Polar Studies

Polar regions are attracting more public, political, economic and scientific attention than ever before, with the role of tourism becoming increasingly recognised.. Tourism activities are still relatively new in polar settings with the role of tourism primarily seen as highly beneficial with a capacity to contribute to socio-economic development, especially in the Arctic. However, the growth in tourism is also regarded by some commentators as potentially damaging to the polar environments, especially when combined with the effects of climate change. Yet in order to understand future change it is important that past and present tourism numbers can be benchmarked. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the definitions and dimensions of tourism in polar regions and how the term polar tourism can be understood. The paper aims to define polar tourism in manner that is consistent with that of international tourism statistics in order to identify gaps in our knowledge base. Based on the existing statistics and overview of current levels of tourism in polar regions it is indicated that the number of visitors to high latitudes is already substantial, especially in the Arctic, and is continuing to grow.

Keywords: polar tourism, polar regions, Arctic, Antarctic, geopolitics

This is the submitted draft of the paper with tables but without the map figures. For the authoritative version of the paper please check the journal website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/15022250.html

Vanishing Ice introduces the rich artistic legacy of the planet's frozen frontiers now threatened by a changing climate. Tracing the impact of glaciers, icebergs, and fields of ice on artists' imaginations, this interdisciplinary survey explores the connections between generations of artists who adopt different styles, media, and approaches to interpret alpine and polar landscapes.

Beginning in the eighteenth century, collaborations between the arts and sciences contributed to a deeper understanding of snowcapped mountains, the Arctic, and Antarctica. A resurgence of interest in these environments as dramatic indicators of climate change galvanizes contemporary expeditions to the glaciers and the poles. Today, artists, writers, and scientists awaken the world to both the beauty and increasing vulnerability of ice.

BARBARA C. MATILSKY is curator of art at the Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, Washington. She is the author of numerous books, including Fragile Ecologies: Contemporary Artists' Interpretations and Solutions.

Non-state actors have been recognized with special statuses in environmental regimes for the protection of the polar regimes. On the southernmost continent, the private sector was successful for a long time to avoid regulation of tourism through the Antarctic Treaty System through self-regulation of the industry. In the Arctic, the role of indigenous peoples organizations and local governments was explicitly recognized in regional forums for cooperation with the establishment of innovative mechanisms for their participation. This state of play is however under growing pressure due to the increasing interest that both regions generates in the context of climate change.

In this timely new book, international scholars and military professionals come together to explore the strategic consequences of the thawing of the Arctic. Their analyses of efforts by governments and defense, security, and coast guard organizations to address these challenges make timely and urgent reading. Rather than a single national perspective, The Fast-Changing Arctic brings together circumpolar viewpoints from North America, Europe and Asia for an integrated discussion of strategic military, diplomatic, and security challenges in the high North. Thoughtful analyses are included of different regions, climate issues, institutions, and foreign and security policies. This is an important book for students of international studies, political science, and northern studies.

As a consequence of the current climate change, the polar areas, which are particularly vulnerable, are going through new environmental challenges. Indeed, the ice melting reveals new commercial opportunities for the exploitation of different natural resources but it also brings to light an issue for current international law, such as the need to adapt the law to properly protect the polar environment and ecosystems. According to a very different legal situation, the gap is wide between Arctic and Antarctic in terms of environmental protection, and the willingness of the States to satisfy its interests is difficult to reconcile with an efficient and global environmental protection. Thereby, some propositions have been made to improve the legal systems, but even if the protection of polar areas is considered as an emergency, the way might still be long to find the most sustainable legal system of protection.

This paper explores the relationship between tourism and the challenges of governance in the Arctic region. Recently, both political and academic interest in the Arctic has been on the rise as a result of the increasing geopolitical importance of the region. Changes of the climatic conditions and melting of the Arctic ice caps have resulted in increased access to the “world´s last wilderness”. The increased access and interest are contributing to a growing number of tourists visiting the North. As yearly arrivals continue to rise, a number of problematic issues need to be addressed. This paper reviews the main instruments relevant to the discussion of tourism currently employed in the governance of the Arctic, and critically evaluates the insufficiencies of the current legal framework for Arctic governance and regulation of tourism in the Arctic. It concludes that although tourism in the Arctic has a number of advantages, particularly for the indigenous populations, the current legal and regulatory framework in the region lacks the scope and authority to minimize the potential (and increasing) environmental, economic, and social risks associated with increased tourism and other human activity in the region.

