Terrestrial ecosystems in ARctic and ANTarctic: Effects of UV Light, Liquefying ice, and Ascending temperatures. (TARANTELLA, IPY project no. 59) IPY project page TARENTELLA website Predicted changes in climate and ozone concentrations in 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 to t...

Report no 10, 16-20 December The weather is now stable and clear. We are heading eastwards along the ice divide. On the 17th we reached Kohnen station, which is maintained by Germany for the European deep ice core project EPICA. The station is unmanned at the moment, but a crew will get there later in the season. From Kohnen we have travelled more or less along the 75th latitude and are now at 9 degrees east at an altitude of approximately 3300 m. The air pressure is about 650 mb, which means that all physical work is hard. The air temperature varies daily between -20 and -30C, which is cold of course, but does not hinder any outdoor activities. Along the route we are measuring data on standard meteorological parameters, ice surface elevation, i...

On 14 of December 1911, Roald Amundsen and his four men reached the South Pole. Thus, Amundsen, Bjaaland, Hanssen, Hassel and Wisting became the first persons to set their feet on the geographical South Pole. Written 14 Dec 2007 3619 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: -20 to -37 °C In 1911, it was a race to be first reaching the South Pole. Amundsen’s strategy with using dogs to pull the sledges turned out to be superior to ponies and motor sledges used by Scott. Amundsen used 99 days back and forth from his station Framheim at the ice edge in the Ross Sea. The station was named after the polar vessel Fram owned by Fridtjof Nansen and used during the famous drift across the Arctic Ocean in 1893-1896. ...

Written 11 December, 2007 We are at our Science Site 1, at approximately 2400 m elevation along Latitude 75. Just when we reached it, a strong snow blizzard came in from west resulting in both wind-blown precipitation and snowdrift. Due to the weather almost all outdoor activities have been postponed, giving us an opportunity to rest, compile data and do maintenance on vehicles and equipment. The one-day storm has formed 2-metre high snowpiles on the leeside of vehicles and living modules, so instead of being totally flat, the camp is now difficult to cross. Tomorrow we will take off towards the Kohnen station. It is a 300 km drive, and will take some days. The scientific work which we cannot do now will be postponed to the return trip in mid January. This is...

On a day as today, when winds are blowing the snow around, large snow drifts may form over night. If we parked our vehicles randomly, we may get large drifts that need to be removed in the morning. Or perhaps snow drifts would made us become stuck when starting out for driving the next morning. Also, the order of how the vehicles are parked has been carefully considered. In the front, our main generator delivering power to the whole camp is placed. Both the living/kitchen module and the sleeping module, which are next to each other for practical reasons, receive power from the main generator. We keep the upwind area clean and this area is designated for science. ...

Report no 6 Written December 5, 2007 We are on our way now with four tracked vehicles and five sledges. Our departure became delayed by a few extra days due to practical problems of various kinds. We started our traverse on December 4 and are now heading towards the Swedish station Svea. Some load adjustments will be carried out during the next few days to level the speed of the tracked vehicles. The plan is to drive to Svea and make some fuel arrangements and then go up Kibergdalen to the Polar plateau. Our science plan is unchanged but sample density and sample timing have by necessity been adjusted to the present situation. Today we took a firn core close to the nunatak Fossilryggen and we also took snow samples for different projects. The weather ha...

Written 28 November, 2007 3541 meters above sea level Early Antarctic explorers may have had problems with their sled dogs, but we are now experiencing the problems of modern times — a broken-down traverse vehicle. Just as the day was coming to an end, with just one or two more hours of driving left, one of our four vehicles, Lasse, showed signs of a problem by means of a flashing red light on an instrument panel. After a through inspection by our super mechanic Kjetil, it turns out that the differential gear (a gear that controls the speed of the wheels when making turns) needs replacing. The front part of Lasse is now covered with a tarp and heated so that maintenance work can be done in the cold of -45 degrees Celsius (air temperature at midni...

Written 28 November, 2007 3541 meters above sea level Early Antarctic explorers may have had problems with their sled dogs, but we are now experiencing the problems of modern times — a broken-down traverse vehicle. Just as the day was coming to an end, with just one or two more hours of driving left, one of our four vehicles, Lasse, showed signs of a problem by means of a flashing red light on an instrument panel. After a through inspection by our super mechanic Kjetil, it turns out that the differential gear (a gear that controls the speed of the wheels when making turns) needs replacing. The front part of Lasse is now covered with a tarp and heated so that maintenance work can be done in the cold of -45 degrees Celsius (air temperature at midni...

Report #3, covering November 24-26: The weather is still problematic, with high wind speeds making preparatory work slow and chilly. At the moment we have an average wind speed of 28 m/s. Though progress is slow, the vehicles are getting ready one by one. It is a matter of servicing engines, installing radar equipment, etc. The lab module is now instrumented with particle samplers, a weather station and a work bench for the preparation of snow samples. The team is hard at working getting ready for the departure and everyone is keen to get going. The harsh weather has had surprisingly little effect on morale, but we all have two wishes now: One is to wake up to a sunny calm day and the second is to start the traverse. We need a calm day both for the final prepa...

Nicola Munro, the volunteer coordinator, communications centre, finance officer, and all-around administrator for the IPY International Programme Office, travels south in the next few days to work as the administrator at the Halley Research Station of the British Antarctic Survey. We in the IPO regard this as a fabulous opportunity for Nicola and as a good connection for IPY - we hope Nicola will post some of her stories on this blog. We thank BAS, Kathy Salisbury, and Cynan Ellis-Evans for helping the IPO support this adventure and survive Nicola’s absence. (If you like Nicola’s anorak in the picture, you can f...