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SCAR Newsletter: Issue 3, July 2005
SCAR XXIX Meeting, Hobart, Tasmania, July 2006.
The XXIX SCAR meeting will comprise: (i) Business meetings of SCAR subsidiary bodies (9-11 July); SCAR Open Science Conference (12-14 July); (iii) COMNAP and SCALOP meetings (9-14 July); (iv) SCALOP Symposium (July 13); (v) SCAR Delegates meeting (July 17-19).
Antarctic Treaty News
SCAR played a prominent role in the XXVIIIth Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) in Stockholm, June 6-17, 2005. SCAR presented a number of Information Papers and Working Papers, and provided the annual SCAR Lecture, which was given by Professor Steve Chown, of South Africa, before the King of Sweden and distinguished guests. The title of his talk was "Biodiversity: Antarctic Moves in Life's Grand Game". SCAR's President Professor Jörn Thiede also spoke before the King on "Scientific Challenges in Antarctic Research".
A highlight of the meeting was that the lawyers reached agreement on liability arising from environmental emergencies. This will now form Annex VI to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. It requires operators to undertake reasonable preventive measures to reduce the risk of environmental emergencies and their potential adverse impact, and to establish contingency plans for dealing with such emergencies.
The ATCM's Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) asked SCAR
- to assess the status of the Southern Giant Petrel and Macaroni Penguin, which are classified as "Vulnerable" globally, to see if they merit adoption as "Specially Protected Species" by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties, and
- to assess if continuing special protection was needed for fur seals, which are still listed as "Specially Protected Species" despite massive increases in their numbers, and the status of the Ross Seal.
The CEP approved the "Practical Guidelines for Developing and Designing Environmental Monitoring Programmes in Antarctica", that had been developed by the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programmes (COMNAP), based on joint workshops by SCAR and COMNAP.
SCAR hosts CLIVAR/CLIC/SCAR Southern Ocean Implementation Panel Meeting
On June 27-29, SCAR hosted in Cambridge a workshop of the Southern Ocean Implementation Panel that is co-sponsored by CLIVAR, CliC and SCAR, to discuss 'modes of southern hemisphere climate variability'.
The goals of the workshop were to review the present understanding of the major modes of variability in southern hemisphere climate, the potential for predictability of the climate at mid- to high-latitudes of the southern hemisphere, to identify gaps in our understanding and to discuss field and modelling efforts to fill these gaps.
Peter Clarkson retires as Executive Secretary.
On June 18th, after many years of service to SCAR, Peter Clarkson took his well deserved retirement.
Peter has done a great job for SCAR, but is now headed for a new life. He tells us that he doesn´t intend to stop working. He has lots of ideas for writing on polar matters, and will carry on lecturing on tourist ships to Antarctica and providing assistance on Antarctic matters when called for.
Peter is the official SCAR Memory Bank. Although he has passed on much of his extensive knowledge to his successors, we shall miss his wise advice, and indeed his warm companionship. But he will still be in Cambridge, and has told us we can call on him from time to time when we need a hand in the office (or to dredge the Memory Bank for some particular information). He will work for SCAR on contract in July, to train Marzena Kaczmarska, the new SCAR Executive Officer.
In future please send your SCAR business requests or information to Marzena Kaczmarska (mik24@cam.ac.uk). You will still be able to contact Peter for a while on his e-mail (pdc3@cam.ac.uk), for personal correspondence.
SCAR appoints Executive Officer
SCAR has appointed Dr. Marzena Kaczmarska, a Polish glaciologist from the Norwegian Polar Institute, to be the first Executive Officer of SCAR. She will take up her appointment on June 1 2005, and her first assignment was to join the SCAR team at the Antarctic Treaty Committee Meeting in Stockholm.
Introducing the SCAR Executive Officer
SCAR Education Programme provides portal into education aids focusing on Antarctica
SCAR is developing a Capacity Building and Education Programme, which includes examples from national education programmes. The latest example is from the British Antarctic Survey. SCAR Members are encouraged to use these examples as models in developing their own approaches at the national level, and to provide the SCAR Secretariat with links to their own Antarctic education programmes in any language, at primary or secondary schools level, or at graduate or postgraduate level.
SCAR Scientific Research Programmes Plan Implementation
In the margins of the European Geophysical Union meeting in Vienna, Implementation Planning meetings were held by the Steering Committees of SCAR's SALE (Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments) and ACE (Antarctic Climate Evolution) programmes. The Steering Committee of SCAR's Antarctica in the Global Climate System (AGCS) programme met in Cambridge on 30 June 2005. Implementation Plans of the 5 SCAR Research Programmes have been submitted for consideration by the Executive Committee at their meeting in Sofia (11-13 July 2005).
SCOR co-sponsors SCAR Expert Group on Oceanography
From May 1 2005 the SCAR Expert Group on Oceanography is the SCAR/SCOR Expert Group on Oceanography
See SCAR/SCOR Expert Group on Oceanography web page
An informal first meeting was held in Cambridge on 28 June 2005. A full meeting is planned in Venice (7-8 October 2005)
SCAR co-sponsors First Science Planning Workshop for Climate and Ecosystems in the Southern Ocean
The science planning workshop for the ICCED programme (Integrated Analyses of Circumpolar Climate Interactions and Ecosystem Dynamics in the Southern Ocean) took place at the British Antarctic Survey during May 24-26.
For more information see www.scar.org/about/partnerships/icced/
Subglacial Lakes paper appears in EOS
The following paper by the SCAR Subglacial Lakes group appeared in the May 17th issue of EOS.
EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union Volume 86 Number 20 Pages 193, 197; Exploring Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments
For more information on SCAR's SALE programme go to the SALE web site
New Schedule - International Polar Year 2007-2008 Proposals
Expanded Proposal Submission Deadlines: 30 June 2005, 30 September 2005, and 15 January 2005
For more information see the IPY website, www.ipy.org/
ARGO floats start to fill the Southern Ocean.
The May 2005 issue of the Argo Newsletter carries maps of the global distribution of Argo vertical profiling floats in April 2004 and April 2005. They nicely show that deployments in the Southern Ocean are providing good coverage around Antarctica. Argo floats are deployed with a spacing of about one every 3 degrees square. They float at a depth of 2000m, rising to the surface every 10 days or so to make a vertical profile of temperature and salinity (conductivity), which they then beam up to a communications satellite. Having passed on their data they then sink to repeat the process, carrying on in this way over a 4 year period to collect hundreds of vertical profiles of the water column. These data are essential to improve weather and climate forecasting.
For more information see www.argo.net
Antarctic Glaciers in retreat from Climate Change
Retreating Glacier Fronts on the Antarctic Peninsula over the Past Half-Century is an article in Science, Vol 308, Issue 5721, 541-544, 22 April 2005
For more details see the press release from the British Antarctic Survey,
and see "Antarctic glaciers show retreat" on the BBC website,
Antarctic Treaty Secretariat Newsletters are available from www.scar.org/treaty/atsnewsletters/
Forthcoming Events
Events of interest to the SCAR Community are listed at:
www.scar.org/events/
prepared by Colin Summerhayes and Mandy Dalton, SCAR Secretariat. Please send feedback to info@scar.org.
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