This publication describes the education and research in polar studies carried out by institutions in Tromsø during the last year.

Former Vice President Al Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre presented their global report on melting ice at a side event of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15) 14 December.

A kick-off workshop for the new project AMORA was recently arranged in Shanghai at the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC). AMORA stands for "Advancing Modelling and Observing solar Radiation of Arctic sea-ice - understanding changes and processes" and is funded by the Research Council of Norway.

Scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute and the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) have investigated the amount of pesticides in the snow in Svalbard. Read about their findings here.

In March 2009, Norway hosted a meeting in Tromsø for the Contracting Parties to the 1973 Polar Bear Agreement. The final report from the meeting is now available.

A British tourist visiting Svalbard made an uncommon observation and managed to take a picture of it; a polar bear cub riding on its mother's back.

The International Polar Year (IPY) is over, but the activity continues. An international polar week is arranged in early October, focusing on recruiting new individual and institutional partners, stimulating increased engagement by polar partners, and highlighting classroom activities developed for the new IPY Polar Resource Book.

The book Ecosystem Barents Sea has now been published in English on Tapir Academic Press, Trondheim, Norway. Many researchers and managers at the Norwegian Polar Institute have contributed to the chapters in this book.

The current climate models do not predict an ice-free Arctic for another 50 to 100 years, but observations show that melting of the sea ice is accelerating. Why are none of the models able to describe this rapid change? Melt ponds on the sea ice in summer may be part of the explanation.

The outlook for arctic sea ice in September 2009, based on July data, indicates a continuation of low pan-arctic sea ice extent and no indication that a return to historical levels will occur.