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SCAR Newsletter: Issue 18, March 2009
SCAR News
SCAR Seeks New Executive Director
The SCAR Executive Director retires at the end of March 2010. The advert for this position and the further particulars describing it can be found on the SCAR web site home page. The advert will also shortly appear in New Scientist and Nature.
SCAR's Review of Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment available for comment
We ask for comments on the penultimate draft of SCAR's Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment review, which you can download from the ACCE web site. Please feel free to download the chapters, and to then use the Track Changes option of MS Word to add or delete text and references, so that we can see clearly what you are suggesting in the way of improvements. If you make changes, please then delete all but the numbered section in which you made your changes, and return that numbered section to John Turner at jtu@bas.ac.uk. This will help us to see where your comments belong, and at the same time keep to a minimum the transfer of large files.
To speed publication it would be appreciated if you would provide your feedback no later than April 30.
View SCAR's Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment review
SCAR's Census of Antarctic Marine Life finds 1000 new species
The Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) - a SCAR programme, an IPY programme, and part of the global Census of Marine Life - found some 7500 animal species, 1000 more than were known before. Surprisingly, some 235 species were found to be common to both the Arctic and the Antarctic.
For more details, read the full ScienceNews article
News from SCAR's EBA (Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic) programme
The third issue of the EBA Newsletter (March 2009) is now available on the Life Sciences page.
View the March EBA Newsletter
News from SCAR's GeoSciences Group
The latest issue of GeoReach, the newsletter of the GeoSciences Standing Scientific Group, is now available on the GeoSciences page.
View the February 2009 GeoReach issue
Subglacial Antarctic Lake News from the IPY
The following article was released on the IPY Media web page as part of the celebrations of the end of the IPY. It highlights SCAR's Subglacial Antarctic Lake Exploration programme (SALE). For details, visit the 'First Antarctic Subglacial Lake Entry on the Horizon' news item.
ASPeCt Sea-Ice Database Application
ASPeCt (Antarctic Sea Ice Processes and Climate) is an expert group on multi-disciplinary Antarctic sea ice zone research within the SCAR Physical Sciences programme. Established in 1996, ASPeCt has the key objective of improving our understanding of the Antarctic sea ice zone through focussed and ongoing research field programmes, remote sensing and numerical modelling. The Australian Antarctic Data Centre now archives in situ data on Antarctic sea ice and snow cover properties. This includes data from thickness transects across ice floes, snow pits and ice cores. Visit the Australian Antarctic Data Centre website (best viewed with Mosaic or IE 7.0).
Data from Australian, Japanese, German and US expeditions are currently available. Data can also be contributed online using the excel proforma available from the site.
CODATA and SCAR Partners In Polar Data and Information Commons
The ad-hoc group on data management is currently finalising the SCAR Data and Information Strategy, to be presented to EXCOM for endorsement at its August 2009 meeting in Punta Arenas. Following endorsement of the Strategy, work will begin on an implementation plan. Fortuitously CODATA, an ICSU body concerned with scientific data management, was recently awarded a (30,000 Euro) ICSU grant to pursue development of a Polar Data and Information Commons during 2009. SCAR was a partner in the grant proposal and will work with CODATA in pursuing development of an implementation plan for a bipolar approach to data management. SCAR's requirements should form a subset within this over-arching plan. The other key partners in the CODATA proposal were the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the IPY International Programme Office, the International Arctic Council (IASC), the World Data System Transition Team, the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. The overall objective of the CODATA project is to set the foundations for establishing a sustainable, long-term framework for the preservation of, and access to polar data.
Webcasts of St Petersburg Open Science Conference now available
Webcasts from the SCAR/IASC IPY Open Science Conference, held in St Petersburg last July, are now available on the Arctic Portal website. They include the press conference, excerpts from the first two days' proceedings, and powerpoint presentations from the keynote speakers. They can be viewed by going to the webcasts section of the Arctic Portal website and clicking on SCAR/IASC IPY Open Science Conference.
