The 8th Polar Day (topic: Polar Oceans) elicited so much interest that it turned into a full week of events that took place across the globe from some likely places such as Edinburgh, Winnipeg and Nuuk to some not so likely places like Brazil & Malaysia. Take a peek at some of the exciting highlights from classrooms, radio stations, field schools and public outreach sessions around the world. Edinburgh, UK: March 14th - 15th The Dynamic Earth science center hosted a hands-on public session with researchers from the Scottish Association for Marine Science who displayed Arctic research footage from recent expeditions. The most popular part of the event was when people got a chance to don the equipment worn by polar scientists. We may have just h...

Where to begin? I am buzzing.. just buzzing. What a Day,- and half the world hasn't even woken up yet! Today is our sixth International Polar Day, and we are focusing on People in the Polar Regions. Plans for the day have been very experimental, very grassroots, much in line with IPY.. but with that comes that great big unknowingness.... will anyone join in? Will anyone turn up? Last night...

Flying over the Greenland Ice Sheet several days ago, scientist Mark Behn was surprised to see South Lake still full of sapphire-blue water. The 2- to 3-kilometer-wide lake forms each spring and summer, fed by melting ice. The water eventually builds up so much weight that it cracks the ice at the bottom of the lake, and the water drains away through the ice. That should have already happened by now. Mark was thrilled to see the still-brimming lake. Rarely have scientists had an opportunity to witness a draining lake, which is why they put many instruments around the lakes to capture the action while they are not there. Mark and his colleagues had just gotten word that another lake they were scheduled to visit, North Lake, had just drained. “We just missed it,” he said....

Submitted September 7: A dirty little secret. Its 95 degrees Fahrenheit outside just now. I guess I am not in Tasilliq anymore! The last weekend we waited for the weather to clear but the view was the same as always - rain and fog. Sunday wasn't even nice, a change for the books. Monday was worse! It was snowy and rainy. I had booked a ticket to leave Tasilliq on wednesday so we hoped that Tuesday would be better. When I woke up on Tuesday morning the view was blue skies, no clouds and majestic snow capped mountains all around. The autumn was officially here, and frosty nights would be coming very soon. Tuesday was my last chance to go and finish off the two sites to the south that had not had enough batteries installed. ...

We’re still not done. As always the weather has been unfriendly – rain and snow the other day, but now the mountains are quite lovely with their slight dusting of snow. Summer has finished and winter is fast approaching. There’s a nice high pressure over the ice sheet and some nice lows offshore, so although the views are incredible, so are the winds, which are ferocious at the places we want to go. With the 222 helicopter disappearing to Nuuk to get new engines we now have to slot our work timetable into the 212's scheduled visits to the Kulusuk airport to pick up passengers and its scheduled, lifeline visits to outlying communities. If we had the work we think we could be put out in the morning and get picked up in the evening but we cannot really work in that mode ...

The site we installed at Koge Bugt was incomplete. The kind of helicopter we used meant that we just couldn’t take all the batteries with us. It's still running on a single battery just now, which won’t do much good with winter fast approaching. We’re going to need a second trip out there to put more batteries in. We started planning to do that over the next couple of days. Because, you know? What could go wrong? In the meantime more people we know had arrived in Angmassalik, and were staying at the Hotel Nansen. The hotel is owned by the same people as the one we’re in (I think) but allows you to cook for yourself. So Abbas was basically press ganged into cooking a curry, with pakora no less, for everyone. Thomas made a Swedish apple pie and I threw together a sala...

Submitted September 2: So its been a long time since I wrote anything, or at least it feels like a long time. To be blunt, not a huge hell of a lot has happened since then. The main feature has been rain, a little more rain and then some more rain, followed by rain and a little bit of wind. We have managed to get another site installed and partially installed a couple of other sites, but weather has not been friendly. I think we last left off on the 23rd of August, something to do with a boat trip to Isertoq if I can remember that far back correctly. That was over a week ago, so what has happened since then? Hmm. We fixed the antenna at the Helheim site, same kind of deal as the last visit to Helheim, crammed into a 212 helicopter this time. The first…

Submitted by Mike Willis on Monday, Aug 27: There's something about what's happening here In Greenland. I keep having unforgettable days. On Thursday we changed our modus operandi in a direction I really did not expect. The helicopters were totally booked up with shuttle service to Kulusuk and for some more local science projects up on the Helheim Glacier. Abbas the ever inventive therefore chartered a boat to take us to Isortoq, about 20 minutes by helicopter to the south, but 2 hours by boat. Again here in Greenland we had another absolutely unforgettable day. With help from Meredith Nettles from L...

Submitted Friday, August 24: Okay so lets see. Last blog update was ... Sunday. Sunday? Sunday was brilliant! Monday. what happened on Monday? Ah yes, it rained. And rained. And was foggy and windy. So we sat in the hotel and watched the rain. Tuesday was like Monday, only more so. Here's a consolation picture of a couple of sled dog puppies. Wednesday. Hmm Wednesday. That was... hmm two days ago! Feels like it was a long time ago. It rained and had low clouds and fog. But only for half the day. The rest o...

(Written on Sunday, submitted on Monday) Yesterday, which was Saturday, and today have been no fly days. Not due to the weather mind you, just the helicopter has been busy doing other things. Yesterday it had to take a party of New Zealand school girls up to Helheim Glacier, the weather wasn’t great so they didn’t go. Today it was a day off for everyone all round – no planned flights. So a couple of non weather-caused day offs. What to do, what to do, what to do? Hmm dissertation? Lets see, I could sit here at the hotel and stare out at the bay and the mountains and the icebergs while trying to finish another chapter… or Thomas could knock on my door and say “lets go for a hike up the flower valley walk." Oooh tough decisions. Oh listen, Thomas just knocked on my ...