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SCAR Annual Report for 2004

Contents

Appendices

  1. SCAR Members
  2. Members of the Executive, Secretariat, and Chief Officers
  3. New SCAR Structure
  4. Descriptions of SCAR’s Main Scientific Research Programmes
  5. Lists of SCAR’s Action and Expert Groups
  6. Acronyms

1. SCAR and its Role in Relation to the Antarctic Treaty

SCAR, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, is the principal organization dealing with Antarctic scientific research (see http://www.scar.org). It is the authoritative voice on Antarctic scientific research from the ionosphere to the mantle, from bacteria to seals, from the ice sheet to the deep sea floor, on the role of Antarctica in the Earth System, and on astronomy from Antarctica.

SCAR is an interdisciplinary committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU). Formed in 1958, SCAR was charged with “furthering the coordination of scientific activity in Antarctica, with a view to framing a scientific programme of circumpolar scope and significance”. In this role SCAR inherited the mantle of the Antarctic component of the International Geophysical Year for 1957-58 (IGY).

SCAR’s area of interest includes Antarctica, its offshore islands, and the surrounding Southern Ocean including the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the northern boundary of which is the Subantarctic Front. Subantarctic islands that lie north of the Subantarctic Front and yet fall into SCAR's area of interest include: Ile Amsterdam, Ile St Paul, Macquarie Island and Gough Island.
SCAR’s has Observer status within the Antarctic Treaty System, and provides advice and responds to requests in the form of Information Papers and Working Papers to the annual Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) and the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP).

SCAR’s remit has evolved in part because of the development of the Antarctic Treaty System. When the Antarctic Treaty came into force in 1961, SCAR accepted the task of being the primary source of objective, independent scientific advice to the Antarctic Treaty Parties through the biennial Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM), and was granted the status of Observer to the ATCM. Subsequently, some of the tasks formerly addressed by SCAR were taken up by organizations of the Antarctic Treaty System. For instance, in 1982, under the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties created a commission and a Scientific Committee to oversee the development of an ecosystem-wide approach to management of the waters south of the Antarctic Convergence. In 1991, the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was concluded to apply environmental protection principles to human activities in Antarctica. The Protocol required the formation of a Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) to advise the ATCM on the implementation of the Protocol.

A change in SCAR's remit took place in 1988, when the newly created Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programmes (COMNAP) took over the coordination of the management and logistics of the National Antarctic Research Programmes operating there, a task formerly carried out by the SCAR Working Group on Logistics.

SCAR’s Members are representatives of national organizations adhering to ICSU, or nominated by national organizations adhering to ICSU. SCAR’s membership has changed from the original 12 countries to 28 Full Members and 4 Associate Members (nations with an interest in becoming full members).

Despite the changes over the years, there is still an essential requirement for the international coordination of science in the Antarctic region and the provision of objective state-of-the-art scientific advice from an independent organization. SCAR continues to play a unique and crucial role in contributing to the scientific understanding of the south polar region of the planet. Under SCAR’s leadership, and within the framework of SCAR Scientific Research Programmes, SCAR Members and their national scientific communities increase scientific knowledge about Antarctica and understanding of the processes taking place there on and under the land surface, in the atmosphere and the ocean, in the ice and in outer space. Studies by SCAR scientists increasingly show how Antarctic processes contribute to the working of the Earth System, and vice versa, and of how the south polar environment is influenced by human activities originating both within and outside the region. They also indicate what needs to be done to safeguard the environment. In addition, through the provision of relevant information, assessments and advice to the ATCM, SCAR helps policy makers meet international commitments in the Antarctic. SCAR continues its leading role in international efforts to monitor and protect the environment, by providing critical information on the role of Antarctica in global warming, climate change and sea-level rise, and on the effects of climate change on living organisms. It is axiomatic that improved scientific understanding demands free and unrestricted geographic access to the region, and the free and unrestricted exchange of scientific data and information.

2. Delivering Science in the 21st Century

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At its 28th session, in Bremerhaven, during October 2004, SCAR completed the restructuring that began with an independent review commissioned in April 1999. The principal changes are as follows (roman numerals (i) through (x), below):

  1. SCAR has upgraded the executive functions of its Secretariat with the appointment of an Executive Director, Dr C P Summerhayes, formerly of UNESCO;
  2. SCAR has adopted a new Constitution and Rules of Procedure, which embrace a new vision, mission and objectives.

The Vision is

“ To establish through scientific research and international cooperation a broad understanding of the nature of Antarctica, the role of Antarctica in the Earth System, and the effects of global change on Antarctica.”

