We are happy to announce the the APECS Antarctic Field School is underway - and the 15 students and lecturers made it to Bellingshausen Station on the Antarctica Peninsula today (16 Jan 2010.) The Field School is organized by the Institute for Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and APECS. You can read more about this amazing adventure on a blog by Lindsay Bartholomew: http://lindsayontheice.wordpress.com/
We especially thank Hans-Ulrich Peter, Christina Braun, Antja Nordt, Mathias Kopp and Jan Esefeld from the University of Jena (Germany) for their invaluable collaboration and generosity in the field excursion around Fildes Peninsula. This group of German researchers are working for longer than 20 years at King George Island and other places of South Shetland Islands, monitoring different species of birds and plants in this area. Therefore they are first-line witnesses of the climate variation effects on this region, for example detecting a strong diminution of Adelie Penguins in the near colonies.
Special thanks to Irina Repina, Vladimir Alexeev and Francisco Fernandoy for organizing this great learning experience, which we hope will be the first of many!
