Bouncing continents: insights into the physics of the polar regions of the Earth from the POLENET project in the International Polar Year

When ice sheets melt, and reduce the load on the surface of the Earth, the land areas beneath them bounce back up. New, accurate observations are needed to investigate this uplift and its implications effectively. This article provides a topical starting point for investigating some applications of physics applied to the polar regions of the Earth, and interaction between the solid Earth, ice and oceans. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.