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SCAR Newsletter: Issue 13, December 2007
Year-end message 2007 from the SCAR Secretariat
It's been quite a year for SCAR and for the Secretariat. Marzena Kazmarska left to take up a post in Svalbard, and was replaced as Executive Officer by Mike Sparrow from the UK's National Oceanography Centre, and Karen Smith was replaced by Rosemary Nash as our Administrative Officer. I hope the new team works to your satisfaction.
One of our biggest tasks has been to help to develop with our Arctic counterpart, IASC, the plan for the XXX SCAR meeting in Russia in July 2008. We worked closely with the Scientific Organising Committee to develop the lists of keynote speakers and session chairs, and with the Local Organising Committee to develop the first circular and get the web site up and running. Check the web site at: http://www.scar-iasc-ipy2008.org/. Student costs are down to 100 euros. I advise everyone to register early (before April 1) to avoid costs.
With the IPCC reports this year, we continue to focus on climate change and its effects. The Antarctica in the Global Climate System (AGCS) team wrote a paper on Antarctic climate change for the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) in New Delhi. They are working on a follow-up paper, with the biologists, to look at impacts.
The IPCC agrees there may be a substantial rise in sea-level if ice sheets break up mechanically, something we can't yet model. To address this important issue, SCAR's Ice Sheet Mass Balance and Sea Level Expert Group is organising with others, for St Petersburg (5-7 July 2008), a meeting on modelling ice sheet decay.
One of the main legacies from the International Polar Year (IPY) will be observing systems. During the year SCAR collaborated with the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project to design a cryosphere observing system. And we held a major workshop to begin the design of a Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). We also continued to develop a network of Pan-Antarctic Observing Systems (PAntOS).
The sinking of the M/S Explorer led SCAR to form an Action Group on Antarctic Fuel Spills. It will be led by one of our Vice-Presidents, Chuck Kennicutt (USA), and information about it should be on the Life Sciences web page.
SCAR formed an Action Group to see how we could improve provision of independent scientific advice to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the Committee on Environmental Protection. Clive Howard-Williams (NZ) leads this group.
Our liaison with the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) continues to strengthen, and we have formed a joint Bipolar Action Group to help IASC and SCAR think about how they might work more closely together in future, and how they might best contribute to the IPY and its legacy.
Four new SCAR Research Fellows were appointed: Ignino Coco (Ita); Stefanie Kaiser (Ger); Delphine Lannuzel (Bel); and Glen Phillips (Austral).
There were several key SCAR meetings, for example: the new Standing Committee on Antarctic Geographical Information (SC-AGI) held its first meeting, in Buenos Aires; and a very successful 10th International Antarctic Earth Sciences Symposium was held in August in Santa Barbara.
The SCAR papers to the ATCM in New Delhi were very well received, and the SCAR Lecture, on "Climate Change and the Antarctic: What Next?" by our President, Chris Rapley, was much appreciated.
We are now well on the way to acquiring proper legal status within the UK, by becoming a Company Limited by Guarantee, which will enable us then to claim Charity status, which in turn will provide us with some financial benefits. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it – but it has taken up a lot of my time!
On that note, let me close by thanking the many of you who have continued to contribute to making SCAR a success. We cannot do it without you.
Best wishes for the season and for the New Year,
Colin Summerhayes
Executive Director
SCAR Science and Business News
Abstracts needed for SCAR/IASC IPY Open Science Conference, St Petersburg 8-11 July 08
SCAR and its Arctic counterpart IASC (International Arctic Science Committee) have now issued the plan of sessions for the joint SCAR/IASC IPY Open Science Conference that will take place in St Petersburg, Russia, on 8-11 July 2008. Natural and social scientists are invited to present abstracts under a series of session headings that address the themes of the International Polar Year (IPY). Abstracts are due by January 15.
For information on the sessions, see the First Circular; further details are available from the Conference website, where information regarding registration, accommodation and visas is now posted. Please spread the word among your colleagues and students. St Petersburg is a well known tourist destination, so it is advisable to book a place early to avoid disappointment and reduce cost.