In the early decades of the Soviet Union filmmakers sought to create a cinematic map of the new state by portraying its land and peoples on screen. These films – at the time referred to as kulturfilms – served as experimental grounds for developing the cinematic formulae of a multiethnic Soviet identity and developed multiple scenic, cultural and ethnographic modalities for showing the Soviet periphery. Screening Soviet Nationalities examines the non-fictional representations of Soviet borderlands from the Far North to the Northern Caucasus and Central Asia between 1925-1940. Beginning with Dziga Vertov and his vision of the Soviet space as a unified, multinational mosaic, Oksana Sarkisova rediscovers films by Vladimir Erofeev, Alexander Litvinov, Vladimir Shneiderov, Mikhail Slutskii, Amo Bek-Nazarov, Mikhail Kalatozov, Roman Karmen and other filmmakers who helped construct an image of Soviet ethnic diversity and left behind a lasting visual legacy.

The book contributes to our understanding of changing ethnographic conventions of representation, looks at representations of diversity despite the homogenizing ambitions of Soviet-driven modernity, and reexamines methods of blending reality and fiction as part of both ideological and educational agendas. Using a wealth of unexplored archival evidence, Sarkisova analyses constructions of exoticism, backwardness and a multinational Soviet space through these remarkable and underexplored historical travelogues.

This paper recovers the climatological dimension to the controversy that surrounded John Barrow's early Quarterly Review articles on the Arctic and uses this intervention as an entry point for an exploration of the link between polar ice and climate change in Romantic Britain. 1818 attacks on Barrow's “poetic” views of polar ice – attacks that M. W. Shelley's Frankenstein has been read as anticipating – drew on a well-established association of polar ice with visions of climate improvement such as that articulated in Erasmus Darwin's The Botanic Garden. In 1816, Darwinian faith in the ability of Europeans to combat a spreading “empire of ice” was severely tested by the climate crisis of the “year without a summer.” Newly urgent anxieties over the efficacy and wisdom of climate modification surface, I argue, not only in Barrow's Quarterly articles, but also in Shelley's Frankenstein, where Victor's and Walton's rhetoric allies their scientific projects to “poetic” schemes for climate improvement. Such problematic scientific interventions may, Frankenstein suggests, represent the only productive response to global catastrophe, but such schemes will be undermined by Europeans' unwillingness to embrace the cosmopolitanism of ecological crisis.

The notion of a polar gateway has been increasingly adopted in polar social science especially with respect to the role of tourism. The concept has usually been applied with respect to cities and ports that provide access to polar regions both for tourists and for the flow of resources. The paper provides a review and discussion of some of the main approaches used in conceptualising gateways in a polar context. In examining the concept of a gateway the paper draws on the historically significant role of economic and transport geography literature as a means of better understanding the importance of polar hubs and entrepôts. A review of some of the different usages of the gateway concept in polar literature is provided along with examples of the places referred to and context. The use of the concept raises significant issues of polar places and linkages to wider networks. It is concluded that a more empirically based approach to polar hubs would provide better categorisation and understanding of supposed polar gateways, including with respect to place competition and positionality in networks.

Keywords: polar gateway; tourism gateway; port; transport hub; transport network; place competition

The version here is the submitted manuscript. For the authoritative version please consult the journal website.

The article is devoted to reconstruction of the Polar Wander (i.e. changes of the rotation axis relative to the Earth’s surface) in the postglacial period based on studies of orientation of ancient cultic objects. The timespan covered by the article is 9th - 5th millennia BC. Evidence come from circular enclosures of Central Europe, whose orientation to sunrise and sunset at winter solstice makes it possible not only to determine direction to the pole, but also the ancient geographical latitude.

The presentation traces the recent establishment and development of the Nordic Network for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies (NIES). Having arisen initially out of the kindred, though largely distinct, scholarly discourses of ecocriticism and environmental history, the network soon developed a model of cross-cutting research cooperation spanning a wider and more heterogeneous constellation of subject areas, scholarly discourses and scientific domains. Responding to a widely perceived need for a more fully interdisciplinary field of environmental studies in the humanities, NIES has also become a meaningful vehicle for the organization of the environmental humanities in Northern Europe (the Nordic countries in particular). The network offers one noteworthy model for the further development of this emergent field in its emphasis on project-driven and increasingly team-organized collaborative research, as well as in its ambitions to promote the equitable engagement of scholars from the arts and humanities together with scientists from the social sciences and the natural sciences in the production of new knowledge pertaining to environment and society.  NIES’s distinctly integrative form of engagement in new initiatives of research, education and public outreach has been described, perhaps most aptly, as a _post-disciplinary_ approach to environmental studies.

