The climate and its components (temperature and precipitation) are organised according to different spatial scales that are structured hierarchically. The aim of this paper is to explore the dependence between temperature and deterministic factors at different scales on a 10 km2 study area on the northwestern coast of Svalbard. A GIS was developed which contained three sources of information: temperature, remotely sensed imagery and digital elevation models (DEM), and derived raster data layers. The first layer, temperatures, was acquired at regularly observed temporal intervals from 53 stations. The second layer comprised remotely sensed images (aerial photography and SPOT imagery) and DEM data at 2 m and 20 m resolution, respectively. From these, a windowing procedure was applied to derive several spatial subsets of different spatial resolutions (6, 14, 30, 60, 140, and 300 m). The third layer comprised slope, aspect, and a theoretical solar radiation value derived from the DEM, and a vegetation index derived from the remotely sensed imagery. Linear regressions were then systematically conducted on the datasets, with temperature as the dependent variable, and each of the other data layers as the independent variables. By using graphical analysis, we link the correlation coefficients obtained for each factor, from the smallest spatial resolution (6 m) to the largest resolution (300 m). The results indicated that each explanatory variable and scale brings a specific contribution to changes in temperature. For example, the effect of elevation remains constant for all spatial resolutions, reflecting a quasi ‘non-scalar’ pattern of this variable. For other variables however, the effect of spatial scale can have a strong effect. In the case of solar radiation, a maximum of explanation was obtained for spatial resolutions of 14 m and 60 m; for vegetation index the optimum contribution was related to the 300 m resolution. Thus, different environment characteristics may have significant effects on changes in temperature when differences in spatial scale are taken into account.

Experience with using permafrost for disposal of various toxic industrialwaste products and for storage of oils and petroleum products shows that underground disposal is preferable in terms of ecology and economy. However, account must be taken of possible interaction (heat, mechanical, chemical, and physico-chemical) of the buried material with the cryogenic environment and theassociated specific processes. A study of the main types of interaction of water-soluble and water-insoluble materials with frozen soil and ice permits tentative recommendations for safe storage of these materials in the Arctic.

In May 1982, with the successful conclusion of FRAM IV, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) completed the FRAM series of observations from ice floe stations in the eastern Arctic (Fig 1)—expeditions initiated each spring from 1979 to 1982. The programme developed from an unsuccessful attempt by the Arctic Programme of the ONR to duplicate Fridtjof Nansen's drift of the FRAM across the Arctic. This was to have involved freezing the icebreaker USCGC Burton Island in the pack ice of the Laptev Sea, but the programme was cancelled due to lack of support. Arctic scientists meeting at the Third Symposium on Antarctic Geology and Geophysics at Madison, Wisconsin, decided on an alternative programme involving ice floe stations. Named FRAM in honour of Nansen's vessel (Hunkins and others 1979a; Kristoffersen 1979), this was eventually organized by the Arctic Programme of ONR to provide basic environmental data from the eastern Arctic north of Greenland. From its inception FRAM emphasized multi-disciplinary research by scientists of several nations. The stations were under US management, with logistics coordinated by the Polar Research Center, University of Washington, under ONR contract. Danish scientists were involved through the Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland, Norwegians through the Norsk Polarinstitutt, British scientists through the Scott Polar Research Institute, and Canadians through the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. Each expedition emphasized a particular scientific discipline with supporting programmes: below are listed the dates, major studies (priority discipline first), chief scientists and key data reports of each.

The present northern border of Norway and Sweden was fixed by treaty in 1751 between the United Kingdom of Denmark-Norway and the Kingdom of Sweden, then including Finland. Previous attempts to determine the frontier had failed, largely because of intermittent warfare over a long period between Denmark and Sweden. A codicil to the 1751 treaty laid down the rights of the Lapps in the frontier region and it was expressly stated that movement over the frontier would be permitted according to old usage. The usage here referred to was the movement of Swedish Lapps with their reindeer into Norway for pasture during the summer, and a similar movement of Norwegian Lapps with their reindeer into Sweden for pasture during the winter. The majority of the Norwegian Lapps entering Swedish territory went into Finland. In addition, a few Norwegian Lapps further south, in the present Nord Trøndelag Fylke, traditionally moved into Jämtland in Sweden during the summer.

