Third International Polar Day Focusing on Our Changing Earth
05.03.2008 - Logistics, Other
On March 12th, 2008, the International Polar Year (IPY) will launch its third "International Polar Day", focusing on our Changing Earth; with a specific focus on Earth history as discovered through paleoclimate records that study the long term history of the Earth by analysing ice sheets and sediments below polar lakes and oceans.
To better understand the impacts of human-induced climate change requires close awareness of natural forces of planetary change. In the 4.6 billion year history of our planet, the present arrangement of cold ice-covered regions at the northern and southern poles represents a recent development. An unprecedented combination of continental positions and orbital conditions has allowed the current "icehouse" climate to develop. It has also stimulated, within the past 1 million years, an oscillation of "rapid" glacial and interglacial events. Within this global icehouse condition, cycles of ocean atmosphere interaction have given rise to regional climate variations on scales of decades to centuries.
While almost every IPY project studies some aspect of the changing climate, or its impacts, thirteen of them specifically look at change over a geological timescale, which would help put current observations into long-term context. The next International Polar Day focusing on our Changing Earth represents an opportunity to learn more about these projects and to talk to the experts directly about their research. There will also be a wide range of educational and community activities, including classroom experiments, a virtual balloon launch, and live web-conferencing with the scientists in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.