Final draft of the concluding chapter for the book. Please note that the page number refer to pages on the draft manuscript not the final authoritative version of the paper that will be in the book.

Please see the Routledge Geography website: http://routledgegeography.com/books/Tourism-and-Change-in-Polar-Regions-isbn9780415489997

Cold regions, including high-latitude and high-altitude landscapes, are experiencing profound environmental changes driven by global warming. With the advance of earth observation technology, remote sensing has become increasingly important for detecting, monitoring, and understanding environmental changes over vast and remote regions. This paper provides an overview of recent achievements, challenges, and opportunities for land remote sensing of cold regions by (a) summarizing the physical principles and methods in remote sensing of selected key variables related to ice, snow, permafrost, water bodies, and vegetation; (b) highlighting recent environmental nonstationarity occurring in the Arctic, Tibetan Plateau, and Antarctica as detected from satellite observations; (c) discussing the limits of available remote sensing data and approaches for regional monitoring; and (d) exploring new opportunities from next-generation satellite missions and emerging methods for accurate, timely, and multi-scale mapping of cold regions.

The European Union’s (EU’s) intention of becoming a permanent observer in the Arctic Council and the reluctance of Arctic actors to grant it that status have made the union’s aspirations in the Arctic the subject of a continuing debate. The discussion appears to be dominated by geographical considerations and the EU’s gradually emerging Arctic policy. This article puts forward a different view of the EU’s presence in the region, one drawing on an analysis of relevant EU competences. As a complex international actor, the EU has acquired a broad array of decisionmaking powers from its member states, powers that partly extend to Iceland and Norway via the EEA Agreement.
Moreover, the EU has in many cases become a relevant actor in international negotiations and treaty making processes the outcomes of which are of crucial importance for the governance of the Arctic. Our argument in the third and concluding section is that only by including the EU in Arctic governance can the international community provide better prospects for the union to sensitise its policies and discourses to the Arctic realities and for other Arctic actors to understand how the union functions. This argument is supported by an analysis of the EU’s restrictions on the import of seal products and the ensuing litigation.

Microplastics are increasingly recognized as being globally widespread, but relatively little is known about the presence and abundance of microplastics in samples collected in Polar Regions. Here we review the current knowledge about microplastic occurrence and distribution in polar environments, with a particular focus on the relevance of the data and comparability between Arctic and Antarctic investigations. In the Arctic, microplastics have been found in seawater, marine sediments, ice, and snow and in the gut content of several species at different trophic levels. Antarctica is still, by far, the least affected region by human activity than anywhere else in the world, and the few studies carried out in this region find microplastics at very low concentrations. Studies focusing on microplastic threats to key species of Arctic and Antarctic marine food webs are urgently needed as are coordinated long-term studies on microplastic pollution, which are mandatory to follow the temporal trend of human impact in these remote regions.

In the middle decades of the 19th century, explorers and scientists fell in love with the theory of the "open polar sea" which claimed that open water existed at the top of the world. Historians have not been kind to proponents of this theory, viewing them as wishful thinkers at best and unscrupulous schemers at worst. These views do not capture the strength of the theory’s arguments or its range of influence. The open polar sea theory’s appeal was multifaceted, sustained not only by wild-eyed optimists and polar enthusiasts but also by serious scholars who felt that it offered the key to a hydrographic
system of the world.

In this chapter, we examine recent evolutions in Arctic governance and opportunities to strengthen sustainable development through the implementation of relevant principles. We begin by analyzing the current situation, in particular the role of the Arctic Council and its relations with both indigenous people organizations and non-Arctic states. We then consider the role that the Council plays to promote ecosystem based ocean management in the region and make the case for a strengthening of the implementation of a precautionary approach to the Arctic Ocean.