The Mission is

“ To be the leading independent organization for facilitating and coordinating Antarctic research, and for identifying issues emerging from greater scientific understanding of the region that should be brought to the attention of policy makers”.

Five Main Objectives provide a new focus on achieving this mission:

In developing the processes and structures to reach these objectives there are two objectives that underpin the way forward:

  1. SCAR has created a modern science framework of Standing Scientific Groups on Geosciences, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences, with interdisciplinary cross linkages between them;
  2. SCAR has focused its major scientific research on a limited number of major strategic scientific questions of global scientific interest, many of which also have considerable socio-economic significance;
  3. SCAR has reorganized its meetings to give National Delegates greater contact with the science, and has introduced a major biennial open science conference;
  4. SCAR has expanded its geographical remit to include the Southern Ocean from the Antarctic coast north to the Subantarctic Front, to recognize the important role of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current;
  5. SCAR has published a Strategic Plan (2004–10) to specify how it proposes to achieve its new mission and objectives;
  6. SCAR has considerably improved its communications both internally and externally, with a new web page, a quarterly newsletter (starting in January 2005), posters and PowerPoint presentations; hits on the web site reached 62000 in March 2005, up from 16700 in January 2004.
  7. SCAR is changing, and will continue to change, in response to the changing demands of science and policy, and in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness.
  8. SCAR is requesting a significant increase in contributions from Members, to compensate for inflation over the past decade, and to provide the support essential for the effective functioning of the Executive Office, the effective implementation of its new scientific research programmes, and effective interaction with the Antarctic Treaty System;

3. The International Polar Year (2007-2008)

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SCAR will make a significant contribution to the proposed International Polar Year (IPY)(1 March 2007 – 1 March 2009). During 2004, SCAR made significant contributions to the activities of ICSU’s IPY Planning Group and its development of the “Framework for the IPY”. Subsequently, the SCAR Executive Director has been appointed an ex officio member of the new ICSU/WMO Joint Committee on the IPY, which will steer the IPY process, and which will include several SCAR scientists. SCAR’s five Scientific Research Programmes (SRPs), described below, prepared Expressions of Interest (EoIs) for submission to the IPY selection process by the end of 2004. At the first meeting of the Joint Committee (March 2005) the SCAR SRPs were designated lead projects for substantial subsets of the 850 EoIs submitted.

4. New Developments

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SCAR held its first Open Science Conference on 26–28 July 2004, in Bremen, with the title “Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the Global System”. Around 1000 people registered for the meeting, which provided important opportunities to develop cross-disciplinary links.

The Conference was part of the XXVIII SCAR Meeting, which was held in two parts, in Bremen in July, and in Bremerhaven in October. The SCAR and COMNAP Executive Committees held a joint meeting in Bremen in July.

The SCAR Delegates, meeting in October, approved plans for a new set of five major Scientific Research Programmes (SRPs) that will be SCAR’s scientific flagships for the next 5–10 years. They are:

Brief descriptions of the programmes are given in Appendix 4. Most of the activities contributing to these programmes will be funded nationally. SCAR’s international coordination will add value to national efforts. Scientists interested in participating in and contributing to the 5 scientific research programmes are invited to contact the SCAR Secretariat (info@scar.org).

SCAR also supports a variety of other scientific activities in which value is added to national efforts through international cooperation. These activities are coordinated by Action Groups operating for short periods, and Expert Groups where more time is needed to achieve success. Brief descriptions of these activities are given in Appendix 5.

SCAR’s activities will make significant contributions to achieving the goals of the International Polar Year (IPY) (2007–09). During 2004 SCAR had considerable input into the IPY Science and Implementation Plans prepared by ICSU and WMO. From the end of 2004 onwards, SCAR will be a member ex officio of the Joint ICSU-WMO Steering Committee for the IPY, and will work with partner organizations to influence the development of the IPY.

SCAR’s Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System will work closely with the Standing Scientific Groups and the Executive Committee to bring key scientific issues to the attention of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting.

5. Highlights of Scientific Coordination Activities

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This report gives selected examples and is not exhaustive.

5.1 Scientific Research Programmes

During the year, SCAR’s Standing Scientific Groups (SSGs) put considerable effort into developing the five new Scientific Research Programmes. All five programmes were evaluated by external reviews, on the basis of which they were approved by the Delegates for start up at the beginning of 2005.

