This award is for continued support for the 15-year-long series of workshops and web presence for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) project that is focused on two urgent global issues--future sea level and rapid climate change. This award incorporates an enhanced emphasis on education and outreach while preserving the proven techniques for supporting vigorous scientific dialogue and exchange at annual WAIS workshops. The additional emphasis addresses an expected increase in attention to polar research triggered by the International Polar Year and serves to give all WAIS researchers a clearly articulated basis to which their specific research can be linked. Also during the IPY, the workshops will be merged with those of the Forum for Research into Ice Shelf Processes (FRISP), the European "twin" of WAIS, strengthening the international exchange of important research discoveries. The intellectual merit of this award stems from the opportunities the annual WAIS workshops provide by gathering active West Antarctica scientists for an open exchange of ongoing work, recent results and current views, in most cases prior to publication in scientific journals. The broader impacts of this award will be manifest by the increase in appealing and informative education and outreach material made available on the WAIS web site. Initiated by supplementary funding in the last grant period, prototype web content was completed that met with universal approval by the WAIS community, a sample audience, and a selection of NSF program officers, albeit along with some constructive suggestions for improvement. With this award, we intend to incorporate these suggestions as well as provide appropriate web-tags to make the site fully 508-compliant, including closed captioning. We also intend to collect additional video and graphic content to annually improve and update the site to increase its effectiveness in communicating WAIS science and accomplishments to the public, media, educators and policy makers. WAIS organization has always been an activity partnered with NASA's investments in ice-sheet research. This partnership is strengthened through the inclusion of NASA outreach professionals who will lead the expanded education and outreach activities. By serving as the NASA Coordination Scientist to the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), NSF's new polar Science and Technology Center, the PI will ensure that WAIS activities and its education and outreach component are fully consistent