SCAR President Makes Historic Visit to King George Island
The SCAR President recently completed an unprecedented tour of SCAR member nation scientific stations on King George Island. President Chuck Kennicutt was a member of a delegation of distinguished visitors that accompanied the Instituto Antarctico Uruguayo (IAU) to Artigas Base, King George Island. The Delegation was led by General Domingo Montaldo (Director of IAU) and Admiral Juan Fernandez, Commandant of the Uruguayan Navy. During the visit, Uruguay reopened its second scientific base in the region, Científica Antártica T/N Ruperto Elichiribehety (ECARE). During the 8-day stay, the SCAR President took the opportunity to visit Korea's King Sejong Station, China's Great Wall Station, Chile's Escudero Station, and Russia's Bellingshausen Station. At each station researchers and scientists were available to discuss on-going and planned research activities. Several of the stations are currently undergoing significant expansions and improvements in infrastructure, support facilities, and laboratories. The SCAR President noted that "…the visit provided me with a better understanding and appreciation for the capabilities in the King George Island area. There is great potential for cooperation and partnerships among SCAR nations with programs and facilities in the region."
One objective of the SCAR visit was to encourage and promote partnerships and coordination in the region. Extensive cooperation is already occurring and provides a solid basis for even greater synergy amongst programmes. In addition to nationals conducting research at each station, there were also guest scientists from Germany, Venezuela, Brazil, New Zealand and Switzerland. The visiting delegation also encountered many instances of shared logistics and support that are a model for future collaboration in the region. One of SCAR's missions is to assist as appropriate in facilitating scientific partnerships among SCAR nations in ways that are mutually beneficial. Toward this end, SCAR has organized a King George Island Expert Group to consider how scientific programmes in the region might more effectively contribute to SCAR scientific initiatives. The topic of SCAR and King George Island science will be discussed at COMNAP's annual meeting in August 2009 in Punta Arenas, Chile. Kennicutt noted that "SCAR has no desire to intervene or comment on the national scientific priorities of its member nations, but SCAR can serve a role in enhancing communication and cooperation among countries when common interests are being pursued in the same or similar locations. The concentration of facilities, logistics, capabilities, research personnel, and scientific programs in the King George Island region is one-of-a-kind in the world and we should explore how these capabilities can best benefit Antarctic science in general and enhance national contributions to SCAR scientific activities."
The President also noted that "…everywhere we went, we were welcomed by enthusiastic and dedicated young scientists conducting cutting-edge research in some of the most modern, remote facilities in the world. It is abundantly clear that Antarctic science is healthy, pursuing some of the most societal-relevant research of any scientific community, and engaging some of the brightest minds that our nations have to offer. The future is indeed bright for Antarctic science and international collaboration!"
SCAR Submits 10 papers to 32nd ATCM and 12th CEP meetings
The SCAR papers for the 32nd ATCM and 12th CEP meetings are now on the XXXII ATCM Papers page of the SCAR web site. The list includes one submitted through SCAR by the IPY International Project Office (WP 48).
SCAR Annual Report published
The SCAR Annual Report for 2008 has been published as Bulletin 170 and is now available on the Bulletins page of the SCAR website.
Antarctic News
Unexpected Warming across Antarctica
In a breakthrough article in Nature this week, Eric Steig and colleagues show that overall the Antarctic continent has warmed over the past 50 years. Until now, incomplete records led researchers to believe that the continent's entire interior may be cooling whilst the peninsula region warms. The authors use existing weather station records combined with recent satellite measurements and statistical models to provide a fuller picture of the continent's temperature from 1957 to 2006. They conclude that the eastern region of the continent, which is larger and colder than the western portion, is warming at 0.1C per decade, and the west at 0.17C per decade - faster than the global average.
Read the full article
Giant Ice Sheet Is Safe ... for Now
Science (18 March 2009) reports on how one of the world's biggest ice masses, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, could melt over the next few thousand years and raise sea level by as much as 5 metres, if nearby ocean temperatures rise by several degrees Celsius. Although such a dramatic rise in temperature may seem unlikely in the near term, such conditions are possible based on paleoclimate data and a new computer model, which show that the ice sheet has collapsed multiple times in the past.
Researchers are investigating what warmer temperatures might do to the world's largest ice masses, including the 2-kilometre-thick ice mass that constitutes the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, lying to the southwest of the southern tip of South America. If the ice sheet melts, many of the world's coastal areas, including Bangladesh, southern Florida, and southern Louisiana, could be under water.
