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SCAR Newsletter: Issue 16, September 2008
SCAR News
SCAR Accepts New Members
At the XXX SCAR Delegates meeting, in Moscow on July 14, 2008, Delegates endorsed Malaysia's application to change from Associate to Full Membership of SCAR, Romania's application to become an Associate Member, and the International Astronomical Union's application to become a Union Member. On July 16, former President Chris Rapley was elected an Honorary Member.
SCAR Elects New Officers
At the XXX SCAR Delegates meeting, in Moscow on July 16, 2008, Delegates elected Mahlon 'Chuck' Kennicutt (USA) as the new President, and Rasik Ravindra (India) and Ad Huiskes (Netherlands) as new Vice Presidents. They will join continuing Vice Presidents Antonio Meloni (Italy) and Sergio Marenssi (Argentina), and Past President Chris Rapley (UK) to form the SCAR Executive Committee. Delegates bid a fond farewell to former Past President Jörn Thiede (Germany), and to former Vice President Zhanhai Zhang (China). Now that SCAR has independent legal status as a Company Limited by Guarantee, and is a Charity under UK Law, the officers of SCAR are also Directors of SCAR as a Company, and Trustees of SCAR as a Charity.
Environmental Code of Conduct for Terrestrial Scientific Field Research in Antarctica
The Delegates meeting of XXX SCAR (July 2008, Moscow, Russia) approved of the Environmental Code of Conduct for Terrestrial Scientific Field Research in Antarctica.
National Programs (e.g. USA, New Zealand) have codes of conduct for certain activities and for specific areas in the Antarctic (e.g. the McMurdo Dry Valleys). Also the SCAR-RiSCC program developed a code of conduct for fieldwork with the specific aim of preventing the transfer of organisms between the various bioregions of the Antarctic. A unified code of conduct for fieldwork anywhere in the Antarctic, including protected areas, using a common terminology was felt necessary. The Standing Scientific Group on Life Sciences produced a draft text, which was subsequently commented on and amended by various groups within the SCAR community and by COMNAP.
The code is written in a personal fashion, providing a series of suggestions to those who conduct fieldwork rather than the suggestion of being a set of rules.
It will be submitted as an Information Paper to the ATCM and CEP in April 2009.
Read the Code of Conduct for Fieldwork
Please review SCAR's draft data and information management strategy
We are keen for input from the scientific community on the content of SCAR's draft data and information management strategy, which you can download from the SCAR-JCADM web site. Please submit reviews to Kim Finney at Kim.Finney@aad.gov.au, by November 15 latest.
SCAR Science Poster Updated
A new SCAR Science Poster is now available, thanks to the efforts of SCAR Vice-President Antonio Meloni and the graphics studio at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia in Rome. The graphics team has designed and produced a striking and informative poster based on the recent SCAR brochure, which they also designed. The new poster will be displayed publicly for the first time at the ICSU General Assembly in October but is available to view and download now from the Communications page of the SCAR web site.
SCAR Organisation Chart Updated
The new SCAR Organisation Chart is now available, incorporating the changes to the structure and SCAR subsidiary groups agreed at the XXX SCAR Delegates Meeting in July 2008. You can view and download the new chart from the Organisation page of the SCAR web site.
USA Launches National SCAR Web Site
As an example of what can be done at the national level to promote SCAR programmes and activities, we profile here the recent launch of the US SCAR web site.
The US Scientific Committee on SCAR Office is a focal point for US participation in SCAR. The National Academies Polar Research Board serves as the US National Committee to SCAR and the US Antarctic scientific community is represented by the US SCAR Team. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs Antarctic Division provides most of the financial support that allows US scientists to participate in SCAR. Other US governmental entities with missions in Antarctica are the US Department of State, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US Geological Survey (USGS), the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The new and improved US SCAR Office web site is easy to navigate and allows viewers to quickly find specific items of interest. The site provides links to: US SCAR Team contact information, a guide to SCAR, data and information resources, early career opportunities, SCAR communications plans, SCAR partners network, SCAR Scientific Research Programs, and a photo gallery. The site has many direct links to the main SCAR website and provides the latest information on SCAR News and Forthcoming Events. ANSWER email digest items are posted on the web site's front page directly above a series of "Links of Interest". SCAR Scientific Research Programs are highlighted and the site provides easy access to each program's home web site.
US researchers are encouraged to bookmark the site and regularly view it for the latest information on SCAR and US participation in SCAR. They are also encouraged to subscribe to and use the ANSWER email digest system to communicate important items to the US Antarctic community. At times the web site will be used to directly solicit input on important issues before SCAR from the US Antarctic community.
