The Norwegian-U.S. Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica is a research program consisting of two overland traverses of East Antarctica

East Antarctica

East Antarctica, also called Greater Antarctica, constitutes the majority of the Antarctic continent, lying on the Indian Ocean side of the Transantarctic Mountains...

: the first from the Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 Troll Station

Troll (research station)

Troll is a research station located at Jutulsessen, from the coast in the eastern part of Princess Martha Coast in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. It is Norway's only all-year research station in Antarctica, and is supplemented by the summer-only station Tor...

 to the South Pole

South Pole

The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...

 in the 2007/2008 season; and a return traverse via a different route in 2008/2009. The main research focus of the program is climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

, the stated goals being to:

• Investigate climate variability in Dronning Maud Land of East Antarctica on time scales of years to a thousand years.
• Establish spatial and temporal variability in snow accumulation over this area of Antarctica to understand its impact on sea level.
• Investigate the impact of atmospheric and oceanic variability on the chemical composition of firn and ice in the region.
• Revisit areas and sites first explored by traverses in the 1960’s, for detection of possible changes and to establish benchmark data sets for future research efforts .

The program is part of Trans-Antarctic Scientific Traverse Expeditions – Ice Divide of East Antarctica (TASTE-IDEA), and the International Partners in Ice Coring Sciences (IPICS), both of which have ISCU

International Council for Science

The International Council for Science , formerly the International Council of Scientific Unions, was founded in 1931 as an international non-governmental organization devoted to international co-operation in the advancement of science...

-WMO

World Meteorological Organization

The World Meteorological Organization is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 189 Member States and Territories. It originated from the International Meteorological Organization , which was founded in 1873...

 endorsement for the International Polar Year

International Polar Year

The International Polar Year is a collaborative, international effort researching the polar regions. Karl Weyprecht, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer, motivated the endeavor, but died before it first occurred in 1882-1883. Fifty years later a second IPY occurred...

2007-2009.