Director : Karl A. Erb
The Office of Polar Programs (OPP) manages,
and initiates National Science Foundation funding for, basic research
and its operational support in the Arctic and the Antarctic. The funds
are provided as NSF grants to institutions (mainly U.S. universities),
whose scientists perform the research at the institutions or in a polar
region, and as cooperative agreements or contracts to support organizations
including contractors and the U.S. military.
OPP supports individual investigators
or research teams, and it supports U.S. participation in multinational
projects. Projects can involve investigators from many disciplines
and institutions over several years.
Organizationally, OPP has two science
sections — one each for the Arctic and the Antarctic. A third
section manages the provision of logistics and support operations including
field stations, camps, and laboratories.
The United States is a leading nation
in polar science, and research results have global significance. As
well, the polar regions intrigue the public and provide opportunities
for educational enrichment.
Polar regions are unique natural laboratories.
A range of research can be undertaken only there or best there. OPP
considers supporting polar research in these areas:
- Understanding Earth and its
systems. Goals include achieving better understanding
of polar regions’ influence on and response to global heat
distribution in the oceans and the atmosphere, adaptations of organisms
to polar extremes, and the valuable records of past climates and
atmospheric constituents in ice cores, polar ocean sediments, and
other indicators.
- Exploring the geographical
frontier. Many fields of science are exploring the still
unevenly understood polar frontiers. For example, the central Arctic
Ocean and the Southern Ocean are the least studied oceans, especially
during winter.
- Performing science enabled
by the polar setting. Polar conditions can enable research
either not possible elsewhere or less effective elsewhere. Examples
are the extremely dry atmosphere over the South Pole as a window
for astrophysical study of the origins of the universe, arctic
social sciences, and antarctic medical sciences.