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The Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN) is hosting its kick-off meeting at the Abisko Scientific Research Station, Sweden on the 22nd to 24th of February 2007. PYRN (www.pyrn.org) is an international effort under the patronage of the International Permafrost Association (IPA) to bring young permafrost researchers together during the international polar year and beyond. The first phase of the PYRN project saw more than 300 young researchers from 31 countries join the network. It rapidly became the largest young researcher-driven network in the field of cryospheric science. PYRN offers, news, information and support to its members. It has sent 17 monthly newsletters since its start in 2005, maint...

Countries around the world are issuing special stamps to herald the arrival of International Polar Year 2007-2008. The initiative is being spearheaded by eight Arctic nations — the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. In addition to the individual releases, a booklet of souvenir sheets will be issued containing all eight sets. The U.S. Postal Service will issue a souvenir sheet of two 84-cent international letter rate stamps which will also be issued as a pane of 20 under the title ‘Polar Lights’. In 1958, the United States issued a three-cent stamp to commemorate the International Geophysical Year 1957-58. ...

The Arctic sea ice cover is undergoing significant climate-induced changes, resulting in a reduction in ice extent and a net thinning of the sea ice cover. During IPY researchers from 10 nations will be studying the properties and processes that govern this sea ice cover and exploring its role as an indicator and amplifier of climate change. Numerous techniques will be brought to bear on this task, including expeditions, satellite remote sensing, autonomous rovers, buoys, ocean moorings, and numerical models.

During the IPY, the USGS will highlight numerous long-term studies of the polar regions on the state of the cryosphere (glaciers, permafrost, sea ice), the impacts of change over the last few decades, the petroleum resource potential of the Arctic, and the consequences of permafrost thawing on the Yukon River watershed in Alaska and Canada. Also, we will produce a high resolution Landsat mosaic image of Antarctica.

ICESTAR & International Heliophysical Year (IHY) - Interhemispheric Conjugacy in Geospace Phenomena and their Heliospheric Drivers High energy particles from space generate the Aurora and illustrate why the polar regions are unique places for space research. Throughout IPY scientists from 22 countries, using instruments on balloons, ships, spacecraft and the ground will investigate how plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun affect near-Earth space and our atmosphere, improving our understanding of the impact of space weather on satellites, ground-based technology, terrestrial weather and climate.

Terrestrial ecosystems in Arctic and Antarctic: effects of UV light, liquefying ice, and ascending temperatures (TARANTELLA)

Predicted changes in climate and ozone concentrations in the Polar Regions make it critically important to understand how changes in key environmental factors influence polar terrestrial ecosystems via the modification of their individual but interconnected components.

Observational and experimental research on the effect of climate change and ozone depletion is affiliated to international research programmes including the EBA, Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic project, SCAR in the Antarctic, and in the Arctic to ITEX, International Tundra Experiment as well as IGBP-GCTE.

TARANTELLA aims to coordinate these studies by focusing on the experimental approach, in both the Arctic, in collaboration with ITEX, and in the Antarctic.

A common methodology is used, the so-called Open-Top Chambers (OTC) or small greenhouses for temperature manipulations; for UV-B field research, UV-B supplementation (lamps) and/or UV-B exclusion (foils), are used to experimentally establish varied UV-B levels.

We will study the responses of the terrestrial, aquatic and glacial communities of organisms, including the microbes, at both poles to global environmental changes. Our key questions include (a) diversity and biogeography, (b) food webs and ecosystem evolution, and (c) links between biological, chemical, and physical processes in icy ecosystems. This is a huge collaboration involving 17 nations and a wide range of field work.

Thermal State of Permafrost Permafrost conditions underlie upwards of 25% of the Earth's land surface. Permafrost temperatures are a function of past and present climates and vary greatly depending on location. Lacking is a comprehensive set of pemafrost measurements against which to assess present and future regional and global changes. Duirng IPY, TSP researchers will obtain a "snapshot" of permafrost temperatures in hundread of borehole throughout the world.