DEADLINE: NSF Antarctic Reporting Opportunity

Event Date:

June 21, 2019

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) are accepting written proposals from media professionals to visit a "deep-field" camp on the remote Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica in December.

NSF, the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the ITGC Science Coordination Office (SCO) will jointly select a very limited number of media personnel — no more than three people in total — to deploy initially to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide field camp, which will serve as the hub of the research being carried out at Thwaites Glacier. Media will be free to interview Thwaites research teams as they deploy through that camp. A visit to an additional Thwaites Glacier field camp will be highly dependent on weather and logistical variables, and, while possible, cannot be guaranteed.

There is also a separate opportunity for one person to report from the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer when a team of ITGC scientists sails for Thwaites Glacier in February of 2020 for approximately 50 days.

These opportunities will allow selected media to convey the global importance of ITGC research, which is supported by NSF's Office of Polar Programs and NERC.

Those selected to cover the land-based Thwaites science projects would visit Antarctica in early December of 2019 for a period of approximately two weeks, not inclusive of time spent in New Zealand prior to the flight to Antarctica. Those flights, while regularly scheduled, are subject to Antarctic weather and other possible delays.

NSF, NERC and the SCO will select journalists whose reporting would help make the broadest possible segment of the public aware of the importance and logistical challenges of mounting the Thwaites research.

Apply by Jun 21.