Forecasting the ice sheet's behaviour has been difficult, however, because over the past million years, global temperatures have been too cool to provide much insight about what might happen in a balmier climate. So, two teams of researchers tried a new approach. One group examined a pristine drill core from sediment below the sea bottom near the ice. In the part of the core that dates back from about 5 million to 3 million years ago, when temperatures and greenhouse gas levels were somewhat higher than they are today, the group found evidence of multiple, 40,000-year cycles of melting and refreezing.
Then the second group compared that data with a new, three-dimensional computer model that simulated the ice sheet's behaviour over the past 5 million years. The teams report in two papers tomorrow in Nature that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could indeed begin to collapse sometime in the next century or so if nearby ocean temperatures increase roughly 5°C - a possibility if current warming trends continue. If that warming occurs, the sheet could totally collapse in a few thousand years but contribute to sea-level rise much sooner.
Read the full Science article
Trapped under ice
When the Autosub 3 robot submarine began its pioneering 110-kilometre round trip under the Antarctic ice, there was no guarantee that it would ever come back. Its sister craft, Autosub 2, had been lost on a similar mission in 2005. Autosub 3 was being sent on a much more ambitious mapping expedition, in an environment in which escaping to the surface is not an option. But it was also packing the latest technology. The 7 metre-long, 3.5 tonne autonomous robot can dive to 1,600 metres under the surface of the ocean and travel 400 kilometres, powered only by 5,000 standard D-cell batteries. Nature (20th March 2009) interviews the team behind the risky submarine mission to map the underside of an Antarctic glacier.
Read the full Nature article
Antarctic Worms Make Antifreeze
Researchers from Brigham Young University are reporting a hardy Antarctic worm that withstands its cold climate by cranking out antifreeze. Not only that but, when its notoriously dry home runs out of water, it just dries itself out and goes into suspended animation until liquid water brings it back to life. The research trip by Byron Adams, associate professor of molecular biology, and his Ph.D. student Bishwo Adhikari, in December 2008 was intended to help determine how the fate of a half-millimeter worm can actually impact an entire ecosystem, and how that information can serve as an important baseline for understanding climate change's impact on more complex systems, such as a farmer's field in the United States. Discovering the anti-freeze gene in this nematode was something of a surprise. This particular species' unique genetic response to its environment means it is likely to flourish as Antarctica gets wetter, Adams says, while other nematode species diminish. That's how this molecular-level research ties back into predicting how the composition and distribution of soil species will change in response to climate change.
Read the full news story (courtesy of the Ukrainian Scientific Club)
The lost world beneath the Antarctic ice
British scientists have been given the go-ahead to search for life forms hidden for more than 400,000 years beneath Antarctic ice. A team of scientists will drill through a two-mile-thick sheet of ice that has sealed sub-glacial Lake Ellsworth in West Antarctica from the rest of the biosphere for at least as long as Homo sapiens has walked the Earth. They are hoping to find species that have survived beneath the ice sheet since it formed between 400,000 and two million years ago. Finding life in such an extreme environment would be one of the most important discoveries of the century.
Read the full article from The Independent
Gamburtsev Mountains revealed
Results from a recent expedition to the Gamburtsev Mountains hidden beneath the Antarctic ice sheet have now been revealed. The findings may cause geologists to rethink their ideas about the continent's history. For details, see the full Nature News article.
Russian researchers suspend drilling to subglacial Lake Vostok until December 2009
Researchers drilling a well to reach subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica have used special liquid to plug the hole till the end of the year. "Winter is coming in the Southern Hemisphere, and all seasonal research and on-site experiments that are usually carried out at the station inside the continent during summer have been suspended till the next field season," deputy head of the Russian Antarctic Expedition Vyacheslav Martyanov said on Saturday. "Eleven polar researchers are staying at the Vostok station but the next flight bringing a new group of researchers and specialists, equipment and food from the coastal Progress station is scheduled for December 2009. There are slightly more than 70 metres left to the surface of the lake. We will try to reach it the next season in 2009-2010."
The head of the previous expedition's winter team, Viktor Venderovich, said lake located beneath four kilometres of ice "stands out in terms of huge size among more than 145 subglacial bodies of water discovered by way of radar probing in Antarctica". Venderovich believes that the project will help answer a key question about the existence of life in the lake, which has had no contact with the atmosphere for millions of years.
