The Polar Information Commons (PIC) will be launched 8th June, 16.15h. Booth C04-07, IPY Oslo Conference 2010

The Polar Information Commons, to be officially launched at the IPY Oslo Science Conference on 8 June, aims to ensure that the IPY data legacy and polar science data more generally are openly accessible and safely preserved for future generations for the benefit of science and society as a whole. Building on the precedent set by the Antarctic Treaty, the PIC is an open access information resource about the Earth's polar regions managed by the polar science and data community and accessible to all.

Steven Chown, recipient of the Martha T. Muse award, Director of the Centre for Invasion Biology and a Professor in the Department of Botany and Zoology at Stellenbosch University, will participate in the launch as the PIC's first official user. For details on the event, please see: http://www.polarcommons.org/pic-launch-oslo-june-8-2010.php

See how to:

- Label your data as PIC data 
- Place your data in the PIC Cloud
- Find and retrieve data from the PIC Cloud
- Search the Antarctic Master Directory (AMD) for PIC data

For general information on PIC: http://www.polarcommons.org/

Members of the PIC Committee and relevant stakeholders to date:

Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), an Interdisciplinary body of the International Council for Science, ICSU, working with its partners, the International Arctic Science Council (IASC); the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR); the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG); the World Meteorological Organization (WMO); the IPY International Program Office (IPY IPO); the ICSU World Data System Scientific Committee (WDS-SC), Science Commons, the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences

We look forward to celebrating PIC's birthday with you!

Contact for PIC: Robert Chen, Secretary General CODATA, bchen@ciesin.columbia.edu

Map your IPY projects and institutions online and at the IPY conference in Oslo!

This Tuesday the IPY project mapping tool will be launched, which allows institutions and individual researchers to enter information about their projects in the circumpolar region in a geographic way. The online database is publicly available and shows the reach and extent of International Polar Year 2007 - 2008 activities.

Please click on the banner to the right, where you will be redirected to the map website, or alternatively log in your information on a computer at the UNEP/GRID-Arendal & UArctic space at the Polar Information Commons (PIC) during the Oslo Conference!