Temperature and precipitation series from Svalbard for the period 1912–2000 were analysed. There was a statistically significant warming from 1912 to the 1930s, a cooling from the 1930s to the 1960s and a warming from the 1960s to present. There was a positive trend in the annual mean temperature during the period 1912–2000, but it was not statistically significant. Spring was the only season when a statistically significant warming was found. For precipitation, statistically significant positive trends during the period 1912–2000 were found on an annual basis and in all seasons except winter. Empirical downscaling was applied on the results from a global climate model to produce scenarios for monthly temperature and precipitation in Svalbard. The 2 m temperature was applied as predictor for temperature. For precipitation, a combination of temperature and sea-level pressure was used. The temperature scenario indicates a warming of about 1°C per decade in winter, and 0.3°C per decade in summer from 1961 to 2050. The projected increase in annual mean temperature is about five times the average warming rate from 1912 to present, and highly significant. The precipitation scenario also indicates that precipitation will increase significantly until 2050. The maximum increase was projected in spring precipitation; however, the trends in seasonal precipitation are quite uncertain.

This is the first in a series of biographies entitled ‘Children of the Golden Age’, the purpose of which is to describe the background and contributions of a number of significant living figures in polar research, all of whom began their scientific careers and earned their Antarctic spurs in the years following World War II. Bernard Stonehouse was born in Hull on 1 May 1926. Joining the Royal Navy in 1944, he trained as a pilot, and in 1946–50 served as meteorologist, second pilot, dog-sledger, and ultimately biologist with the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, mainly from Base E, Stonington Island, Antarctic Peninsula. His first biological investigation was a winter study of breeding emperor penguins. Returning to Britain in 1950 he read zoology and geology at University College, London. Doctoral research at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology and Merton College, Oxford, involved an 18-month field study of king penguins on South Georgia. Between 1960 and 1968, as senior lecturer, later reader, in zoology, at University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, he continued Antarctic and sub-Antarctic research in McMurdo Sound and on the New Zealand southern islands. A Commonwealth Research Fellowship at the University of British Columbia, 1970–71, gave him opportunities for research in the Yukon. After developing undergraduate and postgraduate studies in environmental science at the University of Bradford, 1972–83, he joined the Scott Polar Research Institute as editor of Polar Record, thereafter forming the Institute's Polar Ecology and Management Group, and heading a long-term study on the ecological impacts of polar tourism. At SPRI he continues to combine the two factors that have always played an important part in his life: working in polar regions and communicating with the general public on issues of biology, the environment, and conservation.

By an agreement in 1839, the Hudson's Bay Company and the Russian American Company established a framework for co-operation in their activities in Alaska and adjacent areas of Canada that lasted until the 1860s. The signatories to the agreement were George Simpson and Ferdinand von Wrangell. These men were prominent in the management of the co-operation and this was facilitated by their mutual trust and friendship. An examination of their correspondence affords insights into business methods in a cross-cultural environment in the mid-nineteenth century, and into the extent to which their personal relations influenced major decisions in economics and politics with regard to the areas of activity of both companies.

This article is concerned with the knowledge of sea ice as developed and transmitted by the Inuit of Igloolik (Nunavut, Canada). The information on which this article is based was obtained from travelling, observation, and interviewing carried out from October 2000 to May 2001 in Igloolik, as well as several existing interviews from the Igloolik Oral History Project database. Inuit knowledge of sea ice reveals a deep understanding of the complex relationships between ice, currents, the Moon, and the winds, as well as a holistic approach to knowledge where classification based on a western scientific approach becomes difficult, if not counter-productive. Through detailed knowledge of ice topography, sea ice becomes a familiar territory for the Inuit of Igloolik, and, through the understanding of the ‘codes’ of the moving ice, its changing nature becomes predictable. This article does not pretend to give a full account of a system of knowledge the understanding of which requires a lifetime of practice and observation. However, it describes some of its elements and offer some insights regarding this complex aspect of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (Inuit knowledge, also known as IQ).