Read the full TASS article
The Sea-Level Fingerprint of West Antarctic Collapse
In the journal Science (6 February 2009) Mitrovica and co-authors discuss how recent projections of sea-level rise after a future collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet assume that meltwater will spread uniformly (that is, eustatically) across the oceans once marine-based sectors of the West Antarctic are filled. A largely neglected 1977 study predicted that peak values would be 20% higher than the eustatic in the North Pacific and 5 to 10% higher along the US coastline. Mitrovica et al. show, with use of a state-of-the-art theory, that the sea-level rise in excess of the eustatic value will be two to three times higher than previously predicted for US coastal sites.
Read the full Science article
Decline in penguin populations due to a predicted decrease in sea ice
Emperor penguins are completely dependent on sea ice. They breed on it, and they eat fish that ultimately rely on the plankton that grows under it. Many models, however, predict a decline in Antarctic sea ice over the next century.
To gauge the impact on emperor penguins, ecologist Stéphanie Jenouvrier of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts focused on a population in Pointe Géologie, Antarctica. The penguins there spend the winter on ice close to Dumont d'Urville, the main French base in Antarctica, and records on them stretch back to the 1960s. Jenouvrier and her colleagues used the long-term data set to create a model describing the birds' life histories. They plugged in figures such as the age of the penguins when they start breeding and how likely the chicks are to survive. These details can reveal a more accurate picture of how a population will respond to a change in the environment. The team then linked this model to another set of models predicting how often the penguins will experience a major drop in sea ice as the climate changes between now and 2100.
Given the increasing frequency of 10% to 15% dips in sea ice forecast over the next century by the climate models the team used, Jenouvrier and colleagues predict that the number of Pointe Géologie penguins will plummet from 3000 to 400 breeding pairs. Finding a new home isn't an option, says Jenouvrier, because the penguins have to stick to the coast - and in that part of the continent, it's solid land to the south.
Read the full Science article
Iron Fertilization Experiment Goes Ahead
Following some controversy about the objectives of the joint German-Indian LOHAFEX expedition on the Polarstern, during which the cruise plans were temporarily halted, it has been agreed that the cruise may continue. The following press release from the Alfred Wegener Institute carries the details:
'Independent scientific and legal reviews sought by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety concluded that the iron fertilisation experiment LOHAFEX is neither against environmental standards nor the international law in force. There are thus no ecological and legal reasons to further suspend the iron fertilisation experiment LOHAFEX.
Reacting to the positive news from the Federal Ministry of Research, Dr. Karin Lochte, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, said: "We are glad that the experts have fully confirmed our own ecological risk assessment. Now an independent party has also made it clear that the environmental impacts in the study area will be negligibly small." LOHAFEX will provide valuable data for climate and earth system research if the experiment is conducted as planned.
Lochte further stated: "The controversy on LOHAFEX has been basically reduced to a political conflict that we as a research institute cannot solve. This situation is unusual for the Alfred Wegener Institute. Nevertheless, I am absolutely convinced myself that only independent scientific studies like LOHAFEX will help in arriving at a substantiated and fact-based political decision on whether or not iron fertilisation in the ocean is a useful technique that could contribute to climate protection."
"We are relieved, of course, by the decision of the Federal Ministry of Research to proceed with the experiment," Lochte commented. This decision will send out an important signal to the international scientific community that Germany remains a reliable partner even in difficult political situations. The decision is also of great importance for our Indian partner, the National Institute of Oceanography, which is bearing half the personnel and financial costs of this experiment and for whom this is the main contribution to the Indo-German cooperation.
"I wish to strongly emphasise that our experiment was developed on the basis of purely scientific issues in order to better understand the role of iron in the global climate system. A large number of reports are circulating on the Internet and in the international press claiming that the Alfred Wegener Institute is conducting the experiment to test the geo-engineering option of ocean fertilisation as a means to sequester large quantities of carbon oxide from the atmosphere. This is definitely not the case," Lochte defends herself against these insinuations. "We are upset that such a controversial discussion was ignited on the basis of wrong, internationally propagated information. We hope that through this experiment we will be able to contribute to a better understanding of ocean biogeochemistry and pelagic ecosystem functioning."
