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SCAR Newsletter: Issue 15, June 2008
SCAR News
Southern Giant Petrels on the Antarctic Continent considered not to be threatened
SCAR held a workshop of experts over 19-20 May in Cambridge, UK, to assess the conservation status of the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus - an ACAP-listed species - within the Antarctic Treaty Area (south of 60ºS).
In 2007 the Southern Giant Petrel was downlisted from Vulnerable to Near Threatened by BirdLife International (www.birdlife.org.uk) on behalf of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). The SCAR Workshop considered the latest (including unpublished) data on the species' population size and trends, and decided that the regional (and global) populations warranted further down-listing to the category of Least Concern. As a consequence of the workshop's decision, BirdLife International will now institute a formal review of the species' global status in 2009.
Meanwhile, the Committee for Environmental Protection of the Antarctic Treaty System (www.ats.aq), meeting in Kiev, Ukraine in June 2008 after the workshop, accepted SCAR's conclusions, and, as a consequence, recommended to the XXXI Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) that followed that the Southern Giant Petrel should not be listed as a Specially Protected Species under Annex II of the ATS' Protocol on Environmental Protection. This advice was accepted by the XXXI ATCM, bringing to a seeming end a process that goes back several years.
Information from John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, with the help of Steven Chown and Colin Summerhayes.
Draft of SCAR's review of Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (ACCE)
SCAR's AGCS team was asked to take the lead in the preparation of a report on Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (ACCE), to consider the past and possible future changes in the physical environment of the Antarctic and the impact on the biota. Many individuals have contributed to the report and we now have a draft available that we would like to have discussed as widely as possible. SCAR welcomes comment and feedback on the full draft text of the report, which is about 500 pages in length and is available as a single 15 MB PDF file. It can be downloaded from the NERC-BAS FTP website by selecting ACCE_Draft_9June.pdf, or viewed directly by clicking on the link below. Please pass comments and suggestions back to John Turner (jtu@bas.ac.uk) by September 1st. We plan to revise the report later in the year in light of the comments received, and have it published early in the new year. The report is still in draft form. Many of the references are incomplete and some small items are still outstanding. What we require at this stage is comment on the main scientific conclusions. It is important that we get specific comments and suggestions for change, rather than general comments. We greatly look forward to getting input from interested parties, who we are sure will be able to help us to make this a landmark volume useful for years to come.
View the draft report.
Thickness distribution of Antarctic sea ice
As part of the SCAR Antarctic Sea Ice Processes and Climate (ASPeCt) program, ship-based observations have been used to describe regional and seasonal changes in the thickness distribution and characteristics of sea ice and snow cover thickness around Antarctica. The results show the seasonal progression of the ice thickness distribution for six regions around the continent together with statistics on the mean thickness, surface ridging, snow cover, and local variability for each region and season. For further details see "Thickness distribution of Antarctic sea ice", Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 113, C05S92, doi:10.1029/2007JC004254, 2008.
Online and Book Proceedings now available for the 10th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences (10th ISAES)
The 341 publications of the 10th ISAES held in Santa Barbara in early September 2007 are now available in the Online Proceedings Volume "Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World", edited by Alan Cooper, Carol Raymond, and the 10th ISAES Editorial Team (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/), and in the Book Proceedings with DVD from The National Academies Press (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12168). The publications include 11 keynote papers, 109 short research papers, 217 extended abstracts, 3 meeting and workshop reports and the symposium program book. All are available for free download in PDF format.
Antarctic News
Quarterly Newsletter Now Available: "National Snow & Ice Data Center Notes, #63"
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) announces the availability of the spring issue of "National Snow and Ice Data Center Notes, #63". Selected articles in this issue include:
- Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegration
- Year-Round Sea Ice Website
- Updates to Existing Data Sets
- New Products
View an electronic version of the newsletter.