Determining the extent of environment change across the Antarctic in recent decades is a high priority activity. The SSG on Physical Sciences (SSG-PS) contributed to this work through the creation of a number of new data sets of key environmental variables. Analyses of these data sets have resulted in assessments of climatic change over the Antarctic since the IGY in 1957–58. Details of some of these data sets are given below under the various Action and Expert Groups. A major conclusion is that there has been a complex pattern of change across the Antarctic over the last 50 years with the Antarctic Peninsula warming more than anywhere else on Earth while the rest of the continent has shown little change.

Recognizing that Southern Ocean biodiversity is an important and significant component of the World marine biodiversity, and that a large part of the Southern Ocean biodiversity remains unknown, in particular in the deep sea, the SSG on Life Sciences (SSG-LS) agreed to co-sponsor a Southern Ocean component of the global Census of Marine Life (CoML). To that end it formed a new Action Group on a Census on Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) to take this initiative forward as a contribution to EBA. The Group is led by Michael Stoddart of the Australian Antarctic Division, and has been awarded a start-up grant of US$525,000 by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation.

The SSG-LS is also developing a Marine Biodiversity Information Network (MarBIN) that will contribute to the compilation, dissemination, and integration of fundamental information on the Antarctic marine biodiversity for scientific, monitoring, management and conservation purposes. This will be connected to the CoML’s Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS).

The evolution of climate is the focus of attention of the newly approved Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) programme within the SSG on Geosciences. Initial work by the ACE team has been published as a set of 13 papers in a Special Issue of Global and Planetary Change 45 (pages 1–332) in 2005, with an introduction on “Long-term changes in Southern high-latitude ice sheets and climate, the Cenozoic history” by the editors, F Florindo, D M Harwood and G S Wilson. ACE is placing a high priority on following up the work of the ANTIME project (part of the former GLOCHANT programme) that focused on the Antarctic environment during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Planning for exploration of a new scientific frontier, subglacial lakes, has continued under the aegis of the SSG on Geosciences through the newly approved Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments (SALE) Scientific Research Programme, following the initial work of the Group of Specialists on Subglacial Antarctic Lake Exploration (SALEGOS). Much of the effort has been devoted to planning drilling activities that will avoid contaminating the lake environments. Plans are being made to start drilling into some of the smaller subglacial lakes during the forthcoming International Polar Year.

5.2 Action and Expert Groups

Recognizing the need to invest more effort in understanding the role of the Southern Ocean in climate and biodiversity, SCAR now co-sponsors much Southern Ocean research with global programmes having Antarctic interests, through recent joint agreements with the World Climate Research Programme and with the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics programme (GLOBEC). As a further step in this direction, SCAR upgraded its Action Group on Oceanography to an Expert Group, which complements the activities of other groups active in the Southern Ocean. It will be managed in concert with SCOR and iAnZone.

SCAR is working with the space agencies and UN agencies through the Partnership for an Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS) to devise a bi-polar programme to improve observations of the cryosphere.

The MOSAK Action Group carried out a modelling study that has produced a new, improved high resolution near surface wind field for the Antarctic. This will be of value in studies of blowing snow, sea ice advection and the investigation of katabatic winds.

The Expert Group of Operational Meteorology has worked with COMNAP to produce an International Antarctic Weather Forecasting Handbook. The WMO provided funding for a hardcopy version that is being distributed to all nations active in the Antarctic.

The READER Action Group has produced a new, improved database of mean, Antarctic tropospheric/stratospheric temperatures, winds and heights from surface observations and radiosonde ascents
www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/.

Significant new astronomical results have been obtained from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, including measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) and galactic/interstellar emission in a sub-millimetre diapason, as well as infrared observations of the Milky Way. More than 50 refereed papers have come from these data, and the cosmic microwave background polarization has been measured for the first time from the Antarctic.

The ASPeCT Expert Group has continued to develop its database of sea ice parameters from in-situ ship observations. Data from 81 voyages were added over the last two years. The data archive has been used in a number of studies, including comparisons with satellite ice edge location to determine seasonal variability in the reliability in the satellite estimates, comparisons with sea ice-ocean models and the development of a circumpolar climatology of area-averaged albedo.

The ITASE Expert Group collected more than 240 firn cores (for a total of 7,000 m) and about 20,000 km of snow radar, resulting in numerous publications. In addition ITASE developed multi-centennial scale proxies for sea ice, regional temperature, and major atmospheric circulation features plus new continental scale maps depicting the distribution of major chemical species over the ice sheet.

