7 February, 2003

Field Experiences / NOVA Special / Climate Change Workshop

Karina Leppik (TEA Antarctic 2000-01) is wintering over at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station as a telescope technician for AST/RO. While she is there, she will also be spending some time doing polar science education outreach. Karina will be maintaining a website at http://adelie.harvard.edu/ed which will have journals, a South Pole FAQ, and activities posted as they are developed throughout the year. In addition, she will be moderating a polar education list-serv for educators who are interested in polar education. The list-serv will act as a forum for educators to discuss integrating polar science into their classrooms, and a sounding board for the activities being developed at the South Pole during 2003. If you are interested in joining the list-serv, or seeing what is going on at the south pole, please visit her website at http://adelie.harvard.edu/ed

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Check out: http://www.student.uncwil.edu:8000/~MJK2525/

This is a Web page designed for middle school students in New Hanover County, North Carolina by Dr. Steve Emslie, Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Dr. Emslie's research will take him to Casey Station. "My research in Antarctica is focused on penguins and climate change. Specifically, I want to know how penguins have responded to natural climate change in the past so that we can better understand how they will cope with current global warming."

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http://www.wm.edu/Antarctica/index.php

Two William & Mary students are spending nearly six weeks in Antarctica studying the effects of global warming on the Antarctic ecosystem under the direction of Dr. Hugh Ducklow, Glucksman Professor of Marine Science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS). Callie Raulfs, senior biology and chemistry major, and Mary Turnipseed, who received her master's in biology in December 2002, are the first William & Mary students to study in Antarctica.

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http://www.pbs.org/nova/vinson

NOVA JOINS EXPLORER JON KRAKAUER TO PIONEER A NEW ROUTE UP THE TALLEST PEAK IN ANTARCTICA AND ALSO RECOUNTS THE HEROIC ERA OF ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

MOUNTAIN OF ICE in HDTV

Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 8 PM ET on PBS (check local listings)

In January 2001 an eight-person NOVA team stood atop the highest peak in Antarctica, having arrived by a difficult, unexplored route over glaciers that hold clues to the future of Earth’s climate.

NOVA’s expedition up the unclimbed east face of Vinson Massif included Into Thin Air author Jon Krakauer and was led by noted mountaineer Conrad Anker, who in 1999 discovered the body of legendary 1920s climber George Mallory on Mount Everest during a search that produced the acclaimed NOVA film Lost on Everest. Also parcticipating in the Antarctic adventure are veteran Antarctic guide Dave Hahn, who has climbed Vinson a record twenty times; glaciologist Dan Stone, who was along to measure the precipitation rates at various altitudes on the mountain and to confirm the mountain’s height; extreme skier Andrew McLean; and a three-person NOVA crew headed by producer Liesl Clark, the only woman to climb Vinson via this new route.

Mountain of Ice contrasts NOVA’s experiences in 2001 with those of Norwegian adventurer Roald Amundsen, who led the first successful expedition to the South Pole in December 1911, and British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who reached the pole a month after Amundsen and then perished with his men a few miles short of their last food cache.

The NOVA team battled sixty-mile-per-hour winds and temperatures as low as thirty-five degrees below zero to obtain exclusive high-definition footage of one of the last unexplored places on Earth. According to Clark, the greatest challenges were surmounting a perilous three-thousand-foot wall of house-sized blocks of ice and shooting the first high-definition aerial photography over Antarctica’s highest mountains from a Cessna-185.

With only forty-year-old maps to go on, the team was venturing into a world almost as uncharted as that which confronted the original explorers of the continent. The thirty-pound high-definition camera was among the 1,200 pounds of food, fuel, and equipment that the crew carried on sleds over their thirty-mile trek into the unknown.

In the course of NOVA’s journey, glaciologist Stone obtained the first ever high-precision GPS reading from Vinson’s summit—pegging the massif at 16,067 feet, ten feet higher than previously measured. Stone also directed the excavation of numerous six-footdeep snow pits at different altitudes. The pits were sited in pairs to create a translucent wall of ice, giving a record of the amount of snow accumulated on the continent’s highest mountains over the past few years.

