Solar variability influences the atmosphere, particularly the global electric circuit and ozone. Our IPY cluster seeks to quantify solar variability linkages to weather, climate and ozone. Scientists from Russia, America, United Kingdom and Australia are investigating whether solar variability affects the Earth's weather and climate, principally via the atmospheric circuit and ozone. We are measuring the current in the Earth's atmosphere - lightning strikes are an indication of this current - and how this is affected by changes in the sun. Instruments to measure the atmospheric circuit are being deployed on the Antarctic Plateau and the Greenland Ice Plateau.

The ACE programme aims to facilitate research in the broad area of Antarctic climate evolution. The programme will link geophysical surveys and geological studies on and around the Antarctic continent with ice-sheet and climate modelling studies. These studies are designed to investigate climate and ice sheet behaviour in both the recent and distant geologic past, including times when global temperature was several degrees warmer than today.

CAML will investigate the distribution and abundance of Antarctic marine biodiversity, how it will be affected by climate change and how climate change will affect the ecosystem and the planet. Its key focus is a major ship based research programme in the austral summer of 2007-2008. Scientists from 30 countries and 50 institutions will collate data providing a robust benchmark against which future change can be measured.

Sound is an extremely effective means to monitor marine mammals in the Southern Ocean. Sound recording instruments can remain all year, despite the ice and lack of sunlight. These data may provide new insight into how marine mammals make use of the environment.

A biographer's challenge is to rekindle the spirit of a person, and this has recently been accomplished by Stephen Haddelsey in his book Born Adventurer: The Life of Frank Bickerton, Antarctic Pioneer. Bickerton, born in England in 1889, is today largely unknown, though his adventures were daring and remarkable — Haddelsey recounts his travels into the equatorial rainforest of the Cocos Islands and his airplane dogfights over the Western Front during World War I. But it is Bickerton's Antarctic experiences that dominate the book, and...