In the Life Sciences, the Expert Group on Human Biology and Medicine came to the conclusion that it would operate more effectively if it amalgamated with the COMNAP group MEDINET. Discussions on this merger are ongoing.

The research programme EVOLANTA published the proceedings of one of their workshops as a special issue of Antarctic Science (16, no. 1, March 2004).
The research programme RiSCC completed three successful field campaigns:

  1. the three island study (Marion, Kerguelen, and Heard islands);
  2. the Antarctic Peninsula transect (Netherlands – United Kingdom), and
  3. the Latitudinal Gradient Project in Victoria Land (New Zealand – Italy – United States). The RiSCC community is also planning research in the Arctic, the Northern RiSCC, to be hosted by Canada.

The EASIZ programme was successfully terminated with a closing symposium in September 2004 in Croatia. The proceedings will be published in a special issue of Deep Sea Research.

The SSG Geosciences Action Group on Communication and Outreach (COG) plays an essential role in gathering, collating and disseminating geospatial and geoscientific information for the benefit of the entire Antarctic research community. This is achieved through the SSG on Geosciences website www.geoscience.scar.org and through Georeach, the geosciences newsletter which can be downloaded from the website. In addition, the SSG on Geosciences has a listserver with 134 subscribers and listservers have also been established for the Expert Groups on Geodetic Infrastructure in Antarctica (GIANT), on Antarctic Neotectonics (ANTEC), and on the Antarctic Digital Magnetic Anomaly Project (ADMAP).

A new Action Group on Marine Survey Coordination has been established to improve coordination of planned marine surveys within the Antarctic community.

The SSG on Geosciences has upgraded some of its short term Action Groups to longer term Expert Groups.
The Action Group on Permafrost has been up-graded to a longer-term Expert Group on Permafrost and Periglacial Environments that will address science questions pertaining to the age and history of Antarctic permafrost, landscape dynamics and evolution (including erosion, ground ice formation, patterned ground).

Similarly, the former Action Group on Geographic Information has been changed to an Expert Group that will create an Antarctic Spatial Data Infrastructure (ANTSDI) by integrating and coordinating Antarctic mapping and GIS programmes to provide a fundamental geographical base for all Antarctic research.

The former Action Group on Geodetic Infrastructure of Antarctica (GIANT) has also been converted to an Expert Group that will continue to define an accurate geodetic reference frame. This is essential for all scientists undertaking mapping application and geodynamics studies in Antarctica. The Expert Group will continue its activity for better planning of Geodetical and Geophysical Observatories, and to enhance continental and global data processing.

The Action Group on the Antarctic Digital Magnetic Anomaly Project (ADMAP) has also been up-graded to an Expert Group to maintain the database and make it a permanent tool available to the scientific community.

A new Expert Group on the International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO) will develop new compilations of bathymetric data for inclusion in the Chart.

The former Group of Specialists on Antarctic Neotectonics (ANTEC), established in 1998 to promote and coordinates multidisciplinary, multinational research relevant to Antarctic neotectonics, has been changed to an Expert Group. In conjunction with the ISMASS programme of the SSG on Physical Sciences, the Expert Group presented a thematic set of 21 papers on “Ice Sheets and Neotectonics” that was published in a Special Issue of Global and Planetary Change 42 (pages 1–326) in 2004, including an editorial by T S James, T H Jacka, A Morelli and R Dietrich.

6. Future Plans

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This report gives selected examples and is not exhaustive.

6.1 Scientific Coordination

The first priority is implementation of the five newly approved Scientific Research Programmes. The first task is to draft Implementation Plans for the five new programmes. These will be complete for the meeting of the SCAR Executive in July.

The Steering Committee for the AGCS SRP will meet in Cambridge, UK over 27 June – 1 July 2005.

The meeting of the SALE SRP will be held in Vienna, 22–23 April 2005, in association with the European Geophysical Union meeting.

The ACE SRP meeting will also be held in Vienna, on 25 April 2005.

The first ICESTAR workshop will be held in Spring 2005. This will focus on data portal/virtual-observatory specifications, identification and metadata description of all available Antarctic data on the Internet for ICESTAR and identification of available value-added products on- and off-line and prioritization of the data and products based on their science merit.

The Implementation Plan for the EBA SRP will be completed, following a draft, written during a workshop in Cambridge in March 2005, during the IX SCAR International Biology Symposium, which will be held in Curitiba, Brazil, 25 –29 July 2005. These highly successful symposia bring together over 75% of the biologists currently active in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean environment. Further information on this symposium can be found at: www.nioo.knaw.nl/projects/scarlsssg/.

