Articles & Interviews
Sciencepoles articles look at key findings from a range of polar science and research fields. Our articles RSS feed will inform you when new articles are published on this website.
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Social Science Research Raises Its Profile
24.05.2005
Although Arctic social science research has flourished for many decades, it has also often had to work hard to make its voice heard in the wider, natural science-inclined, polar research community. However, with the advent of the 2007-2008 International Polar Year (IPY) and the dramatic effect which global climate change…
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Satellites at the Service of Polar Research
24.05.2005
Satellites have become essential tools for polar research. For example, they track the movements of many birds and mammals at the poles. But they have proved particularly decisive when observing climate change; spatial teledetection has enabled study of changes to the extent of pack ice, the volume of ice caps,…
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Permanent Monitoring of the Atmosphere from Svalbard
24.05.2005
Greenhouse gases, organic and inorganic pollutants, aerosol... In order to study climate change, account must be taken of a great many parameters, one of the most important being the rapid evolution in the quality of our atmosphere.
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Poles of Excellence: Europe’s Leading Institutes and Organisations
24.05.2005
With its 25 EU nations and 20 non-members, Europe is as rich in leading polar organisations as it is in polar history. Ranging from dedicated polar research institutes to universities and specialised libraries, today's European polar organisations form an intricate and fertile network active in large areas of the polar…
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European Technologies for and from Polar Research
24.05.2005
The progress of science in polar regions, as in others, relies heavily on the continuous improvements of technology. Over recent decades, European polar researchers have developed a number of high-tech methods and equipment. If some of these are specific to extreme latitudes, such as certain building technologies, others are applicable…
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What Would Happen If the Gulf Stream Stopped?
24.05.2005
For most people, slowing or even stopping the Gulf Stream could only be a sci-fi story. This vast oceanic current on the surface of the Atlantic, which runs from the intertropical zone towards the shores of Europe (thus ensuring our warm winters and temperate summers) cannot simply "break down". However,…
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Thermophilic Bacteria in Lake Vostok
24.05.2005
Glaciers sometimes hide a lake under their thick layers of ice. And some of these lakes fascinate researchers, particularly because they may contain as yet unknown life forms. In the Antarctic, beneath the Vostok research station, such a lake, of gigantic proportions (a surface area of 14,000 km2), is whetting…
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Arctic and Antarctic Research: What Makes Them Different?
24.05.2005
Besides a few obvious similarities, including their remoteness and the coldness of their environment, the Arctic and Antarctic possess striking differences which have impacted on the type and importance of scientific activities being carried out in these regions.
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The Aurora Borealis: Proposal for an Advanced European Icebreaker
24.05.2005
Sediment deposits, lying deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor, hold the key to understanding the region's climate history, and its effect on the global environment over many millions of years. Drilling for this information while operating in pack ice, however, is a very delicate and costly operation that requires state-of-the-art…
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IceCube: Antarctica’s Crystal Ball
24.05.2005
Buried deep within the East Antarctic ice sheet at the South Pole, a giant high-energy neutrino observatory due for completion in 2009 could provide scientists including from Europe with an unprecedented window to the Universe, as well as a means to answer some of the most fundamental questions of astrophysics…