Ozone's Influence
In recent decades, the westerly winds of the southern hemispheric jet stream have accelerated on the poleward side of the jet; this acceleration has been attributed to a combination of effects from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and decreasing amounts of stratospheric ozone, and this strengthening has been predicted to continue. Son et al. in a recent article in Science (p. 1486) find differently. A recent set of models, which include fully interactive stratospheric chemistry, project that the summer tropospheric westerly winds in the Southern Hemisphere will decrease on the poleward side of the jet, owing to the gradual diminution of the ozone hole through the year 2050. This would have important consequences for climate in the Southern Hemisphere, and highlights the importance of stratospheric ozone recovery as an agent of climate change.
Support for the Advancement of Early Career Antarctic Researchers
The Tinker Foundation, based in the USA, is designing a prestigious award, the Martha Muse Award, to support an exemplary Antarctic researcher, in any field of Antarctic science or policy, to be presented annually by the Tinker Foundation in honor of its Chairman, Martha Twitchell Muse. The Muse Fellowship will be targeted to help develop and grow the ranks of Antarctic researchers by providing support to a researcher with clear leadership potential at the critical early stages of his/her academic career. A committee will:
- define the purpose and scope of the award,
- establish selection criteria and application materials, and
- develop a strategy for announcing the inaugural competition during the International Polar Year 2007-2008.
The committee will provide a written plan to guide the award process; administration of the award will be done by an independent, international body such as ICSU's Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.
The project will begin in Aril 2008.
For more information, see: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/projectview.aspx?key=48908
Polar News
Contrary to Expectation: Phytoplankton Calcification in a High-CO2 World
A paper by Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez et al, in Science, 18 April 2008 (Vol. 320. no. 5874, pp. 336 - 340) indicates that while ocean acidification in response to rising atmospheric CO2 partial pressures is widely expected to reduce calcification by marine organisms, new laboratory evidence shows that calcification and net primary production in the coccolithophore species Emiliania huxleyi are significantly increased by high CO2 partial pressures. Field evidence from the deep ocean is consistent with these laboratory conclusions, indicating that over the past 220 years there has been a 40% increase in average coccolith mass. These findings show that coccolithophores are already responding positively rather than negatively to respond to rising atmospheric CO2 partial pressures, which has important implications for biogeochemical modeling of future oceans and climate.
View the full article on the Science website.
Life in Extreme Environments
The first issue of the CAREX newsletter is now available. CAREX (Coordination Action for Research Activities on life in Extreme Environments) is a European Commission Framework Programme 7 project coordinated by the British Antarctic Survey (Dr. Cynan Ellis-Evans) active since January 1st, 2008. CAREX aims to provide a networking platform to the European scientific community involved in research on life in extreme environments, as well as defining research priorities in the field. It is an interdisciplinary initiative as it considers microbial life, plant adaptation and animal adaptation to various marine, polar, terrestrial extreme environments as well as outer space.
View the CAREX Newletter.
Climate model projects short-term Europe and North America cooling
A study published in Nature predicts a slight cooling of Europe and North America due to a temporary weakening of the meridional overturning circulation (the ocean thermohaline conveyor belt), masking the effect of climate change.
Read the full article.
First Monthly Arctic Sea Ice Outlook (May 2008)
The Arctic Sea Ice Outlook is an international effort to provide an integrated, community-wide summary of the state of arctic sea ice over the 2008 summer season. This effort, which emerged from discussions at the "Arctic Observation Integration Workshops," held in March 2008 in Palisades, NY, is a response by the scientific community to the need for better understanding of the arctic sea ice system, given the drastic and unexpected sea ice decline witnessed in 2007.
The Sea Ice Outlook effort produces monthly reports based on an open and inclusive process that synthesizes input from a broad range of scientific perspectives. Nineteen (19) groups from the international research community responded to the first call for outlook contributions. These contributions have been synthesized into the first monthly outlook report for May, which is now available in summary and full report formats.
The Sea Ice Outlook should not be considered as a formal prediction for arctic sea ice extent, nor is it intended as a replacement for existing efforts or centres with operational responsibility. Rather, it is a community effort that provides an instrument for synthesis of data from arctic observing systems and modeling activities to provide insight into the arctic sea ice system.
