Despite five difficult and distinguished scientific expeditions to Svalbard and Franz Josef Land between 1871 and 1882, the British yachtsman and explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith published no detailed account of his expeditions. Best known for a dramatic shipwreck at Cape Flora in Franz Josef Land in 1881, his early work in Svalbard — particularly his first effort when he developed the Arctic voyaging and scientific techniques he would employ on his subsequent expeditions — has received scant attention. In the summer of 1871, Leigh Smith launched the first of three consecutive annual geographic and oceanographic explorations of Svalbard. His unpublished 1871 journal details his growing appreciation of and expertise in the European high Arctic; corrects misstatements in later accounts of this first effort; details his exploration of Hinlopenstretet and the discovery and naming of Brochøya, Foynøya, and 31 other points in northeast Svalbard; and offers glimpses of an explorer who kept his personality well-hidden behind pioneering oceanographic and geographic observations of Svalbard and its surrounding seas.

The climatic conditions in the Arctic, and observations of the wind-induced drift of ice made in connexion with Fridtjof Nansen's Fram expedition, led to the discovery 100 years ago by Vilhelm Bjerknes' pupil, V.W. Ekman, of the importance of the Earth's rotation in limiting the depth of the wind-induced shear current in the ocean. This essay commemorates the centenary of Ekman's seminal paper, which was published in 1905. The paper presents a concise summary of Ekman's contributions to physical oceanography and a brief review of their continuing impact. The two key concepts are the Ekman spiral (the helical rotation of the velocity vector, in atmospheric and oceanic boundary layers) and the resultant Ekman pumping (vertical motions in the water column associated with the divergence of the flow in the surface layer in the presence of a rotational wind-stress field). Later work has revealed how the magnitude and direction of the surface current relative to the wind vector is influenced by the presence of surface waves and the behaviour of the turbulent flow in the near-surface layer of the ocean. However, the structure of Ekman's original viscous coupling model remains a permanent legacy to physical oceanographers.

Low temperatures severely limit the rate of bioremediation in cold climates. The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of temperature on bioremediation rates and to optimize the nutrient supply in order to accelerate bioremediation. Samples of diesel-contaminated soil from two Alaskan sites were incubated in the laboratory at different temperatures (1, 6, or 20°C) with varying nutrient levels (0, 100, 300, or 800 mg nitrogen per kg dry soil). As expected, biodegradation was fastest at higher temperatures. However, after approximately two months of treatment, the cumulative amount of CO2 produced at a temperature of 6°C could reach 75% of the amount produced at 20°C. Based on this data, researchers concluded that a temperature of 6°C was sufficient to achieve efficient treatment if all other potentially limiting factors — such as oxygen, water content, and nutrient supply — were addressed. A cost-effective process based on passive solar soil heating is proposed to raise the soil temperature and thereby improve the bioremediation rate. Furthermore, in field applications, an even distribution of nutrients cannot be taken for granted, especially when granulized fertilizer is applied; this method often results in suboptimal local concentrations (too high or too low). Particularly in cold climates with a short growth season, it is important to utilize this short time-window efficiently. The second part of the study explored improving the method of fertilizer application (granular versus liquid application, with and without irrigation) to achieve a homogeneous nutrient distribution. It was found that irrigation can substantially improve the distribution of nitrogen, thereby increasing bioremediation rates and shortening treatment times by as much as 50%.

Chemical factors that are essential in frost heaving of soils are examined through consideration of the process of ice formation in soils and the role of temperature gradients in generating water potential gradients in freezing soils. Unfrozen films are maintained around soil particles in frozen soils. The osmotic potentials at the ice–water interface of the unfrozen films and in the frozen fringe, the thin zone between the frozen and unfrozen soil, generated by dissolved salts and exchangeable cations that satisfy soil particle surface charge, are controlled by the local temperature. The coldest location and the most negative osmotic potentials at the ice–water interface are located immediately below the base of the ice lens, in the unfrozen films that separate the underlying soil particles from the ice lens. An osmotic potential gradient is generated because the osmotic potential at the water–ice interface in the frozen fringe becomes less negative with increasing temperature and distance from the ice lens. As water freezes onto the ice lens, re-supply of water to the unfrozen film along the osmotic potential gradient is the temperature-gradient-induced mechanism that generates the force that lifts the overlying frozen soil. Models that recognize this driving mechanism should improve predictions of soil freezing and frost heave, analysis of contaminant transport in freezing and frozen soils, and other aspects of the soil-freezing and frost-heave processes.