Despite a rate of precipitation that classifies Antarctica as a desert, the southern continent has 70 percent of the world’s water locked in its glaciers, which could drastically affect global sea level and climate as the ice caves into the ocean at the continent’s edges. Stone’s measurements are part of a concerted effort by scientists to monitor the growth and movement of Antarctica’s glaciers, which so far appear to be in a state of equilibrium, neither increasing nor decreasing significantly.

Only time—and further monitoring—will tell if this last unknown place will affect the planet in as-yet-unanticipated ways.

Executive producer: Paula S. Apsell

Written, produced and directed by Liesl Clark

A NOVA/WGBH, La Cinquième, Südwestrundfunk, Gédéon Programmes, Meridian, and NHK Co-Production.

November 2002

Press contacts

Jonathan S. Renes Diane Buxton

Senior Publicist, NOVA Publicist, NOVA

617-300-4427 617-300-4274

jonathan_renes@wgbh.org diane_buxton@wgbh.org

© 2002 WGBH Educational Foundation

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ARCUS Arctic Visiting Speakers' Series

ARCUS is seeking applications from institutions or communities to host an Arctic Visiting Speaker. For more information see: http://www.arcus.org/arctic_speaker/index.html

Currently in its' third year, the Arctic Visiting Speakers' Series is designed to increase communication and collaboration among the dispersed arctic research community, to nurture better understanding and communication between arctic researchers and arctic community residents, and improve the general public's understanding of the importance of arctic research.

This program provides an excellent opportunity for host communities and institutions to share information about the Arctic with community residents, arctic researchers, and students. The series encourages interactions among visiting speakers, communities, academic institutions and vice versa, allowing an expert in his or her

Past speakers have addressed a variety of audiences at graduate and undergraduate university seminars, presentations in K-12 schools, and presentations open to the public. Speakers cover a wide range of arctic research topics. Past topics have included anthropology, geology, arctic marine law, linguistics, oral history, geography, and reindeer herding. Speakers are allowed to travel from other countries to speak in the U.S. or travel from the U.S. to other countries, or stay within the U.S.

There are two ways to parcticipate:

(1) Community organizations, academic institutions, or individuals can host a speaker by submitting an Application at: http://www.arcus.org/arctic_speaker/Forms.html We accept host applications on an on-going basis, depending on funding availability. The program is NOT limited to academic speakers and institutions. We strongly encourage community organizations and individuals to apply to the program to host speakers in their community.

(2) Arctic researchers and other arctic experts interested in parcticipating as speakers are encouraged to join the Speakers' Bureau, a database of speakers and their expertise. Speakers' profiles are accepted throughout the year.

For more information about the Series, visit our web site at: http://www.arcus.org/arctic_speaker/index.html or contact: Janet Warburton

Project Manager

janet@arcus.org

907-474-1600

The Arctic Visiting Speakers' Series is funded by the Arctic Section of the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Program.

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C-CIARN North online workshop: Climate Change and Resource Development 5-6 February 2003

To register please send your name and e-mail address to: ceamer@yukoncollege.yk.ca

The North region of the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adapatation Research Network (C-CIARN North) presents an Online Workshop, Climate Change and Resource Development, February 5 and 6.

This is a chance to brainstorm with researchers, managers, and people in the field about how climate change is likely to affect the future of forestry, mining, oil and gas development, power generation, agriculture, and other resource-based industries in the Canadian North.

Registration is now open. Please send your name and e-mail address to: ceamer@yukoncollege.yk.ca

For background information on the workshop, go to: http://www.taiga.net/c-ciarn-north/online2.html

For a full transcript of our first online workshop, Climate Change and Infrastructure, which was held Jan. 8-9, 2003, go to: http://www.taiga.net/c-ciarn-north/online1.html

For more information about C-CIARN North and its resources and services, go to: http://www.taiga.net/c-ciarn-north

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Summer School on the Modeling of Arctic Climate International Arctic Research Center

University of Alaska

Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

July 14-25, 2003

Applications should be sent as early as possible, but no later than 15 March 2003