Antarctic News
ATCM looking for new Executive Secretary
As the term of the current Executive Secretary expires in September 2009, the 31st Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Kyiv has started the procedures to select his successor. The ATCM has agreed a draft advertisement for the position of Executive Secretary of the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which will be vacant upon the expiry of the term of the current Executive Secretary Johannes Huber on 1 September 2009. Do not send applications to the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat! Applications can only be made to the national authorities. Please check with your national authorities for the deadline for applications in your country. For more information, please see the ATS web site.
Southern Ocean Not Pristine
In the latest issue of Science (12 September 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5895, p. 1443) Blight and Ainley point out that the recent paper on "A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems" (B. S. Halpern et al., 15 February, p. 948), which suggests that there has been little anthropogenic effect on waters south of the Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone, is somewhat misleading. In fact, the northern portion of the Southern Ocean saw virtually all cetacean populations removed long ago, and in subsequent years (1960s to 1980s) the largest stocks of demersal fish in the Indian Ocean and Scotia Sea/Atlantic Ocean sectors were also fished to commercial extinction. Historically exploited fish species and cetaceans show little signs of recovery there, and recent legal commercial fishing activity has been correspondingly low. That is why Halpern's model shows little anthropogenic impact in these sectors apart from that of climate change. More consideration of historical data is needed in these models before we can accept that "large areas of relatively little human impact remain, particularly near the poles."
Antarctic ice shelf breaking up in winter
The Wilkins Ice Shelf continues to disintegrate despite peak winter conditions.
See more details and view a slide show of the break up.
Polar News
New president of the International Permafrost Association (IPA)
The head of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, Prof Dr Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten, is the new president of the International Permafrost Association (IPA). His appointment took place at the 9th International Conference on Permafrost in Fairbanks, Alaska. Prof Hubberten will lead the International Permafrost Association for the next four years. During his term in office he will coordinate, among other things, the analysis of the scientific results of the International Polar Year. "In these times of global warming, ....we have to expect dramatic changes to the ecosystem and the infrastructure of the respective region in the case of the thawing of the permafrost soils", says the researcher from Potsdam. Heavy soil erosion of the coastal regions as well as the release of huge amounts of carbon, greenhouse gases and freshwater, frozen in the extensive permafrost regions of Siberia and North America, could affect global water and carbon cycles.
Research vessel transits the Northwest Passage for the first time ever
Bremerhaven, August 19th 2008. German research vessel Polarstern, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, is transiting the Northwest Passage for the first time. Polarstern left the port of Reykjavik on August 12th, sailed around Greenland on a southern course and is located currently at the beginning of the Northwest Passage. Its destination is the East Siberian Sea where geoscientific measurements at the junction between the Mendeleev Ridge and the East Siberian Shelf are the focus of the participants of this expedition. The measurements striven for in the framework of the International Polar Year will help to understand how the undersea ridges and basins were built. This expedition takes the researchers around the North Pole in 68 days because the return voyage is to lead via the Northeast Passage.
The researchers want to clarify the tectonic interrelations on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean in the track of Alfred Wegener, who founded the theory on continental drift in 1915. They employ seismic measurement methods which will allow a glance at the geological units and sediments. "At the bottom of the sea we find mountains which are about the same height as the Alps," illustrates Chief Scientist Wilfried Jokat. "These are partially overlaid by sediments, so that we have to look beneath the surface to find clues hinting at the geological history of the Mendeleev Ridge," he explains further.
Where the Mendeleev Ridge meets the East Siberian Shelf, very old layers can be found at the surface of the sea bottom. If the researchers find such places by means of the equipment on board Polarstern, they will try to retrieve cores with a gravity corer. 50 million year old rocks crop out at these places; usually, only layers of the upper 10 to 15 metres can be cored with a gravity corer, which only shows layers about 1 million years old. Both sediment cores and sediment profiles will be used to further a proposal for future Arctic depth drilling. Within the framework of the International Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), a long drilling core will be gained which is anticipated by researchers worldwide. It will give new insights into the Arctic geological history of the last 100 million years.
Furthermore, there are areas with a high rate of sedimentation in the East Siberian Sea. If the researchers manage to retrieve cores from these sediments, it will help to conclude climate history of the younger geological past. For example, the rate of organic carbon in sediment cores hints at biological activity, and researchers can reconstruct temperature and ice cover up to one million years ago.
At present, organic carbon reaches the Arctic Ocean via rivers as well. For this reason oceanographers are interested in the East Siberian Sea. Similar to former cruise stages, they sample water and monitor temperature, salinity and depth. Additionally, they specify the concentration of terrestrial carbon in the water, by which they are able to calculate from which river the examined water originates and how long it has been on its way. These data will help to understand climate relevant systems of currents in the Arctic Ocean.