Action Group on Antarctic Fuel Spills
In the aftermath of the M/V Explorer incident, SCAR is establishing an "Action Group on Antarctic Fuel Spills" of oceanographers, ecologists and other specialists to respond to requests from the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat and/or Antarctic Treaty Parties for assistance or advice. SCAR has also contacted the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) to jointly coordinate advice on potential response scenarios.
For further details see the Press Release.
New SCAR Reports
SCAR has recently published three new reports, available from http://www.scar.org/publications/reports/:
- Report 30: A Need for More Realistic Ice-Sheet Models
- Report 31: WCRP/CliC Global Prediction of the Cryosphere (GPC) Project
- Report 32: Recent High Latitude Climate Change: Report on the SCAR-CliC-IASC-ICPM Working Group
New SCAR Circular Letters
SCAR has recently distributed 6 new Circulars for action by SCAR members. These are password protected on the SCAR members' page http://www.scar.org/members/circulars/. The topics are as follows:
767 - Proposal for a joint IASC/SCAR Bipolar Action Group
768 - Improvements to Southern Ocean Bathymetric Data Gathering and Storage
769 - Nominations for SCAR Medals for 2008
770 - Nomination of National Representatives to the IBCSO Board by SCAR members
771 - Draft Code of Conduct
772 - Developing Antarctic Observing Systems
SCAR-MarBIN User Survey
The SCAR Marine Biodiversity Information System (www.SCARMarBIN.be) provides Free and Open Access to Antarctic Marine Biodiversity Data. MarBIN is seeking to improve its usefulness to the scientific and academic communities involved in Antarctic marine biodiversity research. We hereby invite you to take part in this process by completing the SCAR-MarBIN user needs survey. Completing the questionnaire should only take you a few minutes (only 8 simple questions), but will help us a lot in strategic decisions. Also, don't hesitate to disseminate this news item.
Take the Survey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=8Xal6Gis1cnmnE5_2fgHHRHA_3d_3d
Replies to Dr Bruno Danis, Scientific Coordinator <bruno.danis@scarmarbin.be>
Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM) Meeting
The Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM) met in Rome during September. JCADM welcomed several new member states bringing the total number of countries represented in JCADM to 31. The meeting involved consultation on the new (draft) SCAR Data Strategy, saw presentations on new tools and services for the science community, and examined further developments of links with the SCAR Science Groups.
Central to the draft data strategy is the need to enable interdisciplinary science through adopting new technologies and standards for enabling novel ways of accessing and integrating data, and building on the expertise of international data initiatives. This was recognised as becoming increasingly important as SCAR embarks on several initiatives to build Antarctic and Southern Ocean Observing Systems.
New directions for data management were discussed, including advances towards new models of highly distributed data collaborations based on networking and common data standards, the increasing use of virtual globes for integrating interdisciplinary data, and the increasing use of web services.
JCADM will provide support to the SCAR Scientific Research Programmes in implementing these new tools and technologies, and will enable further consultation on the SCAR Data Strategy through the JCADM representatives within the Scientific Research Programmes. For more information, view the report on New Directions for Data Management.
Other Antarctic and Polar News
Satellite Map of Antarctica
Representatives of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) together just produced the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA), a map that combines more than 1,100 hand-selected Landsat satellite scenes digitally compiled to create a single, seamless, cloud-free image ( http://lima.usgs.gov/). This is a uniquely detailed and scientifically accurate satellite mosaic map of Antarctica that is expected to become a standard geographic reference and will give both scientists and the general public an unmatched tool for studying the southernmost continent.
Robert Bindschadler, chief scientist of the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at Goddard, noted that the new mosaic is the most detailed map of the continent in existence and offers the most geographically accurate, true-colour views of the continent possible. "This innovation, compared to what we had available most recently, is like watching the most spectacular high-definition TV in living colour versus watching the picture on a small black-and-white television," he said.