After several days of pre-examinations, the team of scientists on board Polarstern has in the meantime found a closed eddy that is suitable for the experiment. It is located at Lat. 48°S and Long. 15° 302W. First, a drift buoy with a position tracking device will be deployed near the centre of this eddy. From this point, Polarstern will then spread dissolved ferrous sulfate along a spiral trajectory in the upper 15 metres of the water layer. The fertilisation will take approximately 30 hours. Immediately after the termination of the iron input, numerous biological, chemical and physical parameters will be continuously measured inside and outside the fertilised area, and ecological changes in all layers of the water column - from the surface to the seafloor in 3,800 metres depth - will be monitored for 40 days. The plankton community biomass is expected to increase substantially about two weeks following fertilisation, and the fate of the organic matter produced will be investigated in detail.
As usual, the Alfred Wegener Institute will make the data and research results concerning LOHAFEX known, not only to the scientific community but also to authorities and environmental organisations. Further information can be found on the website of the Alfred Wegener Institute.
Updated Antarctic Chronology Published
Many Antarctic researchers have found useful, as a source of information on the chronology of Antarctic events, the comprehensive compendium published by Bob Headland in 1989. Bob has now published the revised version, with the title A Chronology of Antarctic Exploration: A Synopsis of Events and Activities from the Earliest Times until the International Polar Years 2007-09. It is a hardbound volume of 722 pages (including 40 plates, 27 maps, and 21 histograms) available at a price of £110 (plus local, sea, or air postage), from Bernard Quaritch Ltd, Lower John Street, Golden Square, London, W1F 9AU, UK; e-mail contact: <C.Scheybeler@quaritch.com>. The ISBN is 978-0-9550852-8-4. For more information, download the detailed book description.
The response of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to recent climate change
Observations show a significant intensification of the Southern Hemisphere westerlies, the prevailing winds between the latitudes of 30° and 60° S, over the past decades. A continuation of this intensification trend is projected by climate scenarios for the twenty-first century. The response of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the carbon sink in the Southern Ocean to changes in wind stress and surface buoyancy fluxes is currently under debate.
In a relatively recent paper published in Nature (23 November 2008), Böning and co-authors analyse the Argo network of profiling floats and historical oceanographic data. They detect coherent hemispheric-scale warming and freshening trends that extend to depths of more than 1,000 m. The warming and freshening is partly related to changes in the properties of the water masses that make up the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which are consistent with the anthropogenic changes in heat and freshwater fluxes suggested by climate models. However, their study detects no increase in the tilt of the surfaces of equal density across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, in contrast to coarse-resolution model studies. Their results imply that the transport in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and meridional overturning in the Southern Ocean are insensitive to decadal changes in wind stress.
Read the full article
New German Antarctic station opens
A new German base, Neumayer III, built on a stilt-carried platform above the Ekstrom Icefield in northwestern Antarctica, and connected to a garage under the snow, has just been inaugurated by German science minister, Annette Schavan. Nine over-wintering staff will run the station during the dark Antarctic winter. In summer, it will host up to 50 scientists and technicians, allowing for continuous field work and measurements in meteorology, geophysics and atmospheric chemistry.
Germany's old Neumayer Station, just a few kilometres from the new base,has sunk twelve meters deep into the ice since it was built in 1992 and will have to be abandoned soon. However, the new station's retractable stilts should keep it 'dancing' on the shifting ice beneath. For further details see the Neumayer Station page on the AWI website.
New Antarctic research station is carbon-free
The world's first zero-emission polar research station has opened in Antarctica and was welcomed by scientists as proof that alternative energy is viable even in the coldest regions. Pioneers of Belgium's Princess Elisabeth station in East Antarctica said if a station could rely on wind and solar power in Antarctica — mostly a vast, icy emptiness — it would undercut arguments by sceptics that green power is not reliable. Constructed over two years, the steel-encased station uses micro-organisms and decomposition to enable scientists to re-use shower and toilet water up to five times before discarding it down a crevasse. Wind turbines on the Utsteinen mountain ridge and solar panels on the bug-like, three-story building ensure the base has power and hot water. Even the geometry of windows helps conserve energy.