Changes to marine currents also affect the biotic environment. This is why biologists investigate the species assemblage in samples of various regions and depths and compare them with measurements taken in the 1990s. This way they can deduce, for instance, whether a changing ice cover affects the system's biological productivity. The copepod Oithona similes which lives both in the Arctic and Antarctic Ocean and also in the North Sea will be investigated in more detail. The researchers want to conduct experiments on board to see how they successfully reproduce in these different climatic zones.
All of this research is dependent on external factors like weather and, particularly, ice cover. Two months ago it was still uncertain whether Polarstern could transit the Northwest Passage; an alternative measurement program for the Greenland Sea had been prepared. Current satellite pictures show that the Northwest Passage is almost ice free and that it can probably be sailed without big problems. During the expedition, cruise leader Jokat wants to get in contact with Canadian and US-American colleagues who undertake measurements in the Beaufort Sea. They can pass on information which no satellite can provide.
After its journey home through the Northeast Passage, Polarstern will reach Bremerhaven again on October 19th.
Seas Likely to Rise Faster This Century
Based on an article by Richard A. Kerr, ScienceNOW Daily News, 4 September 2008. A report in "Science" suggests that global warming will cause sea levels to rise much faster by the end of the century than officially projected. The rising temperatures will cause the oceans to swell with melted glacial ice, the study finds, likely flooding substantial portions of Florida and Bangladesh, as well as many other low-lying, densely populated areas of the world. Warming glaciers raise sea level by adding more water both as they melt and when icebergs break off. Glaciologist W. Tad Pfeffer of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his colleagues calculated how fast glaciers would have to flow in order to raise sea level by a given number of metres and then considered whether those flow rates were plausible. They calculated Greenland ice loss through specific rock-bounded "gates". For West Antarctica the gates are not well defined, so they used approximations of how flow might respond to rising temperatures. The resulting "improved estimate" of sea-level rise ranges from 80 centimeters to 200 centimeters by the end of the century. That is significantly higher than the estimates of the IPCC (February 2007). Rises of this order would threaten coastal people in many parts of the world.
Cryosphere Workshop
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), through its Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project, are jointly sponsoring an "IPY Legacy Workshop on Sustaining Projects' Contributions to WMO Global Cryosphere Watch and GEOSS". It will be held on 3-5 December 2008 at the WMO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Workshop will discuss topics such as:
- Introduction and further development of the WMO GCW concept;
- Discussion of IPY projects' accomplishments and need for sustaining the activity;
- Contribution of projects to determining the state and fate of the cryosphere;
- Identification of specific IPY project components, such as sites and facilities that are key for polar cryosphere monitoring and research;
- Identification of IPY cryospheric projects capable of contributing significantly to the GCW;
- Recommendations for observational activities and facilitating, where necessary, a transition from research-based to "operational" status;
- Recommendation of measures to ensure sustained flow of data from the projects and continuing activities; and
- Search for users and sources of support for IPY projects and/or their components that should be sustained.
We encourage your participation and contribution to this Workshop. You can register and submit an abstract online at the Workshop website. The deadline for registration is 31 October 2008.
EU funding opportunity for polar research
The European Polar Consortium, in association with the European Polar Board of the European Science Foundation, is pleased to inform you of the pre-advertising of the PolarCLIMATE Call for Proposals on the ESF website.
The Call for Pre-Proposals opens on 26th September 2008. Pre-Proposals are to be submitted by a deadline of Friday 24th October 2008.
This first Pilot Call for Pre-Proposals will lead to potential Joint Projects to be undertaken within the PolarCLIMATE Programme. Following agreement with 20 ministries and funding organisations from 18 European Countries in Austria, France, Belgium, Bulgaria*, Czech Republic, Denmark*, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom*, the PolarCLIMATE Programme is expected to run for 3-4 years supported by national research funding. The Programme aims to support high quality transnational research at the European level in the Arctic and Antarctic. The Total commitment to the Call by the agencies is estimated to be 10 Million Euros (total includes direct financial commitment and estimated in-kind logistical and infrastructure support*). (*denotes counties with only in-kind support subject to scientific assessment results).
The research as part of this European Programme takes place after the International Polar Year and therefore will be an important continuity of efforts to investigate the processes of climate change and its impacts and to maintain momentum of the integrated groups of scientists that have formed during the IPY process.
Obituary
Obituary for Past SCAR President George Knox
SCAR regrets to announce the recent death of George Knox, a New Zealand marine biologist who was Secretary of SCAR from 1974-78, and President of SCAR from 1978-82.