The responses of Betula pubescens Ehr. (European white birch), B. pendula Roth (silver birch) and two provenances of Pinus sylvestris L. (Scots pine) to solar ultraviolet (UV < 400 nm) radiation were investigated in a UV-exclusion field experiment during the 1997–99 growing seasons in Finnish Lapland (68°N). The seedlings were grown from seed under UV-B exclusion (a clear polyester filter) and UV-B/UV-A exclusion (a clear acrylic plate) as compared to control treatment (a polyethene filter) and ambient plants (no plastic filter). The mean daily maximum solar biologically effective UV-B irradiance (UV-BE) was 88 mW m-2, 68 mW m-2, and 91 mW m-2 for 1997, 1998, and 1999. A number of growth and biomass variables, PSII (Photosystem II) efficiency, and total concentration of nitrogen were recorded during and/or at the end of the experiment. Exposure (191 d) to solar UV radiation over three growing seasons did not cause many statistically significant UV effects in the growth or biomass of the seedlings. The only significant impacts of UV exclusion were found in P. sylvestris provenance Enontekiö. During the first growing season, the UVB/ UV-A exclusion treatment significantly accelerated the height increment (18–20%) off. sylvestris, and in the same seedlings, the UV-B exclusion treatment resulted in significantly increased dry weight of one-year-old needles (45–57%) after the second growing season. These UV impacts could not be seen at the end of the experiment or in any other species. The low concentration of N in current foliage was related to increased dry weight, but not to solar UV radiation (control vs UV exclusion). The present study indicated that solar UV radiation had limited, but sometimes transient, impacts on the growth of tree seedlings in the sub-Arctic. Longer-term field studies are needed, however, in order to detect the cumulative characteristics of the UV responses.

A claim that there are substantial discrepancies between direct observations of the Antarctic sea-ice edge and the implicit sea-ice edge derived from whaling records is rebutted. The claimeddiscrepancies are shown to arise largely from comparing the two types of information from different dates. A date-corrected comparison shows generally good agreement between the southernmost limit of whaling and the most comprehensive of the early monthly ice charts of Antarctica. The remaining apparent discrepancies are accounted for either by very limited data or the complex nature of the ice edge in the region of the Weddell ice tongue. Correlation of the southernmost limits of whaling with direct observations of the ice edge provides the most powerful calibration of the relationship between them

The Arctic plays an important role in controlling the Earth's climate and ocean circulation. Studies of past climate conditions in high latitudes are important to understand this role more precisely. Clay mineralogy of sediments was detected to be comparative with cyclic changes in climatic conditions during the past 0.8 Ma in the northernmost Atlantic-Arctic gateway (Ocean Drilling Program, Site 911). Clay minerals are transported by sea ice, icebergs, glaciofluvially, or by ocean currents. Smectite is assumed to be transported predominantly during interglacial periods. Its content decreases from about 0.4 Ma to the present, which may indicate lesser eroded smectite in the provenance area, assumed to be mostly in the Laptev Sea. Illite is due to erosion from Svalbard during glacial periods, and shows a negative correlation with smectite. Chlorite is not a good climate indicator because of its high frequency in the northern regions. Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa (Franz Josef Land) is the most likely source area of kaolinite and the output seems to have slightly increased from 0.5 to 0.4 Ma. The correlation of kaolinite and chlorite means coincidental sedimentation. Kaolinite and chlorite are negatively correlated with illite, which indicates transportation during the more open ocean conditions that prevailed between repeated Pleistocene glaciations.

The Russian northeast Siberian expedition (1820–24) is generally associated with Ferdinand von Wrangell. However, although Wrangell was the overall leader of the expedition, it actually consisted of two groups, with Peter Anjou in command of the Ust'-Yansk group. Anjou'sexpeditionnotes, asopposed to Wrangell's, have not been published, and for that reason he is little known. However, the results of his expedition are well comparable to Wrangell's.

This is the second in a series of biographies entitled ‘Children of the Golden Age,’ the purpose of which is to describe the background and contributions of significant living figures in polar research who began their scientific careers in the years following World War II. Born on 17 November 1926 in Burma, Charles Winthrop Molesworth Swithinbank attended Bryanston School in Dorset before joining the Royal Navy in 1944. He read geography at the University of Oxford and was named assistant glaciologist for the Norwegian-British-Swedish Expedition (1949–52). After completing his DPhil, he joined the Scott Polar Research Institute, where he studied ice distribution in the Northwest Passage. Moving to the University of Michigan (1959–63), he led three expeditions to the Ross Ice Shelf before becoming the first British exchange scientist with the Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1963–65). Returning to the Scott Polar Research Institute, he developed a glaciological programme that led to his appointment as chief glaciologist of the British Antarctic Survey. He became head of the Earth Sciences Division in 1974, a post he held until his retirement in 1986. Swithinbank's contributions to Antarctic science include studies of the deformation, flow, and thickness of glaciers and the interpretation of satellite imagery. He served as president of the International Glaciological Society (1981–84) and has received a number of honours and awards.