Sphagnum moss has been used globally as an indicator of climate change. Since continuous meteorological recording started in the late 1940s, there has been a marked change in the climates of Southern Ocean islands. The distribution of Sphagnum on Macquarie Island appeared to be expanding through the 1980s. All patches of Sphagnum were mapped in the 1992/93 austral summer, with 112 Sphagnum moss patches (<3 m2) and 12 larger (≥3 m2) patches recorded. The vast majority of sites recorded were lowland coastal, with a few sites around plateau lakes. The area of moss beds ranges from 0.03 m2 to 32.4 m2. A total of 23 sites were pegged and tagged by 1996, but only 14 of these sites still had Sphagnum moss present by 2004. It is considered that the climatic conditions (higher than average temperatures and wind speeds and lower than average humidity and precipitation) that occurred between April 1999 and May 2000 would have resulted in a period of desiccation that accounts for the destruction of the smaller and/or shallower Sphagnum beds on the island. It is highly likely that both the spatial distribution and size of Sphagnum moss beds on Macquarie Island will continue to decline with predicted changes in sub-Antarctic climate.

Polarbjørn (‘Polar Bear’) was launched at Narvik in 1919, having been constructed for work in the Arctic. In 1923 she was the expedition ship for Adrian Jacobsen's expedition to Franz Josef Land, Svalbard, and Novaya Zemlya. The following year she was the expedition ship for George Binney's Oxford University expedition to Svalbard. She sailed twice to the Arctic with aeroplanes onboard to chart the region, in 1924 to Svalbard and in 1932 to northeast Greenland. Between 1931 and 1948 she was expedition ship for 10 scientific expeditions to Svalbard, Jan Mayen, and northeast Greenland organized by the Norges Svalbard-og Ishavsundersøkelser, the forerunner to the Norsk Polarinstitutt. In 1940 Polarbjørn was engaged by the Norwegian government in exile in London to deliver equipment and supplies to wintering trappers and wireless operators and to bring secret codes to the telegraph stations in northeast Greenland. From autumn 1941 to the end of the war she was chartered by US government forces and shuttled between Boston and Halifax to Greenland, Baffin Island, and Labrador. After the war she returned to sealing under Norwegian ownership, and in 1949 caught fire and sank off Belle Isle, Newfoundland.

This paper outlines an emerging post-colonial engagement with Antarctica. Although ‘post-colonialism’ is a term that covers a great diversity of theoretical and political perspectives, it is generally agreed that it is united in its critical evaluation of colonialism and associated practices. Antarctica, thus far, has not attracted a great deal of attention from post-colonial scholars. By drawing on the limited engagement with Antarctica thus far, it is proposed that there are the intellectual resources for a deeper interrogation of polar colonialism and associated practices such as territorial claiming and base construction. The paper is intended to be a starting point for a more sustained and potentially unsettling engagement with post-colonial Antarctic projects.

The ecosystem-management approach laid down in the Arctic Council Marine Strategic Plan (AMSP) was not started on an empty purse. Some of the integrative (interdisciplinary) concepts of the International Northern Sea Route Programme developed during the period 1993–99 may prove useful in making the AMSP a document of operational utility and significance. The INSROP analysis was designed around two counterveiling variable: obstacles to and promoting factors of increasing navigation. These variables were applied for analysis to interactive relationships such as ice conditions and commerciality, ship design and depth conditions, sailing season and ice conditions, regional development and transit trade, environmental challenges and economic activities, military and economic activities, international ocean law and the NSR, insurance and navigation, and native cultures and navigation. The analysis of these relationships gave rise to integrative concepts like aggregated hot spots, issue-specific hot spots, cool spots, socio-biodiversity, single-value navigation, and multi-value navigation, all of which have a bearing on the realisation of the overarching aim of AMSP: to minimize the impact of navigation on the environment by integrative approaches across environmental, socio-economic, political, cultural, and other sectoral realms.

Additional, or supernumerary, teeth occur in most mammalian taxa, although they are better recorded in some species than in others. As part of a larger biometric study, incidence of visible supernumerary teeth was recorded in the skulls of 1228 pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and fur seals). Results showed that supernumerary teeth only occurred in the postcanine (molars and premolars) tooth row. It was also found that 3.3% of otariids (sea lions and fur seals) and 4.7% of phocids (‘true’ seals) possessed supernumerary postcanines. Out of a total of 52 supernumererary teeth recorded, only six were morphologically abberant; all the others played a functional role in the normal tooth row.