The Coldest Crucible takes up the story of Arctic exploration in the United States from 1850 to 1910. During this time, “Arctic fever” swept the nation as dozens of American adventurers sailed north to the Arctic to find a sea route to Asia, and ultimately, to stand at the North Pole. Few missions were successful and many men lost their lives en route. Yet failure did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the new explorers or the crowds that cheered them on. How explorers came to see exploration as meaningful work – so meaningful that they risked, and sometimes lost, their lives – is the question at the heart of Coldest Crucible. Arctic exploration, I argue, was an activity that unfolded in America as much as it did in the wintry hinterland.

The economic and political importance of the Arctic has grown
considerably in recent decades, and the region’s role and visibility in
tourism has also significantly increased. The idea of Arctic tourism
has been discussed in academia for a long time, but there is no
consensus on the definition of the concept. This review paper aims
to discuss different perspectives on tourism in the Arctic by utilizing
literature and selected examples. The outlined perspectives are
spatial, produced and experienced Arctic tourism. They are
interrelated and, thus, partly complementary, but they can also
challenge each other. The perspectives demonstrate different ways
to approach and understand various characteristics of Arctic tourism
and diversity in tourism in the Arctic. All perspectives of the Arctic in
tourism involve both benefits and limitations when thinking about
what Arctic tourism is and what it involves. The paper concludes that
there is a need to acknowledge the diversity of the Arctic as a
changing idea and a geographical region in and for tourism. By
acknowledging this, the Arctic would not be characterized mainly by
static or external views in tourism but also by internal needs,
knowledge, dynamics and concerns for sustainable tourism
development in the region.

Any third-party material in this book is published under the book's Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to re-use any third-party material not covered by the book's Creative Commons license, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. ISBN: 978-1-78735-663-4 (Hbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-662-7 (Pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-661-0 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-78735-664-1 (epub) ISBN: 978-1-78735-665-8 (mobi)

Основной вопрос, на который отвечает автор статьи: возможно ли существование постмодернистского детектива в ситуации жанрового и стилевого плюрализма? Какие основные различия постмодернистского детектива от классических образцов жанра, возникших в эпистемологическом поле модернистской культуры? На примере функции "переписывания" (réécriture) показаны пути жанровой трансформации от классического детектива к постмодернистскому в разных национальных литературах.

The study ―Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment‖ aims to improve the effectiveness of EU environmental policies with respect to the Arctic region. The study will undertake an assessment of the EU‘s current footprint on the Arctic environment and evaluate how it could change over time. The effectiveness of the EU‘s current environment-related policies will also be analysed, including how these policies relate to current and future footprint scenarios. Options for improving EU policy will also be developed. The ―Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment‖ is an initiative of the European Commission, DG Environment under contract EuropeAid/128561/C/SER/Multi. Ecologic Institute leads the project team, which includes three additional institutes: the Arctic Centre, SERI and Stockholm Environment Institute. The analysis and ideas put forward in this report are entirely the responsibility of the contractors and do not necessarily reflect the views of DG Environment.

Within the context of the post-Cold War period, rising power states have developed new regional and global interests, including with respect to Antarctica. In this paper, we analyse the role of Antarctica within Brazil’s rising power strategy, defined in terms of the foreign policy, defence strategy, and science and technology goals promoted by its policy elites. Focusing on the past decade, we find that Antarctica has gained greater visibility in all three aspects of Brazil’s rising power strategy. Regionally, Antarctica has become an important element within Brazil’s new defence policy for the South Atlantic region, as well as a way for Brazil to enhance cooperation with other South American states. In terms of its global ambitions, becoming a more active player within the Antarctic Treaty System is seen as a way for Brazil to participate more directly in debates with global reach. Finally, Antarctic research is viewed as a promising component of Brazil’s efforts to boost its science and technology capacity, and therefore its socio-economic development and competitiveness. In attaining these goals, Brazil faces a number of hurdles that became more evident after a 2012 fire destroyed most of its Antarctic base, although reconstruction efforts have produced new dynamics of cooperation, domestically and internationally.

The Arctic and sub-Arctic are increasingly subject to environmental change. A important component of such change is biological invasion in which tourism and related transport is increasingly significant. The expansion of the cruise ship and marine expedition market poses substantial threats as a potential vector of invasive species. The study examines cruise operators in the Arctic and high-latitude North Atlantic. Many operators are not members of the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO). An analysis is provided of the environmental and biosecurity communications of cruise operators in the region to identify if appropriate information to reduce the likelihood of biological invasion is being provided to consumers. It is concluded that the great variability in information suggests a significant gap in the biosecurity regime for the region.