"If we can build such a station in Antarctica we can do that elsewhere in our society. We have the capacity, the technology, the knowledge to change our world," Alain Hubert, the station's project director, told Reuters at the inauguration ceremony.
Scientists monitoring global warming predict higher temperatures could hasten melting at Antarctica, the world's largest repository of fresh water, raising sea levels and altering shorelines. If Antarctica ever melted, world sea levels would rise by about 180 feet. That would impact some 146 million people living in low-lying coastal regions less than three feet above current sea levels, researchers said.
Read the full article
China Building Base at Dome A
A Chinese expedition has begun building the Kunlun research base at 'Dome A', 4093 metres above sea level; it is scheduled to open on 28 January. It will be a major legacy of the International Polar Year and will propel China to the heart of the Antarctic map. The other Chinese stations are Great Wall station, in the South Shetland Islands, and Zhongshan station in East Antarctica. Kunlun will have a main building of 230 square metres, with 11 units for sleeping, eating and working. It will have space for up to 25 people. Six more units will be added next year, for a total area of 327 square metres.
Having a base at Dome A offers the prospect of finding older ice than that drilled at Dome C, where past climate has been reconstructed back to 800,000 years from an ice core. The ice underneath Dome A is over 3,000 metres thick, which could push the climate record back to 1.5 million years.
Polar News
Record 2007 Greenland Ice Sheet Melt
The latest snow modelling data, reported in the Journal EOS (vol. 90, No. 2, 13 Jan 2009), show that the melt extent in 2007 was 915,000 sq km, 20% more than the average for 1995-2006. Runoff was 35% greater than the 1995-2006 average. These trends are increases on previous years, suggesting a speeding up in the underlying processes. At the time of writing the trend for 2008 seemed to be continuing that for 2007.
Arctic Dipole is the Major Driver for Arctic Sea Ice Minima
New research is now available on the causes of the arctic summer sea ice minimum in 2007 and other previous minima. Dr Jia Wang of NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory and his colleagues recently published an article in Geophysical Research Letters to explain that the Arctic Dipole (DA) is the major driver for the Arctic sea ice minima.
The previous record lows of arctic summer sea ice extent are found to be triggered by the arctic atmospheric Dipole Anomaly (DA) pattern. This local, second-leading mode of sea-level pressure anomaly in the Arctic produced a strong meridional wind anomaly that drove more sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean from the western to the eastern Arctic into the northern Atlantic during the summers of 1995, 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2007. In the 2007 summer, the DA also enhanced anomalous oceanic heat flux into the Arctic Ocean via Bering Strait, which accelerated bottom and lateral melting of sea ice and amplified the ice-albedo feedback. A coupled ice-ocean model was used to confirm the historical record lows of summer sea ice extent.
For more information, see the full paper
Global temperature - 2008 cool, but still 7th warmest since 1900
The analysis of global temperature trends by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science (GISS) is now out, and shows that even though we had record sea ice melt in the Arctic, 2008 was cooler than 2007. Nevertheless it was still one of the top 10 warmest years of recent times. The cause of the cooling appears to be persistence of a cold La Niña event in the Pacific, combined with the fact that we are now at the nadir between two sunspot cycles, and that solar output is fractionally lower than at the last such nadir. There are signs that the La Niña may soon be replaced by an El Niño, and, if the sunspot cycles continue as they have in recent times, the number of sunspots (hence solar energy emitted) should soon rise. A record warm year appears to be likely in the next couple of years.
Read the full article
Antarctic and Arctic Essay Competition
The Association of Early Career Scientists (APECS), together with the organisers of the Antarctic Treaty Summit, are asking all young researchers to share their thoughts and opinions in form of an essay focusing on how to better integrate science and policy, and on the needs for new policy dealing with current issues in the Antarctic as well as the Arctic. Winners will receive a travel fellowship to represent the new generation of polar researchers at the Antarctic Treaty Summit, which will be held in Washington, DC from 30 November to 3 December, 2009. The deadline for submissions is 15 March 2009. For more information, please visit the essay competition page of the APECS website.
