The U.S. Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel has just set off for Antarctica where it will deploy a tiny unmanned yellow submarine beneath an ice shelf to seek clues to rising world sea levels, and carry out a series of other research projects. See story here.

Palmer was an explorer and seal hunter who was among the first people to spot Antarctica in 1820 — part of the Antarctic peninsula is named after him.

The 94-metre ship, operated for the National Science Foundation, has been in Punta Arenas at the southern tip of Chile preparing for the voyage.

Chief scientist for the mission, Stan Jacobs of Columbia University, took time out to show Reuters TV’s Stuart McDill and me around the spotless red and yellow vessel (bridge shown right) just as the final preparations were being made.

Safety first — we had to wear lifejackets just to climb up the gangway (there was even a net to catch us before we hit the water if we fell off) and hard hats on deck. Noisy cranes were busy loading supplies.

Going on a trip to the Antarctica sounds like a dream to many people — for polar researchers it is a fantastic chance to make discoveries for instance about whether the continent is starting to thaw because of global warming, something that could raise world sea levels.

But there are a lot of hardships too.

Try the following checklist to see if you’d make it:

– 54 days at sea, some of them noisily crashing through ice.

– You will probably have to share a small bedroom with another colleague, rather than get a single room.

– No fresh fruit or vegetables.

– No alcohol.

– Some of the stormiest seas in the world.

– Freezing cold outside.

– Long working days.

– For recreation you have a training room with weights machines, a canteen, a TV room and access to the Internet: your contact with family and friends.

…When we went through the main relaxation room with sofas, a large TV was playing a comedy movie that showed a man struggling to carry a stuffed polar bear up the stairs of a house. As every school child learns, polar bears live only in the Arctic. The movie made us laugh, but even in your few moments of relaxation, you may end up getting reminded about the poles.

So would you like to go on such a cruise?

 What do human fingerprints and polar bear “whisker prints” have in common?

You probably guessed — both give away identity.

Jane Waterman, a Canadian biologist at the University of Central Florida, is asking any tourist who takes a photo of a polar bear around Churchill, Canada, to send it to her to help study the bears. Here’s her website.

Polar bears look pretty much the same to most people — big, white and to be avoided.

But the ”whisker prints”, the pattern of dark dots around the mouth, are unique and Waterman hopes that snapshots taken around Churchill will build a record of what the bears get up to. Bears are in trouble because global warming is melting their icy Arctic homes.

The pictures above show the same bear — taken in two different years along with a pattern of whisker prints that proved it was one and the same.

“A special computer program, with software similar to NASA’s algorithm for mapping stars, identifies each bear by that print and will allow Waterman and her students to track the declining population,” a statement said.

…One useful tip: get a telephoto lens.

                                             Native Alaskan artists visited New York this week with a message not so much about art, nor a species that’s struggling as rising temperatures melt its habitat from under its paws.

“With so much attention on polar bears, where’s the concern about the people? What about fellow Americans?” said Alvin Amason, an artist and member of the coastal Alutiiq people, who lives in Anchorage.

Amason and other Alaskan artists hit New York to celebrate the opening of the Alaska House , a nonprofit cultural center that aims to teach people about the challenges and opportunities the state faces.

Not only are temperatures rising faster in the Alaska and the Arctic than in southern parts of the world, but residents in remote regions the 49th U.S. state are facing food and fuel costs that are surging faster too.

And the melting of coastal ice means they can no longer hunt on shore for walrus and other animals that provide them with ivory and bones for carvings.

Now the artists have to hunt by boat, but surging fuel costs in those remote areas are making it harder. “If someone gets $5,000 for a carving from a western buyer, he’s not thinking of spending it on a vacation, he’s spending it on boat fuel and heating oil and food, ” said Amason.

Perry Eaton, a fellow Alutiiq artist, said residents in native communities in and around the Arctic Circle in Alaska are moving in droves to the cities in search of other types of work.

As they do, America stands to lose some of its oldest cultural inheritances.  Most of Alaska’s remote native peoples have have remained close culturally to what their ancestors were thousands of years earlier, despite some changes like motorized transport. “It’s the only place in America where there was no Indian removal,” said Eaton. He was referring to the forced movement of natives on the American continent to reservations and institutions by the U.S. government, where many were forced to give up their cultural traditions.

Eaton said Northern Alaska is a place where the languages shared by the 180 indigenous communities don’t have a word for “art” — it’s part of daily life, in the clothes they make, or the masks they craft to help usher loved ones who have died into the afterworld.

Alice Rogoff, the founder of the Alaska House, said she had hoped the Republican nomination of Sarah Palin, for vice-president would have helped shine a light on the plight of native Alaskans. Not yet.

Photo of artist Sylvester Ayek courtesy of the Alaska House. Photo of ice sculpture outside of Alaska House by tpg.

 Talk about occupational hazards.

Five Wildlife Conservation Society scientists studying the effects of global warming on shorebirds in Arctic Alaska had to be airlifted away from their remote camp late last month because of the appearance of another species whose life is changing as warming helps erode shores and melt sea ice.
 
The researchers said a polar bear stuck on land forced them to evacuate their camp north of the remote Teshekpuk Lake on the Beaufort Sea –leaving food and tents behind. 
 
The carnivorous bears would normally be out on sea ice this time of year. But with recent warming the ice is miles from shore and polar bears, which were recently listed as “threatened” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, are becoming increasingly trapped on land well away from their usual seal prey, said Dr. Steve Zack, who leads Arctic studies for WCS
 
“We had no idea how hungry they’d be and thus how ornery they’d be,” Zack, who made the decision for the researchers to evacuate even though they had been trained in bear safety, told me by his mobile phone from his current base near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
 
“Where there’s one polar bear there are usually more,” he said, adding that government scientists have seen 32 polar bears stuck on shore this year, up from only one or two in previous years.
 
In subsequent fly-overs over the abandoned camp, the team discovered that bears had eaten all of the food left by the researchers and destroyed two $500 tents.
 
“It was an ironic circumstance that studying climate change issues for our shorebirds put us in harm’s way with climate change effects on polar bears,” said Zack. 
 

Image by Mark Maftei, WCS