George began a long-term marine biology Antarctic research programme in association with the Zoology Department, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1960, and directed this successful team for 12 years from 1971 to 1983. He participated in 13 field parties to the Antarctic. He showed a special interest in Antarctic Conservation and was involved in strategy proposals for the conservation of Antarctic seals, and proposals for the designation of Antarctic Specially Protected Areas and sites of special scientific interest. He was much involved in SCAR's 10-year BIOMASS programme and in issues relating to the potential mineral exploitation of Antarctica.
George published over 100 scientific papers, 25 on the Antarctic and Southern Ocean, and wrote or edited eight books, with several still in the pipeline. His most recent book, the 1000-page Biology of the Southern Ocean, published by Cambridge University Press, has just been reproduced in a 2nd revised Edition and is the standard international reference work on the biology of the oceans surrounding Antarctica.
As is evident from his terms as an officer of SCAR, George was also much involved in the administration of Antarctic science. He was appointed to the then NZ National Committee for Antarctic Research in 1959, and sat on the NZ Ross Dependency Research Committee between 1965 and 1992. Among several international committee duties he was also Secretary General and then President of the International Association for Ecology (INTECOL) between 1978 and 1982. During the past decade he was also the representative to SCAR of the International Union of Biological Sciences, so continuing his involvement with SCAR up to the present.
In recognition of his services to science Professor Knox was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and his prodigious public service and academic record in the conservation and environment sectors throughout New Zealand led to his being awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list of 1985. In 2007 the NZ Royal Society Committee of Antarctic Sciences presented him with a 50-year anniversary award on behalf of the New Zealand Antarctic community. George was an inspiration to his fellow scientists and will be much missed.
Awards
New SCAR and 6th Continent Initiative Fellows
SCAR is sponsoring three new SCAR fellows and one SCAR/IPF/IAI/UNEP 6th Continent Initiative fellow. The SCAR fellows are: Wilhelmina Clavano, currently based in Canada, who will be going to New Zealand to work on a project entitled "Retrieving snow thickness over land and sea ice by improving ground penetrating radar data processing"; Nicholas Demetras from New Zealand who will be working in the US to study "The role of biotic and abiotic factors in determining the distribution of soil nematode communities in an Antarctic Dry Valley system", and Marina Verducci from Italy who will be working in Germany on "Middle Miocene Southern Ocean climatic and paleoceanographic evolution and Antarctic cryosphere expansion". In addition a SCAR/IPF/IAI/UNEP 6th Continent Initiative fellowship was awarded to Ramon Hegedus from Hungary who will be working on "The role of polarized skylight in animal navigation and foraging in Antarctica" in Sweden. Ramon's fellowship is sponsored by the International Polar Foundation.
Past SCAR Vice President Roland Schlich to be honoured in Strasbourg
The Ecole et Observatoire des Sciences de la Terre of the University of Strasbourg is organizing a special day in honor of Professor Roland Schlich, on Friday October 3, 2008 in Strasbourg. A detailed program will be available beginning of September. For more information, please contact Marc SCHAMING (Marc.Schaming@eost.u-strasbg.fr).
Roland was a scientist at Charcot Station high on the Antarctic polar plateau, during the International Geophysical Year, throughout the winter of 1957-58. He was a Vice President of SCAR from 1998-2004, and continues to be the SCAR Delegate from France. He is seen at left in the photo, along with another IGYer, Vladimir Kotlyakov (Russia), at the SCAR Delegates 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner, in Moscow, on July 15th (photo courtesy of Chris Rapley).
Past SCAR President Joern Thiede receives French Award
On February 12 this year, SCAR's immediate past President, Joern Thiede (2002-2006), was awarded the Ordre Pour La Mérite by the French Senate, for contributions to Franco-German relations in scientific cooperation.
Events
Oslo IPY Science Conference, June 2010: Call For Session Ideas
The next large IPY Conference will take place in Oslo, June 8-12th, 2010. Please consider shaping this conference by proposing a session idea - this could be in the form of traditional presentations, workshops, interactive discussions, visual displays, or other creative ideas to bring out the best of IPY. Deadline for session proposals is 24th October, 2008. For more information, visit the conference website or contact Kristen Ulstein (email: ku@forskningsradet.no).
SCAR's 10th International Antarctic Biology Symposium Plan
The first circular for this meeting, which takes place in Sapporo, Japan, on July 27-31, 2008, is now available. This is the first time this prestigious symposium has been held in Asia.
Other Events
Other events of interest to the SCAR Community are listed on the Events page.
Newsletter prepared by Colin Summerhayes and Rosemary Nash, SCAR Secretariat. Please send feedback to info@scar.org
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