Prior to the symposium, several workshops will be held including, among others, on Antarctic Conservation matters.

SCAR will also maintain the key activities of its Action and Expert Groups. A detailed record of the activities of these groups during 2005 can be found under EVENTS on the SCAR web page. The efforts of the Action Group on Marine Acoustics, which is investigating the relationship between noise in the ocean and the behaviour of cetaceans, and which resulted in a report to the XXVII ATCM, is continuing, as a means of providing scientific advice to the ATCM.

Several activities are planned as part of the European Geophysical Union (EGU) meeting in Vienna in April, or as part of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Assembly in New Orleans (23–27 May 2005) or the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco (December 2005).

SCAR will continue to provide inputs to the IPY process through its membership of the ICSU/WMO Joint Committee for the IPY. In addition, its Scientific Research Programmes will plan their leadership of subsets of the Expressions of Interest received by the IPY planners, and by the end of June 2005 will convert these EoIs into full proposals for IPY endorsement.

Key meetings in 2005 include:

  1. SCAR–COMNAP Workshop on Practical Biological Indicators of Human Impacts in Antarctica, 16–18 March 2005, College Station, USA; to assess biological indicators of human impact and advise on implementing meaningful monitoring programmes in Antarctica.
  2. Continental drilling 2005: A Decade of Progress and Opportunities for the Future; 30 March – 1 April 2005, Potsdam, Germany.
  3. Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) 1st Science Conference; 11–15 April 2005, Beijing, China.
  4. SCAR Workshop on Antarctic Conservation in the 21st Century, 23–25 May 2005, Stellensbosch, South Africa.
  5. Southern Ocean Implementation Panel Meeting; 27–30 June 2005 Cambridge, UK; to discuss modes of variability and the IPY.
  6. SCAR IX International Biology Symposium; 25–29 July 2005, Curitiba, Brazil.
  7. International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences Meeting; 2–11 August 2005, Beijing, China; to discuss Climate Variability and Change in the Polar Regions: Causality and Prediction.
  8. SCAR will co-sponsor special IAG/IAPSO sessions on “Oceanography and geodesy in polar regions” and on “Ocean interactions with sea ice, polynyas, ice shelves, and icebergs” as part 8.of the IAPSO/IABO Symposium, 22–26 August 2005, Cairns, Australia.
  9. International Conference on Glacial Sedimentary Processes and Products; August 2005, Aberystwyth, UK.
  10. Sixth International Conference on Geomorphology; 7–11 September 2005, Zaragoza, Spain; to discuss Antarctic Geomorphology.
  11. Third International Conference on the Oceanography of the Ross Sea; 10–14 October 2005, Venice, Italy.
  12. International Symposium on Sea Ice; 4–9 December 2005, Dunedin, New Zealand
6.2 Developing Scientific Capacity

The Antarctic research programmes of SCAR Member nations vary greatly in their size and capacity. Some have scientific communities that are large, scientifically advanced and long standing. Others have relatively small and new Antarctic science communities that are still developing. To enable all in the SCAR family to participate in, contribute to and benefit from SCAR’s activities, it is incumbent on SCAR to work with appropriate national agencies to help to enhance the research capacity of all of its Members and Associate Members. This requirement has become more pressing with the significant increase in SCAR Membership in recent years. SCAR is in the process of developing a strategy for capacity building. One aspect of the potential capacity building programme that is already active is the SCAR Fellowship Programme, which provides a small number of annual awards. SCAR also arranges training workshops. For example, the MOSAK Action Group proposes to hold a workshop on the Antarctic wind field in early 2006 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

SCAR hopes that the nations participating in the ATCM will work actively with SCAR to support this scientific capacity building programme as it develops in the coming years.

7. Concluding Remarks

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SCAR continues to play a central role in the development of scientific understanding in the Antarctic region. This role will be enhanced in future by SCAR's involvement at the heart of the planning process for the International Polar Year. SCAR’s five new Scientific Research Programmes will make a major contribution to, and will help to lead the development of, the International Polar Year in the region. SCAR is keen to continue to play a major role as the scientific partner to the ATCM, and the driver for scientific research performed to acceptable scientific standards.

Appendices

  1. SCAR Members
  2. Members of the Executive, Secretariat, and Chief Officers
  3. New SCAR Structure
  4. Descriptions of SCAR’s Main Scientific Research Programmes
  5. Lists of SCAR’s Action and Expert Groups
  6. Acronyms