To access the report and for more information about the Sea Ice Outlook effort, please go to:
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/index.php or contact James Overland (Lead, Sea Ice Outlook Core Integration Group), Email: james.overland@noaa.gov
Two fatalities in helicopter crash in Antarctica
SCAR would like to send its condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the two people who lost their lives when a helicopter based on the research ship Polarstern crashed near the German Antarctic station Neumayer II. Further details of the incident are available in the Science article.
Events
Workshop on Improving Ice Sheet Models
5 - 7 July 2008, St. Petersburg, Russia
The Workshop is scheduled immediately prior to the SCAR/IASC Open Science Conference, St. Petersburg, Russia, and will involve one day of invited presentations, followed by one day of discussions and writing in break-out groups, and half a day of concluding plenary discussions. We anticipate bringing together some 50 participants from diverse disciplines including glaciology, high-latitude oceanography and meteorology, geophysics, representing both modelling and observational communities.
For further information, visit the Workshop website
Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) One Day Conference
7 July 2008, St Petersburg, Russia
The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) is hosting a free one-day professional development workshop prior to the joint SCAR/IASC conference in St Petersburg. It's an international and multidisciplinary event aimed at early career researchers addressing key issues such as grant proposal writing, research productivity, communication and international collaboration with sessions run by leading polar researchers.
Visit the website for more information.
Other Events
Other events of interest to the SCAR Community are listed on the Events page.
Obituary
The Passing of Edith Fanta
It is with deep regret that we learned about the untimely death of Edith Fanta on May 7th.
We knew that Edith's health had been deteriorating for some years, but this did not prevent her from being very active in various functions, amongst others as Chair of the Scientific Committee of CCAMLR, and as a member of the Joint Committee of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007 – 2009. On the SCAR front, Edith was the principal organiser of the 9th SCAR International Biology Symposium, which took place from 25-29 July 2005 on her home turf at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, in Curitiba, and was the first such meeting in South America. To her credit it was a fine meeting, and very well attended. Edith was also a member of the Brazilian team on the SCAR Standing Scientific Group for the Life Sciences, and in that capacity had for many years acted as the SCAR representative to CCAMLR, until she was elected Chair of CCAMLR's Scientific Committee.
Apart from her activities in various international committees tasked with the organization and management of Antarctic science, she continued to be an active researcher. She led Working Group 5 of SCAR's Scientific Research Programme on Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic (EBA), which deals with the impact of past, current and predicted future environmental change on biodiversity and ecosystem function. And she led a project in the framework of the IPY, providing the Brazilian national input to the international IPY project on Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic (EBA). It was typical for Edith that despite her dwindling health, she carried on working on these projects to the last possible moment.
Edith was a delightful person - always friendly and good-humoured, always trying to solve disputes in a harmonic way, but never allowing herself to be being pushed aside in a discussion. She leaves behind an empty space, not least because of the enthusiasm with which she undertook her scientific and management activities. She will not be easily replaced.
Edith was more than just a colleague: Edith was a friend. Our best wishes go to her family and close friends at this difficult time.
Awards and Honours
SCAR to Award Medals for Achievement
On July 8, 2008, as part of the opening ceremony for the SCAR Open Science Conference, in St Petersburg, Russia, the President, Professor Chris Rapley will award the following three SCAR medals for 2008: (i) to Dr. Vladimir Kotlyakov (Russia), the SCAR President's Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Antarctic Science; (ii) to Dr Angelika Brandt (Germany), the SCAR Medal for Excellence in Antarctic Research; and (iii) to Professor Claude Lorius (France), the SCAR Medal for International Scientific Coordination. SCAR congratulates the Awardees and wishes them continued success in their scientific endeavours in the future. The full citations are available on the Awards section of the SCAR web site.
Julian Dowdeswell honoured with Founder's Medal of Royal Geographical Society
It is good news that the former UK Alternate Delegate to SCAR, Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of SCAR's home, the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, has recently been awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for 2008, for services to glaciology. This is one of the two most prestigious medals awarded by the RGS; a very great honour. Many congratulations Julian!
Newsletter prepared by Colin Summerhayes and Rosemary Nash, SCAR Secretariat. Please send feedback to info@scar.org
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