Jan 12, 2017

Polar-Supported Researchers Receive Nation's Highest Honor for Early Career Scientists

Two Polar-funded researchers are recipients of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the White House has announced. Jeremy Bassis, of the University of Michigan, and John Kovac, of Harvard University, were announced as PECASE awardees on January 9th, 2017.

Jan 5, 2017

2017 Geographic South Pole Marker Unveiled

Each year, due to the movement of the Antarctic ice sheet, the exact location of the geographic South Pole must be fixed and marked. Among the few "art forms" indigenous to Antarctica, where human populations exist only at scientific stations, is the annual creation of a Pole marker by the winter residents of NSF's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

Dec 16, 2016

Change of Name for the Division of Polar Programs, Directorate for Geosciences, to Office of Polar Programs

Effective immediately, the Division of Polar Programs will be designated as the Office of Polar Programs (OPP) within the Geosciences Directorate (GEO). Dr. Kelly K. Falkner, the Office Director of OPP, will also become a member of NSF's Senior Management Advisory Roundtable. The rationale for the name changes is to recognize OPP's national standing and unique role within NSF.

Dec 1, 2016

National Science Foundation Evacuates Patient from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has agreed to provide a humanitarian medical evacuation flight for an ailing visitor from its Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to McMurdo Station on the Antarctic coast and then to New Zealand. The patient is Buzz Aldrin, who, in 1969, became one of the first men to walk on the Moon, as part of the two-man lunar landing crew of Apollo 11.

Nov 28, 2016

New Study Reveals West Antarctica's Largest Glacier May Have Begun Retreating as Early as the 1940s

The present-day thinning and retreat of Pine Island Glacier, one of the largest and fastest shrinking glaciers of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, may have already been underway as early as the 1940s, according to findings from an international research team led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), whose fieldwork was facilitated by the National Science Foundation (NSF) via the agency's U.S. Antarctic Program.

Nov 7, 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Visit NSF Antarctic Research Stations

Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled later this week to visit McMurdo and Amundsen-Scott South Pole stations in Antarctica, where he'll meet with researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Kerry is set to become the first secretary of state, and the most senior U.S. government official, to travel to Antarctica, where the U.S. has maintained a scientific presence since the late 1950s.