The selection of sites that comprise the existing network of Antarctic protected areas has been largely ad hoc, driven by national interests rather than concerted efforts to ensure systematic and representative coverage of the Antarctic environment. Consequently there are gaps in coverage of all major ecosystems, in particular areas kept inviolate from human activity, inland lakes, and marine protected areas. Annex V of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty provides a list of values to be protected within a network of Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs), but provides no quantitative methods for site identification and prioritisation. The Antarctic Important Bird Area (IBA) Inventory is a joint initiative of BirdLife International and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research Group of Experts on Birds (formerly the Bird Biology Subcommittee). The Antarctic IBA Inventory has identified 119 candidate IBAs, 97 of which are not currently protected as ASPAs. The IBA Inventory can improve the Antarctic Protected Area System (PAS) in that it provides a method by which to identify and prioritise sites for their potential inclusion in the Antarctic PAS.

McMurdo Station, Antarctica, is a US Federal research facility operated year-round by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Its primary mission is to support scientific research, but it also provides logistical air and ground support for South Pole Station, seasonal field sites and nearby stations operated by other countries. It is the largest station in Antarctica, supporting up to 1,200 people. While McMurdo Station has a long scientific legacy, the facility also has an interesting architectural and engineering history that spans 60 years and has its antecedents in the ‘heroic age’ of exploration (1898–1916) and the Little America expeditions (1929–1958). Here, I describe the history of the built environment of McMurdo Station to clarify how it evolved from a temporary air station in the late 1950s to its current role as the flagship research facility of the US Antarctic Research Program (USAP). This historical review may provide insights that are useful as the station continues to transform and evolve, allowing it to continue its scientific mission into the 21st century.

The International Polar Year 2007–2008 stimulated a wide range of education, outreach and communication (EOC) related to polar research, and catalysed enthusiasm and networks that persist ten years on. Using a multi-method approach that incorporates case studies, auto-ethnographic interviews, and survey data, we interrogate the opportunities and limitations of polar EOC activities and propose a new framework for practical, reflexive, engagement design. Our research suggests that EOC activities are under-valued and often designed based on personal instinct rather than strategic planning, but that there is also a lack of accessible tools that support a more strategic design process. We propose three foci for increasing the professionalisation of practitioner approaches to EOC: (1) improved articulation of goals and objectives; (2) acknowledgement of different drivers, voices and power structures; and (3) increased practical training, resources and reporting structures. We respond to this by proposing a framework for planning and design of public engagement that provides an opportunity to become more transparent and explicit about the real goals of an activity and what “success” looks like. This is critical to effectively evaluate, learn from our experiences, share them with peers, and ultimately deliver more thoughtfully designed, effective engagement.

For the first time, the results of the study of the age and growth of blue hake Antimora rostrata in the waters of the Lazarev and Weddell seas (Antarctic) are presented. The longline catches were represented by fish from 42 to 69 cm in total length with weights between 420 and 2,900 g, and most individuals aged 25 to 27 years. A minimum age of 16 years was observed in a fish 47 cm long and weighing 450 g, while a maximum age of 35 years was recorded for an individual of 69 cm in length and 1,640 g in weight. The blue hake in the Lazarev and Weddell seas shows similar growth patterns to the fish from the Ross Sea and waters off Greenland.

This study breaks new ground by involving the partners of Antarctic expeditioners as well as the expeditioners themselves in one aspect of a comprehensive research programme on stress. It reports the reactions of both parties before, during and after their separation. It shows that there were discrepancies between the partners about the sufficiency of prior discussion, the possibility of injury or death arising with the expeditioners on their hazardous venture, and about the ability of partners to cope at home. A follow up of the couples sixteen months after the separation showed that their marital relationships in general had improved slightly, although there were some individual exceptions. The study emphasised the importance of including partners as well as the specific subjects themselves in future medical and behavioural research; future studies might usefully extend beyond the couples to include all relevant family members.

Until long after all other regions of the world had been explored and populated by man, the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere remained unknownand inviolate. Although a great southern continent had been postulated by theancient Greeks, and its existence firmly believed in during the 16th century and by some 18th century geographers, no real evidence for its presence had been forthcoming. However, the great voyages of discovery by James Cook in Endeavour, 1768–71 and Resolution, 1772–75 laid that belief to rest. During his second voyage Cook circumnavigated the globe in high latitudes and made three crossings of the Antarctic Circle but failed to find the supposed continental land mass. Cook came to the conclusion that if a continent existed in still higher latitudes, as we know that it does, it would be perpetually frozen. Nevertheless, the scientific aims of the voyage were achieved. Considerable light was shed on the atmospheric and oceanographic phenomena of the region, based on factual data collected by the, scientists on board Resolution, and Adventure which accompanied it for partof the timeduring 1772–73.

