IPY Launch Day

IPY tagged map - Tagzania

Today is the launch of the International Polar Year (IPY), a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009 (in order to have full coverage of the Arctic and Antarctic). IPY, organized through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), is actually the 4th polar year (1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8). It will involve over 200 projects, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics. The priorities are:

• Changing Snow and Ice
• Global Linkages
• Neighbours in the North
• Discovery

For a detailed presentation of the research you can download the honeycomb chart here.
You can watch IPY launch events around the world live at the Arctic Portal.

More Bush bull on ANWR

The coastal plains of ANWR's 1002 area (photo: USGS)

Here we go again. Bush aims to open up ANWR, specifically area 1002 (see January 8th post), to oil and gas leasing by 2009, according to the administration's proposed 2008 Budget released yesterday. I wonder if he's ever even bothered to read the report "Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's North Slope", published by the National Research Council in 2003.

2007 wishes for ANWR and the bears

ANWR map from http://arctic.fws.gov/shademap.htm

Finally the political momentum may be going the other way, at least ever since 2000 when Bush called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) during his presidential campaign and the House of Representatives repeatedly passed bills in favour.
Legislation introduced in the House last Friday by the Democratic Party, would make the oil-rich 1.2 million-acre coastal strip of the ANWR a permanently protected wilderness and end repeated efforts to open the area east of the Prudhoe oil field (1002 Area on map) to energy companies.
The efforts on ANWR are coinciding with the Department of the Interior’s decision, on December 27 2006, to propose listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, in response to a suit filed in 2005 by three green groups.
Retreating ice in the Arctic and how it affects polar bears has been described as the “canary in the coal mine” in terms of climate change. It has already led to starvation, cannibalism, and drowning among the world's 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears (4,700 of which live in Alaska and spend part of the year in Canada and Russia). Check out the PBI’s pages for more on the research carried out
It looks like 2007 may actually turn out to be the International Polar Year.