As the IYP's website states, there many unique phenomena in polar areas. We had a chance to experience one of these a few nights ago. Several of us were out on deck, leaning back on the inflatables to watch the Aurora Australis, or the "Southern Lights". Great green clouds of plasma hung in the sky above us, made up of ions arriving on the solar wind and hitting the earth's ionosphere, cause the ions to light up. Some of us had seen the Northern Lights before but for several of us on the Espy, seeing the Southern lights was a lifelong dream.

Elsewhere in polar areas, circulatory systems for air and water can be found at the surface, along with the majority of the Earth's magnetic field lines. The earth's history is preserved in the ice of thick glaciers.

As you can imagine, given the amount of time it takes to sail to and from Antarctic waters, the north and south poles are expensive places to visit, which is where IPY comes into play. Thousands of scientists from over 60 nations will together examine a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics.

Some news species of animals and plants have been found on the Antarctic sea bed by an expedition on board the Polarstern, part of the International Polar Year. The scientists on board were searching the 10,000 square kilometres of sea bed that were covered for millennia by two massive roofs of ice, the Larsen A and B ice shelves, and discovered evidence that "biological change may be caused by the collapse... a phenomenon linked to global warming". Larsen A collapsed in 1995, while Larsen B disintegrated in 2002.

The expedition found that lots of new creatures had moved into the former Larsen area - like "blue ice fish, with dorsal fins like ribbed fans and blood that lacks red cells, an adaptation that makes the blood more fluid and easier to pump through the animal's body, conserving energy at low temperatures". They also found long-limbed sea stars, some with more than five appendages, and sea cucumbers and thick settlements of sea squirts which started living there only after the collapse of the ice shelves.

Out of hundreds of specimens, they found 15 possible new species of "shrimp-like amphipods, and four possible new species of cnidarians, organisms related to coral, jellyfish and sea anemones".

The first International Polar Year was from 1882-1883. Fifty years later, in 1932-1933, the second took place. And now we've the third IPY upon us. Let's hope these years also mark the end of whaling in Antarctic Waters.

- Dave

International Polar Year » (official site)
Wikipedia: International Polar Year »
Where the Polarstern is now »
Current Polarstern expedition updates »
Reuters: Exotic animals seen where Antarctic ice used to be »