This paper examines how different technologies of exploration and mapping transformed human understanding of the Antarctic in the period 1918–1960. In the aftermath of the ‘heroic’ expeditions, European and American governments began to invest considerable monies in support of national expeditions for the purpose of claiming and mapping the polar continent. The collection of practical geographical information during the inter-war period was overtaken by the advent of polar aviation and aerial mapping in the 1930s. The aeroplane and the aerial camera played key parts in expanding stores of knowledge about the continent and altering perceptions of place. Finally, the paper considers the 1955–1958 Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE). This venture was significant because it was widely understood to be the final chapter in the geographical and scientific assualt on the Antarctic. The TAE was the high point of polar achievement, as a range of technologies were brought to bear on the surface of the Antarctic icesheet. Thereafter, the cultural and political significance of the polar continent changed in the face of new challenges for human exploration in the realms of outer space and the Moon.

This note studies the addendum to the Arctic Council (AC)'s 2013 Observer Manual adopted at the Senior Arctic Officials’ (SAO) meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, in October 2015. The amendment means another essential step to systematise further and improve the council's working relations with currently 32 entities that hold observer status in the forum. Compared to the initial manual that sketched out the role observers should play in the council's subsidiary bodies, the latest revisions delineate a framework for enhancing observer participation and commitment in working group, task force and expert group meetings. After reviewing the content and practical implications of the addendum in the context of larger reform efforts to adapt the council to the age of a global(ising) Arctic, the article further discusses a number of signals the Anchorage decision sends to observers. These comprise the council's willingness and ability to quick, unified and purposeful action towards institutional adaptation and procedural reform as considered necessary to address organisational deficiencies, strengthened top-down steering of the reform processes by SAOs as related to the work conducted in subsidiary bodies and the overall functioning of the council, and higher expectations on observers to contribute to the AC system and deliver on the new provisions.

For the last twenty years there has been considerable Soviet interest in the circumnavigation of Antarctica by the Russian naval expedition of 1819–21, led by Captain T. T. Bellingshausen, with Lieut M. P. Lazarev as his second in command, in the sloops Vostok and Mirnyy. It is now reasonably certain that Bellingshausen sighted the Antarctic continent several times, notably on 27 January 1820 (New Style) at a point about lat 69°21′S, long 2°14′W, and was thus the first to see it (Edward Bransfield sighted the north-west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula at about lat 63°50′S, long 60°30′W on 30 January 1820, three days later). Bellingshausen did not claim to have done so however, but his descriptions of what he saw tally very well with what the edge of the continent here is now known to look like. There is one relatively new point. Bellingshausen's first sighting has been moved forward one day, from the 28th to the 27th, because it has been shown that he was keeping ship's time, from mid-day to mid-day, and therefore that what his log called the 28th (his sighting being in the second half of the day) was what the civil calendar would call the 27th (Belov, 1963, p 19–29). All this much is well documented and unlikely to be disputed. The question is, how much importance did he, and his contemporaries, attach to this discovery? And did he realize that he had seen the edge of a continent? Recent Soviet studies have sought to show that he had a very good idea of the importance of what he had seen, and that this idea did get through to his contemporaries. It is here that there is room for argument with the Soviet scholars.

The UN Secretary-General's third Report of September 1987 provided the background for the fifth annual round of the UN's consideration of the ‘Question of Antarctica’. The First Committee's discussions in November 1987 resulted in the adoption by large majorities of two further UN resolutions in favour of a moratorium on the Antarctic minerals regime negotiations, an enhanced UN role in the operations of the Antarctic Treaty System, and the exclusion of South Africa from Consultative Meetings. On the surface, the session might be dismissed as yet another ‘sterile annual UN ritual’, serving to confirm the international community's lack of consensus about the future management of Antarctica. In reality, the episode, suggesting that the UN/Antarctic relationship may be at the crossroads, offered several points of interest, including increased signs of strain within the Antarctic Treaty System consequent upon the South African issue, and a greater appreciation by the critics of the need to work for change within the framework of the existing Antarctic Treaty regime.