Keywords: polar regions; polar conservation; biological invasion; Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators; codes of conduct; environmental guidelines


This is a first draft plus table 3 is missing (in different format). Please consult journal website for authoritative copy.

In this chapter we focus on the relationship between typological thought and the construction of official histories or master narratives. We understand that classifications and exclusions structure a way of looking at the past which is accepted as true, rarely questioned and assumed as representative of a whole. In this work we discuss the role of narratives and of archaeological materials in the construction of the master narratives about Antarctica. At the same time, we propose to challenge forms of typological thought that obscures plurality and presents a homogeneous past. Our perspective proposes, within archaeology, to make explicit the artificial nature of categorizations and established orderings, generating new analytical proposals and forms of knowledge. We maintain that, through the analysis of material culture, it is possible to question and to reconstruct the official history, offering alternative pasts and histories. This challenge implies also the inclusion of new actors or protagonists, which are the subdued groups made invisible in the official history of Antarctica.
The Antarctica was the last continent to be incorporated to the space dominated by modernity. Its official discovery, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, marks the beginning of a history that presents certain particularities, not only in its content, but also in the way that it is usually told. Some versions of this history are more extensively distributed and known then others, as well as being more widely accepted. We understand that recurrences—in form and in content—construct and structure the master narratives of Antarctica. They reinforce the definition and the classification of aspects, moments, events, and processes within this history, the selection of certain elements over others and an ordering that gives it meaning. In other words, the narratives do not limit themselves to what is told or to the manner of telling. Instead, they are a form of conceptualizing history. What is told and how it is told “create” one (the) history. As archaeologists, we must ask: what is the role of archaeological material in the construction and reproduction of this history?"

The paper examines the process and context of international efforts to designate MPAs in the Southern Ocean. The relationship between the CAMLR Convention and the Madrid Protocol is examined in relation to legal, political and administrative norms and practices. A contextual overview of the Antarctic marine protected area system is considered followed by overlapping competencies of CCAMLR and the Madrid Protocol. The Antarctic MPA debate is placed in a wider international legal context of the management of global oceans space in areas beyond national jurisdiction. We provide an analysis of the politico-legal discourse and point to complicating factors within, and external to, the Antarctic system. The concluding section suggests options for breathing new life into the Southern Ocean MPA discourse

Archaeological research - focused on the presence of 19th-century sealers in the South Shetland Islands- has been developing for decades and strategies have come forth recently which are aimed at preserving the broad richness and diversity of the material remains associated with these occupations. However, we find that there are both conceptual and practical limitations to achieving this conservation.

This paper refers to these limitations and their possible origin as well as  it proposes an active role for historical and archaeological research in setting the agenda for the conservation of the Antarctic cultural heritage. This paper consists of two parts. In Part I, the possible origin of the conceptual and practical limitations has been explored by analyzing the scope of the Antarctic Heritage at present. In Part II the contributions of Historical Archeology to the knowledge on sealers are presented in order to show the potential of Historical Archaeology and the need for it to have a more active role in setting the agenda.
""

Americans crowded newsstands in early 1910 to read Robert Peary's firsthand account of his expedition to the North Pole. As they read " The Discovery of the North Pole, " serialized exclusively in Hampton's Magazine, few knew that this harrowing , hypermasculine tale was really crafted by New York poet Elsa Barker. Bark-er's authorship of the North Pole story put her at the center of a large community of explorers, writers, patrons, and fans who were taken with Arctic exploration as much for its national symbolism as for its thrilling tales. The fact that Barker was a woman made her ascent into elite expeditionary circles remarkable. Yet this essay argues that it was also representative: women shaped the ideas and practices of manly exploration at home as well as in the field. Peary's dependence upon women writers, patrons, and audiences came at a time when explorers were breaking away from their traditional base of support: male scientific networks that had promoted their expeditions since the 1850s. Despite the " go-it-alone " ideals of their expedition accounts, explorers adopted masculine roles shaped by the world around them: by the growing influence of women writers, readers, and lecture-goers and, simultaneously , by the declining influence of traditional scientific peers and patrons. Barker and Peary's story, then, reveals a new fault line that opened up between scientists and explorers in the late nineteenth century over the issue of manliness, a fault line still largely uncharted in historical scholarship. When American explorer Robert Peary took the podium at the Eighth International Geographic Congress in 1904, he addressed an audience well aware of the new competitive spirit of polar exploration. " There is no higher, purer field of rivalry than this Arctic and Antarctic quest, " he told the Congress. The rivalry was there for all to see. The audience was filled with polar experts as well as Peary's personal rivals, men who had fielded expeditions to the polar regions over the previous twenty years. By the beginning of the twentieth century, polar exploration had become a new form of geopo-litical theater, an expression of what political scientist Joseph S. Nye would later call " soft power " that attracted the attentions