For more information contact Denver Makle at USGS: (703) 648-4732, or email dmakle@usgs.gov
Science article: Warming from the Cold Places
SCIENCE, Volume 318, Issue 5849 dated October 19 2007, reports new evidence that solar heating around Antarctica preceeded global warming at the end of the last glaciation. Stott et al. (p. 435; published online 27 September; see the 28 September news story by Kerr) construct a chronology of high- and low-latitude climate change at the last glacial termination, in order to help answer the questions of where warming originated, and why. Their data, derived from both benthic and planktonic foraminifera recovered from the same marine sediment core, indicate that deep-sea temperatures in the western tropical Pacific warmed about 1500 years before the surface waters did, a result of the earlier warming of the high-latitude surface water from where the deep water originated around Antarctica. The deep-sea warming also preceded the rise in atmospheric CO2, which suggests that increasing insolation at high southern latitudes caused a retreat of sea ice that led to warming there and further a field. For full article see: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol318/issue5849/twis.dtl.
Latest IPCC Report highlights possible danger of ice sheet break-up
The "Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report" released on November 16 is now available (see http://www.ipcc.ch/). As New Scientist (24 November page 13) points out, it addresses the concerns of many polar scientists that the report of IPCC Working Group 1 had been too rosy concerning the possible rise in sea level over the next 90 years. The Synthesis report now says "The risk of additional contributions to sea level rise [from Antarctica] may be larger than projected by ice sheet models....because ice dynamic processes seen in recent observations [are] not fully included in ice sheet models and could increase the rate of ice loss." The more urgent tone is reflected elsewhere in the report, which says that "anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt and irreversible", and highlights the risk of "very large impacts" and "large-scale singularities". Such events, the report suggests, could include collapsing ice sheets. The Summary for Policymakers notes that "Because understanding of some important effects driving sea level rise is too limited, this report does not assess the likelihood, nor provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise." "Net loss of ice mass could occur [in Antarctica] if dynamical ice discharge dominates the ice sheet mass balance." "Partial loss of ice sheets on polar land could imply metres of sealevel rise..." which may occur "on century time scales."
SCAR is planning to address the question of the adequacy of ice sheet dynamic models at a workshop on "Improving Ice Sheet Models", which will take place in St Petersburg, Russia, from 5-7 July, 2008, and is co-organised by SCAR, IASC, CliC and CreSIS. For further information contact Kees van der Veen (cjvdv@ku.edu).
Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere
A special issue of "Remote Sensing of Environment", focusing on "Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere", is currently in press and papers are now available on-line (Volume 111, Issues 2-3 (30 November 2007) Pp. 135-408). The term Cryosphere is derived from the Greek word kryos, for cold, and it describes the portions of the Earth where water is in frozen form. This special issue brings together a collection of papers highlighting recent science, algorithm development, and validation results on remote sensing of the Cryosphere. To access and download the issue, please see Volume 111, Issues 2-3 at:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00344257
WMO Establishes Global Cryosphere Watch
Over the past 18 months, SCAR and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) worked with the cryospheric science community to develop a plan for a Cryosphere Observing System (CryOS), which can be accessed at http://cryos.ssec.wisc.edu/documents.html. The plan was used by Barry Goodisen, Chairman of the Scientific Steering Group for the WCRP-SCAR Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) programme as the basis for persuading the 15th Congress of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to establish a Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) as part of the WMO's integrated global observing and information systems. This would unite key stations/sites working on a coherent agreed programme of monitoring of changes in all elements of the cryosphere, produce valuable long-term records and cover key areas of the globe with cryospheric observations. The GCW will provide: an intergovernmental mechanism for supporting key cryospheric in situ and remote sensing observations, so implementing the requirements of CryOS; a one stop portal for certified cryospheric data; and economy and an increase of quality of observations. It will help existing elements to work better and to contribute to a global system, and will help IPY cryospheric projects to develop elements of a sustained cryospheric observing system. The GCW will contribute to the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS), which is coordinated by the international Group on Earth Observations (GEO). A first step will be the building of a GEO Cryospheric Community of Practice. A meeting of this community to discuss the cryospheric legacy of the IPY will likely be held under WMO auspices in 2008. For more information, contact SCAR Secretariat.