This paper proposes management responses to problems perceived in an earlier paper on King George Island (Polar Record 27(162): 193–204, 1991). Available management instruments and barriers to solutions are reviewed, and new management approaches and tools postulated. The category of Antarctic Protected Area (APA) is proposed for areas needing special protection, with sub-designations of Natural, Scientific and Historic Reserves. Multiple-use Planning Areas (MPAs) are endorsed for areas of high use needing local and regional planning, including station environs, but with sub-designations Environmentally Sensitive Areas, Scientific Research Sites and Facilities Areas. Both APAs and MPAs will require management plans: APAs will be accessible only by entry permit. Also recommended are a scientific and logistic register, scheduled meetings among station commanders, development of an internationally coordinated regional scientific strategy, and an environmental information system. To manage tourism a commercial tourism licence system and tourist levy are recommended, with the industry controlled under management plans developed for APAs and MPAs, plus general Treaty provisions. Workload arising from these revisions would necessitate the Committee on Environmental Protection in the forthcoming Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, with a permanent Treaty secretariat. This framework, requiring a multinational approach to management more sophisticated than has so far been achieved under the Antarctic Treaty, would improve and coordinate management throughout Antarctica.

The South African state has never made a formal claim to the Antarctic continent. In the inter-war period, the South African government prepared a number of memorandums and discussion papers on the subject of a ‘South African sector in the Antarctic.’ This paper not only critically interprets those government papers, but, more importantly, assesses the reasons why South Africa never made a formal claim. It is suggested that relations with Britain and the Empire, as well as the activities of Norway and the United States, were crucial determining factors. Finally, the implications for later South African involvement in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic Treaty System are briefly considered.

The 4th International Polar Year featured a range of large international research projects and included a focus on Education and Public Outreach (EPO). ANDRILL (the ANtarctic geological DRILLing Project) was a large international (USA, New Zealand, Italy, Germany) multidisciplinary research project investigating the sedimentary record of Cenozoic ice sheet dynamics that brought approximately 160 scientists to McMurdo Station in the 2006 and 2007 field seasons, during which two > 1000 m sediment cores were successfully retrieved from the floor of the Ross Sea. ARISE (ANDRILL Research Immersion for Science Educators), the EPO arm of ANDRILL, deployed an international team of six to eight educators each season to Antarctica and embedded them with science teams. ARISE was unique in the EPO spectrum because it deployed a team of international educators together with an EPO coordinator, offered an on-ice geoscience course for the educators, and supported educator participation at both pre-ice and post-ice meetings. Conservative estimates indicate that at least 314,700 individuals have been reached directly through the wide range of ARISE EPO endeavours.

Educator field research immersion is a small subset of educator professional development (PD) opportunities, with little quantitative or qualitative evaluation of polar immersion experiences having been reported. Here, surveys of ARISE educators and scientists are used to evaluate the efficacy of the ARISE program as PD in the context of research on educator PD. Persistent and recurring themes emerging from the surveys are: (1) the positive and reinforcing impact of deployment as a team; (2) the importance of access to scientists across an extended period of time and venues; (3) the importance of ‘doing science’ as a means of learning; and (4) recognition of the senses of excitement, engagement and inspiration displayed by both educators and scientists − about drilling progress, core interpretation, and outreach plans – and the EPO audience. Key components of the program are shown to be (1) deployment of a multi-educator team; and (2) guidance and support of the EPO coordinator at all phases of the ARISE experience.

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork data, this article argues there is tension between how Longyearbyen’s residents wish to perform as a community and hindrances the town inherited from its past and accepts as demarcation lines of Norway’s Svalbard politics. The population of Longyearbyen has undergone considerable change since the 1990s, turning from a predominantly Norwegian mining community into a highly diversified group of people from all over the world. This article places Longyearbyen into the wider context of settlements with similar traces (in Scandinavia, the Arctic, multilingual and immigrant communities worldwide, or in the context of extractivism) and discusses the existing barriers of communitification. Encounters with four participants illuminate the tensions and contradictions when it comes to cultivating social cohesion and shaping Longyearbyen’s “desired futures.” Unless the process of increasing the community’s agency is actively encouraged by people living there and those governing it from the outside, the future of the settlement risks being alienating for its inhabitants, weakening further the communitification potential.