Geotourism has achieved considerable prominence since the early 1990s as a means conserving geological and geological heritage. However, most accounts of the effects of geotourism are at a site-specific level while interpretation tends to focus on deep geological time rather than the Anthropocene. This restriction in consideration of time and space has meant that the broader effects of geotourism related travel throughout the tourism system have been ignored, along with the potential role of climate change in affecting geosites and attractions. These issues are discussed with respect to the paradoxes of geotourism in polar regions with the polar cryospheric environment being both threatened by climate change yet simultaneously becoming more accessible and attractive to tourists. The article concludes that, like any form of tourism, geotourism needs to be understood within the broader context of tourism and physical systems rather than in isolation in order to fully access its contribution to geoconservation.

Mots-clés: Geotourism, climate change, tourism system, emissions, polar tourism

Please note that this copy is a draft. For the authoritative version please consult the journal website.

""Place branding and marketing has become essential for the promotion of tourist destinations. Yet despite the significance of environmental attributes for place branding there is surprisingly little research on the impacts of climate change on place brand values. The paper examines these issues with respect to the development of Santa related place myths in high-latitude place branding strategies and highlights the way in which the Santa place myth is built on the social construction of Santa’s winter home replete with snow, pine trees and reindeer. The imagined country of Christmas is therefore regarded as extremely susceptible to climate change and while some locations seek to guarantee snow security to tourists others may be more marginal. The paper therefore concludes that from a tourism marketing and planning standpoint it is essential that the immaterial dimensions of destination promotion, such as place branding, require as much attention with respect to the effects of climate change as do the material.

Key words: place competition, authenticity, environmental change, Father Christmas, Christmas tourism, Finland, Rovaneimi, North Pole

Please note that this was the submitted version which was later reduced in size at the behest of the journal. For the authoritative version please consult the journal website: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15022250.2014.886101#.Uxemt15EwmU."

This book serves as an insightful ethnographic introduction to the language and oral traditions of the Inugguit, a sub-group of the Inuit who live in north-west Greenland. A unique work, it encompasses an overview of the grammar of Polar Eskimo – a language spoken by about 770 people – as well as a description of their oral traditions (drum-dancing and story-telling) and the most extensive glossary of the language compiled to date. The book presents the Polar Eskimo language in the orthography established by the author in conjunction with the local community in Greenland, an extremely difficult task for a language made up of such an aberrant phonology and with no written tradition. By exploring their ways of speaking and ways of belonging, Leonard provides an original ethnographic interpretation of the nature of Inugguit social organization and their world-view. Some Ethnolinguistic Notes on Polar Eskimo will serve as an invaluable resource for linguists who specialise in the Eskimo-Aleut group and will be of much interest to anthropologists working in the Arctic region

Established in 1979 as Home Rule and replaced in 2009 as self-government, the Greenlandic Inuit have developed the most advanced form of self-government. Concerning the status of the Greenlandic Inuit, this process of nation-state building may have an influence on being indigenous. The focus of this article is to answer the question of how indigenous peoples are affected by the existing relations of power and domination in a world polity. Taking the continued permission to hunt whales of the Greenlandic Inuit as an example, the article will demonstrate that Greenlanders adopt the projected images of otherness as their own because of the fear of losing the rights exclusively reserved for indigenous peoples. The early and later versions of a working paper by an international group of experts commissioned by the Greenlandic self-government illustrate the debate about the cultural self-images in Greenland. While the narration of the Greenlandic Inuit as indigenous peoples secures rights in international fora, a second narration of a collective identity of a small Nordic nation emerges and is discussed. The later version of the working paper emphasizes Greenland‘s indigenous status. The analysis shows the authority of global models since the categories of world polity dominate discourses on the cultural collective identity of the Greenlandic Inuit.

