Conference: Deadline for Session Proposals 2. Conferences: SACNAS, COP 14, AGU 3. Polar Days: People; Above The Poles 4. Please update your project page 5. Data Reminder 6. Schedule for February Report no. 18,October 2008 From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. The IPY Oslo 2010 Science Conference: Deadline for Session Proposals Please note the deadline for session proposals for the IPY Oslo 2010 Science Conference: 24 October 2008. We heard many potential session ideas in St Petersburg: the need or opportunity for comparisons, integrations, intercalibrat...

Massive ground ice body on Herschel Island At the start of the fourth International Polar Year in March 2007, Professor Wayne Pollard of McGill University’s Geography Department, a permafrost scientist involved in seven different IPY projects, and his PhD student, Nicole Couture, were discussing ways to improve permafrost education for students at McGill University. Even though half of Canada is underlain by permafrost, students rarely get to see what is currently at stake in northern environments. As a result, they decided to set up a program that would allow students to participate in a major scientific expedition an...

Where to begin? I am buzzing.. just buzzing. What a Day,- and half the world hasn't even woken up yet! Today is our sixth International Polar Day, and we are focusing on People in the Polar Regions. Plans for the day have been very experimental, very grassroots, much in line with IPY.. but with that comes that great big unknowingness.... will anyone join in? Will anyone turn up? Last night...

At Cape Farewell HQ we are busy answering last minute questions from our intrepid crew; it seems that nine months of preparation have gone all too quickly and we're counting down the hours and not days or months to departure. Our launches are launched and so we set sail. On 25 September we are departing on the seventh Cape Farewell expedition.cOur Disko Bay expedition crew includes musicians KT Tunstall, Laurie Anderson, Feist, Martha Wainwright, Vanessa Carlton, Jarvis Cocker, Robyn Hitchcock and Ryuichi Sakamoto, beatboxer Shlomo, poet Lemn Sissay, comedian Marcus Brigstock, artists Michèle Noach, Sophie Calle, Kathy Barber, David Buckland, Julian Stair and Tracey Rowledge, architect Sunand Prasad, engineer Francesc...

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...

contribution by Igor Krupnik and Grete Hovelsrud, members of the IPY Joint Committee, in celebration of People Day on September 24th, 2008 Also contains contributions by Michael Bravo, Yvon Csonka, Ludger Müller-Wille, Peter Schweitzer, Birger Poppel, Peter Schweitzer, and Sverker Sörlin One of the key tasks of the Internation...