The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists: Shaping the Future of Polar Sciences
A new organisation brings together polar and cryosphere enthusiasts from around the world.
Following a meeting in Stockholm at the end of September 2007, the IPY International Youth Steering Committee (IYSC) and the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) merged under a new structure keeping the name 'APECS'. This new organisation reflects the needs of aspiring researchers and early career scientists interested in the Polar Regions between the undergraduate level and early career faculty and research positions.
The new APECS comes together to shape the future of polar sciences by sharing and developing interdisciplinary and international research directives, career development needs, and communication of these advancing sciences with people around the world. It consists of coordinated regional and national activities, disciplinary science groups, and international activities. For more information see http://arcticportal.org/apecs
Awards and Honours
Honours for Past SCAR President Joern Thiede
Joern Thiede, immediate past President of SCAR and immediate past Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research was presented with the Georg Von Neumayer Medal for "outstanding and deserving achievements in the field of polar research", by the State Minister for the Environment, in Bad Durkheim, Germany.
Explorers Club Honours SCAR Medallist and Others
On Oct. 18, Paul Mayewski, SCAR science medallist and founder and lead investigator of SCAR's International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE), which comprises scientific teams from 21 countries, was honored for work that the Club says has "revolutionized the field of climate change through the discovery of abrupt climate change and human impacts on the chemistry of the atmosphere." Paul is Director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. Paul and three other scientists received the Lowell Thomas Award from the New York-based Explorers Club in recognition of their work at the frontiers of climate research. This year's awards theme was "Exploring Climate Change." Other Antarctic researchers who received the awards are: W. Berry Lyons, Director of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University and lead principal investigator for the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) project - for his studies of the geochemistry of global climate change; Julie Palais, Director of the Antarctic Glaciology Program in NSF's Office of Polar Programs - for research into the use of volcanic ash in ice cores to study the paleoclimate record of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets; and Susan Solomon, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado - for her climate and ozone work, including research that led to determining the chemical cause of the Antarctic "Ozone hole."
SCAR/SCOR Oceans Group Leader Wins Prize
Dr. Eberhard Fahrbach, Co-Chair of the SCAR/SCOR Expert Group on Oceanography, has received the Georg Wust Prize 2007. This biannual prize is given by the German Society for Marine Research and Ocean Dynamics to excellent mid-career scientists for outstanding contributions to the general field of oceanography. The citation notes that Eberhard has covered a wide range of studies to understand the ocean as an essential component of the climate and ecosystem. He conducted his investigations according to the tradition established by Georg Wust as a combination of well-planned field work and careful analysis of the obtained data. He carried out studies on the dynamics of coastal and equatorial upwelling processes ranging from internal waves to the equatorial current system. After switching to polar oceanography, he focussed his work on the circulation and water mass formation in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean and the Greenland Sea. He dedicated significant efforts to design and build up observation systems in the polar oceans by stimulation of international cooperation and launching new technical developments. Beyond his research he proved his leadership by serving in key international committees and conducting numerous cruises.
Georg Wust led the famous Meteor oceanographic expedition to the South Atlantic in 1925-27; it was the first systematic study of an entire ocean basin reaching from the Antarctic to the tropics, and remains one of the most extensive oceanographic surveys ever undertaken. He directed the Institute for Marine Research at Kiel from 1946 until he retired in 1959. Fittingly, part of the prize consists of a 3-D laser-engraved picture of the old Meteor in a glass block.
Jobs
Nothing to report.
Events
Biennial SCAR Meeting, July 2008, St Petersburg
XXX SCAR Science Week (with business meetings and workshops of SCAR's Standing Scientific Groups) and Joint SCAR-IASC Open Science Conference. The theme of the conference is Polar Research - Arctic and Antarctic Perspectives in the International Polar Year. More information is available in the First Circular and on the conference website.
Other Events
Other events of interest to the SCAR Community are listed at: www.scar.org/events/
Newsletter prepared by Colin Summerhayes and Rosemary Nash, SCAR Secretariat. Please send feedback to info@scar.org
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