Late Cretaceous fossils from the Chatham Islands, New Zealand, represent an important high palaeolatitude (~70–80°S) flora. Located between eastern and western Gondwana, and prior to  Late Cretaceous continental break-up, these plants grew during a period of global greenhouse climates. Macrofloral remains of the Tupuangi Formation, Pitt Island, accumulated in a deltaic floodplain setting with plant material occurring on well developed, hydromorphic soil horizons or entrained in sediments overlying the soils. The macroflora includes a rich angiosperm–conifer–Ginkgo flora with subsidiary ferns, lycophytes and bryophytes. The components of the assemblage described herein include those of probable cryptogam affinity, and comprise one thalloid liverwort, one leafy moss (Muscites gracilis sp. nov.), one lycopod shoot, and three taxa of pteridophytic affinity, including a fern of probable osmundalean affinity (Cladophlebis auriculipilosus sp. nov.). The floral assemblage shares only one element with coeval localities across the Southern Hemisphere (Sphenopteris sp. cf. Sphenopteris warragulensis), and is characterised by relatively lowfern diversity. The unique assemblage is attributed, at least in part, to ecological bias associated with local deltaic depositional settings. However, the relatively low osmundalean fern component
follows global floristic trends for the Mid-Cretaceous, which saw a decline in diversity and abundance of ferns during the early phases of angiosperm diversification and rise to ecological dominance.

Abstract
The Southern Ocean has been an isolated ecosystem since the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar current over 30 million years ago.  Exhibiting extraordinarily stable, cold conditions, it provides a uniquely challenging habitat for the organisms which dwell there.  Because of the low temperatures within the thermal barrier created by the meeting of the cold waters of the Polar Frontal Zone, and the temperate waters further north, the fauna of this region have evolved unique adaptations to contend with the extreme conditions in evidence.
The fish fauna is dominated by a single taxonomic group, the Notothenioidei which have evolved, through adaptive radiation to occupy every level of the water column, from benthic through to pelagic.  The most diverged family in this group is the Channichthyidae, or Antarctic icefish, which are unique among vertebrates in that they lack the oxygen carrying metalloprotein haemoglobin.  Channichthyidae have evolved many adaptations to compensate for this deficiency: increased blood volumes, higher capillary and mitochondrial density, high stroke volume and a hypertrophied heart to name but a few.
A member of the family Channichthyidae, Champsocephalus gunnari was studied to ascertain levels of population connectivity and larval source of origin in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Scotia Sea using microsatellite analysis.  Data from adult samples caught at Shag Rocks, South Georgia, South Orkney, Elephant Island and Dallman Bay was analysed, along with data from larval samples caught in Cumberland East Bay off the north east coast of South Georgia.  Through this analysis it was determined that there is little genetic connectivity between the samples caught in the more southerly locations (South Orkney, Dallman Bay, Elephant Island), and those caught further north (Shag Rocks, South Georgia).  The majority of the larval samples analysed demonstrated that their source populations were to be found in the north, with only a few showing genetic similarities to the more southerly sampling sites.
With the Southern Ocean experiencing some of the highest rates of regional warming on the planet, it is vital to understand the processes governing the functioning of this unique ecosystem, and the changes taking place in response to increasing temperature.  Interpretation of these modifications in an isolated environment, where changes are occurring at a relatively fast pace, should be informative in understanding the possible effects of climate change in the future, both locally, and on a global scale.

Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland is the self-proclaimed ‘official home of Santa Claus.’ However, in recent years, after several warm and snowless season starts, Christmas tourism businesses have expressed concern about the future of the region's winter tourism industry. This paper examines the challenges of winter tourism operators to adapt to changing environmental conditions by surveying the responses of tourists to potential changes in winter conditions. In the light of climate change projections, maintaining the attractive image of a snow-covered winter wonderland may become impossible. Results indicate that tourists react negatively to estimated changes and planned adaptation mechanisms. This situation may force tourism entrepreneurs and destination managers to reconsider the consequences of current adaptation strategies and develop new attractions and marketing strategies in order to attract new markets and/or rebrand the destination.

