HUGE POLAR STUDY ABOUT TO BEGIN….

[Anonymous]

Huge polar study about to begin
The
largest polar research programme for 50 years gets under way this
week.International Polar Year (IPY) will see thousands of scientists,
from more than 60 nations, working together on 220 projects at high
latitudes.Scientists hope to improve their understanding of how changes
to the polar regions affect the planet.IPY will be officially launched
in Paris on 1 March, but the UK’s programme, involving 65 institutions,
was unveiled on Monday in London.IPY actually runs for two years in
order to allow equal coverage of both the Arctic and the Antarctic.It
is organised by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the
World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Global scale
There
have been three previous IPYs – held in 1882-83, 1932-33 and 1957-58 –
each of which led to scientists gaining a much better knowledge of the
remote regions.The UK research programme was unveiled at a ceremony,
attended by the Princess Royal, at the Royal Society in central
London.Cynan Ellis-Evans, head of the UK’s national committee, said
much of the research that will carried out during the next two years
would be part of existing projects.”But the difference with IPY is
that… these large numbers of nations are going to be working
together,” Dr Ellis-Evans explained.One example, he said, was a project
called the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML). The project will
investigate the distribution and abundance of marine biodiversity in
the region.It involves scientists from 18 countries, and aims to
provide a benchmark against which future changes, including climatic
shifts, can be measured.”This activity would never have been possible
outside the IPY,” he added.Martin Siegert, who is leading a UK team
that will explore Lake Ellsworth, a subglacial lake 2km beneath the
Antarctic ice, explained why the IPY was so important to
scientists.”Fifty years ago, the third International Polar Year
happened. The reason for that period of activity was because we
realised that we did not know anything about Antarctica,” the professor
of geoscience at the University of Edinburgh told reporters.”The
situation has actually not changed too much – we still know very little
about Antarctica and the Arctic. But the big difference is that we now
know the regions are very important.”So exploration is very much on the
agenda for this IPY,” Professor Siegert revealed.There are six major
research themes within the programme:

    * determine the current environmental status of the polar regions
    * quantify past and present environmental and social changes, and improve future projections
    * understand links between the poles and the rest of the planet
    * investigate the frontiers of science in the regions
    * use the polar areas to develop and enhance observation of the Earth’s interior and of space
    * explore the cultural, historical and social aspects of circumpolar human communities

Ice loss
One
of the institutes that will be playing a leading role in IPY is the
British Antarctic Survey (BAS).Chris Rapley, BAS director, said that
growing awareness of the threats posed by changes to the climate made
the 24-month programme timely.UK Science and Innovation Minister”In
many respects the Antarctic, although it is geographically distant, is
in everyone’s backyard,” he said.”A warmer world always results in less
ice and higher sea levels.”One area of research involved trying to
understand how much and how fast ice-sheets would melt as temperatures
rose, Professor Rapley explained.”The palaeo-evidence has been very
thin and patchy, because when the major blocks of ice have collapsed in
the past, they have not left much evidence of how quickly it
happened.”International Polar Year will allow us to marshal the
resources of all nations that are capable of addressing those issues in
an intensive way, and speed up delivery of the answers.”

‘Significant year’
The
UK’s Science and Innovation Minister, Malcolm Wicks, last week visited
the BAS research station at Rothera to see first-hand the work being
carried out by scientists.”The significance of the International Polar
Year is that it brings together some of the globe’s best scientists to
work together on a number of different projects,” he said.”In terms of
scientific breakthroughs and the accumulation of knowledge of this
vital area, I think the year is going to be a very significant
one.”Ahead of the IPY’s launch, a team of researchers on the CAML
project completed a 10-week census of marine life in a near-pristine
stretch of Antarctic seabed.Previously encased by ice for several
thousands of years, parts of the area became accessible only five years
ago, following the collapse of the Larsen B ice-shelf.The team, led by
researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany, found a number
of likely new species, and gained an insight into the dynamics of the
polar ecology.”What we learned from the… expedition is the tip of an
iceberg, so to speak,” said team leader Michael Stoddart.”Insights from
this and CAML’s upcoming International Polar Year voyages will shed
light on how climate variations affect ice-affiliated species living in
this region.” 

[Author]

February 26, 2007 at 11:30 AM