British Antarctic Survey, 29th April - 1st May 2009   The first in a series of themed events to be held over the next two years for early career polar researchers, this workshop will combine the themes of polar atmosphere and climate modelling. Career development sessions will be interspersed between lectures, practical sessions and problem solving workshops. Ideas for sessions are listed below - this unique event allows the participants to have a say in the programme to ensure it is as relevant as possible to those present.   All participants are encouraged to present a poster, and will be given the opportunity to help in the organisation of the workshop, such as by chairing sessions   This event is free for all members of the UK Polar Network...

Today, Thursday December 4th, IPY is celebrating it's seventh International Polar Day, this time focussing on research Above The Polar Regions. In conjunction with this event, several IPY partners have released new information about their projects. Here are some examples: *** Global Interagency IPY Polar Year Snapshot GIIPSY ...

After two and half months of constant strain and uncertainty, it seemed that the Aurora's fate was finally sealed . . . [Wireless Operator Lionel Hooke] observed that 'The whole crew are like a pack of schoolgirls, our nerves absolutely shattered. The dropping of a book or the slamming of a door brings us all up with a start.' Such was the lamentable scene onboard Aurora, during Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (ITAE). Her odyssey in the Ross Sea is vividly brought to life in Stephen Haddelsey's new book, Ice Captain: The Life of J.R. Stenhouse (The History Press Ltd.; ISBN: 0750943483). After she was blown away from Cape Evans by a fierce gale in May 1915, stranding the shore party, Stenhouse's Aurora drifted helplessly for ...

The Prince Albert II of Monaco foundation is financing the participation of scientists and students in the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) Aquatic Sciences Meeting to be held in Nice, France, Jan 25-30, for the Topical Session 054: Impacts of Climate Warming on Polar Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. As a result of this financing, 12 fellowships worth 1000 euros each are available, to be used to finance the participation in this polar session of 12 scientists from developing countries, countries bordering the southern Mediterranean, or students. If you are eligible, please, contact the co-chairs of the 054 Topical session after confirmation of your abstract submission (...

From October through December of 2008, the Offshore New Harbor Expedition will seismically image sediments located below the sea floor in the New Harbor area of Antarctica that were deposited when the Earth was transitioning from a Greenhouse World (>34 million years ago) to an Icehouse World (34 Ma to Today). This project is part of the ANDRILL Program (ANtarctic DRILLing), a multinational initiative with the objective to recover stratigraphic core records for the use of interpreting Antarctic’s climatic, glacial, and tectonic hi..

The first black explorer to set foot on the Antarctic ice shelf garnered a posthumous honor August 5, when the school board of Rochester, Minnesota, confirmed the name of the George W. Gibbs Jr. Elementary School. George Washington Gibbs Jr. was born on Nov. 7, 1916, in Jacksonville, Florida. He was also raised in that port city and many years of his life were connected with service at sea. Enlisting in Macon, Georgia, in 1935, four years later Gibbs was chosen from of hundreds of applicants for the 1939-41 US Antarctic Expedition. Serving as a Mess Attendant 1st Class aboard the Bear, Gibbs attracted official attention before the ship ever departed American shores: Especially commended by the Commanding Officer at meritorious mast...

On Christmas Eve morning 2007, as I listened intently to the steady and pleasing voice of 85-year-old William H. "Tommy" Thomson, I detected only a faint accent — not what one usually encounters with a Scottish native. Sensing a story, I asked Thomson about his accent, and his past began to roll smoothly off his lips. In the early years of the Second World War, Thomson was at Glasgow University — and bored. Since the nearest recruiting station was a naval one, that's where he ended up. Given his education standard, it was suggested he try for the Fleet Air Arm, and Thomson duly became an officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). The obvious necessity for clear radio communications while flying meant only one thing: the suppression of Thomson's Sco...

By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco US scientists have reconstructed a 40,000-year record of wind conditions at the South Pole. They assembled the climate data by measuring the distribution of dust layers seen in two ice boreholes. A comparison of the layers allowed the University of California-Berkeley team to gauge how rough snow surfaces would have been in ancient times. The researchers then used this "proxy" to assess the probable strength of wind needed to produce those features. The technique needs refinement and works best in the deeper parts of the ice. Nonetheless, scientists are confident it gives at least a broad record of conditions at the pole some 30,000 to 70,000 years a...

As early as 1917, it was recognized that whales were in danger of being hunted to extinction, due in part to the flourishing whaling industry in Antarctic waters. A British Government interdepartmental committee was set up to review the excesses of the industry, but it was not until 1923 that a committee with the required finances and authority was assembled to make "a serious attempt to place the whaling industry on a scientific basis." The steady decrease in the number of whales could only be avoided by controlling whale catching. But effective control could not be planned for a painfully simple reason: not enough was known about the habits of whales, their distribution and migration, or of their main food — the 4-6 cm. long shrimp known as krill. D...

This morning, just 62 years ago, Byrd and his Ice Party members, including Yours Truly, sailed up the Bay to the D.C. Navy Yard... So wrote Dr. Alton A. Lindsey to the author on May 10, 1997 — he had turned 90 only three days before. In the early years of the Great Depression, he was at Cornell University studying for his doctorate in biology, when he interrupted this pursuit to serve as the Vertebrate Zoologist on the Byrd Antarctic Expedition II (1933-35). While the interior of the continent was canvassed by dog sled, tractor and airplane, Lindsey studied penguins, seals and other animals on the coast. ...