(file is a copy of uncorrected proofs),please  see Tourism Geographies website for the authoritative version

In this article we survey descriptions of Christmas celebrations contained in the diaries and narratives of polar explorers (mostly British) from 1818 to 1912. We find that Christmas was a time almost universally associated with the display of positive emotions, although this was in the context of increased amounts of stress associated with the challenges of over-wintering at high latitudes. Firstly, we argue that Christmas was crucial to the well-being of expedition participants because it opened emotional channels that enabled them to cope with stress. Secondly, we argue that Christmas revealed a play space in which certain types of normally deviant behaviour were welcomed. Thirdly, we argue that Christmas was a major nutritional event for over-wintering crew members, satisfying a need for calories that was rarely met in the everyday rations.

The South American temperate and sub-Antarctic forests cover the longest latitudinal range in the Southern Hemisphere and include the world's southernmost forests. However, until now, this unique biome has been absent from global ecosystem research and monitoring networks.

This paper aimed to overview the interaction of the thunderstorm with the ionospheric electric fields during major geomagnetic storms in Antarctica through the GPS tropospheric delays. For the purpose of study, geomagnetic activity and electric fields data for the period from 13 to 21 March 2015 representing the St. Patrick's Day storm is analyzed. To strengthen the analysis, data for the period of 27 October to 1 st November 2003 representing for the Halloween storm is also compared. Our analysis showed that both geomagnetic storms were severe (Ap ≥ 100 nT), where the intensity of Halloween storm is double compared to St. Patrick's Day storm. For the ionospheric electric field, the peaks were dropped to-1.63 mV/m and-2.564 mV/m for St. Patrick and Halloween storms, respectively. At this time, the interplanetary magnetic field Bz component was significantly dropped to-17.31 nT with Ap > 150 nT (17 March 2015 at 19:20 UT) and-26.51 nT with Ap = 300 nT (29 October 2003 at 19:40 UT). For both geomagnetic storms, the electric field was correlated well with the ionospheric activity where tropospheric delays show a different characteristic. 1. Introduction Characterization the cause-effect mechanisms driving the formation and evolution of middle and the coupling between the upper and the lower levels of the atmosphere is challenging task. The physical mechanism on how the ionospheric activities interact directly or indirectly to troposphere is still not clear. It is well known theoretically that the high latitude ionosphere-troposphere contains the footprints of processes that have their origin in the planetary space. Many different techniques are now available for probing the ionosphere-troposphere, from radar measurements to the analysis of radio propagation noise. Among them the use of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements allows to describe the 3D plus time evolution of the ionospheric plasma and water vapor over restricted regions [1,2]. Mathematical techniques combined with experimental observations provide the ability to study the ionosphere from high in the F-region to the lower atmosphere. Thus the coupling processes between the magnetosphere and the neutral atmosphere can be approximated. Therefore, the possible linkages between solar phenomena, solar-induced interplanetary disturbances, the magnetospheric state and the chemistry of the middle and lower terrestrial atmosphere have been explored over the years with intent to separate natural variations from the anthropogenic forcing [3]. However, a solar influence on water vapor over Antarctica during the intense magnetospheric disturbance [2] found that the coupling between the upper and lower levels of the atmosphere is less sensitive enough to sense the coupling process. In fact, there are many phenomena occurs from the ionosphere to the lower atmosphere such as precipitation events, including water vapor distribution, formation of clouds and aerosols and the chemistry of the lower atmosphere [3], formation of polar stratospheric clouds, lightning and atmospheric electricity [4], and a long-lived trace gas in the mesosphere provides a possibility atmospheric motion and drags as well as hazard material detection during active weather. In this sense, global electric circuit is identified as a possible physical mechanism for the coupling process. Lightning and thunderstorm activity, as related to global electric circuit plays an important role in the coupling between Earth's lower atmosphere and the ionosphere [5]. Thunderstorm activity has an effect on the E-sporadic layer and the global electric circuits are shown to be organized by lightning phenomena over the geomagnetic equator. Global thunderstorm charge ionosphere and current returns

China seeks to promote global exchanges through the "Polar Silk Road," which is a component of the Belt and Road Initiative that facilitates China's direct access to Western Europe. This paper presents the new Chinese framework that proposes a shared governance of the commons of the Arctic Ocean (sea lanes, fisheries, and mining) just when the European Union is calling for greater climate and environ- mental accountability in the Arctic Ocean.