Education and Training
SCAR announces the launch of its 2009-10 Fellowship Programme
SCAR is launching its 2009-10 Fellowship Programme, which this year is in two parts:
- the Standard SCAR Fellowship - for postgraduate and/or post- doctoral researchers from within the 35 SCAR Member countries to undertake research at an institute in another SCAR country.
- SCAR/IPF/IAI/UNEP Sixth Continent Initiative Fellowships - for postgraduate and/or post-doctoral researchers from within the 35 SCAR Member countries, or from non-traditional polar countries, to undertake research and development activities in the Antarctic.
The SCAR Fellowship Programme is designed to encourage the active involvement of early career scientists and engineers in Antarctic
scientific research, and to strengthen international capacity and cooperation in Antarctic research. Please could you encourage candidates to apply to this scheme, which has proved very successful to date.
For further details, please go to the SCAR Fellowships page. Note that the deadline for submissions is the 15th of May.
SCAR's Education and Training links
The Education and Training section of the SCAR website has been greatly improved recently, with the creation of a new page for Antarctic Education Websites. The page has links to education websites from around the world and everyone, from children and non-scientists to experienced polar researchers, should find something of interest to them. Although the majority of sites listed are in English, there are a number of sites in other languages. The SCAR Secretariat would welcome suggestions of other websites to be included, particularly those in other languages.
Film
365 days Under Antarctic Ice
1st July 1957 marked the beginning of the International Geophysical Year. The scientific world decided to explore the Antarctic. Twelve nations would join efforts to initiate a vast research programme aimed at penetrating the mysteries of the white continent. Three Frenchmen, Jacques Dubois, a meteorologist, Roland Schlich, a geophysicist, and Claude Lorius a glaciologist, occupied the Charcot Station, built near the South magnetic pole and located 320 km from the coast, for a whole year without any possibility of relief. They wintered from January 1957 to January 1958 in an aluminium hut only 24 m2 in size, buried under the ice.
Today, Roland Schlich of the School and Observatory of Earth Sciences, Strasbourg and Claude Lorius of the Laboratory of Glaciology and Geophysics of the Environment, Grenoble, are the last witnesses of this wintering and they remember . . .
365 days Under Antarctic Ice, is a film produced from footage filmed 50 years ago and it traces this human and scientific adventure, thanks to the evidence and unpublished documents from the time. The English version of the film is sponsored jointly by the European Geosciences Union (EGU) and SCAR and will be screened at the next EGU 2009 General Assembly in Vienna (US1 Session: Union Award Presentation and Medal Lectures on Wednesday 22 April 2009 13h30, Room D).
View the Film poster
Awards
2008 SCAR Medalist Claude Lorius awarded Blue Planet Prize
Dr Claude Lorius, winner of the 2008 SCAR Medal for International Scientific Coordination, has been recognised with another international award, the prestigious annual Blue Planet Prize of the Asahi Glass Foundation. Dr Lorius received the prize at a ceremony in Tokyo on 12 November 2008, in recognition of his contribution towards disclosing past climate change based on polar ice sheet core analysis. He discovered the relation between climate change during glacial and interglacial periods and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, indicating its current unprecedentedly high level and warning of consequent global warming.
Dr Lorius, along with the other 2008 prize recipient Professor Jose Goldemberg from Brazil, was selected from a total of 104 nominated candidates. The day after the award ceremony, Dr Lorius gave a commemorative lecture entitled 'Climate and Environment – 50 years of adventures and research in Antarctica'.
For full details of the award and commemorative lectures, please see the Blue Planet Prize website.
Events
Dates fixed for SCAR XXXI meeting in Buenos Aires in 2010
The SCAR Science Business Sessions will take place on Friday 30 July through Monday 2 August 2010, to be followed by the SCAR Open Science Conference on Tuesday 3 August through Friday 6 August. The SCAR Delegates will meet on Monday 9 August through Wednesday 11 August 2010. Further details will follow as they become available.
SCAR sponsors International Symposium on Glaciology
SCAR is co-sponsoring,with the International Glaciological Society (IGS), the International Symposium on Glaciology in the International Polar Year, which takes place at Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, from July 27-31 2009. Full details are contained in the Second Circular. More information is available from the Symposium website. Abstracts should if possible be submitted by March 20, 2009. Note that it is possible to arrange SCAR sessions or workshops within the bounds of the meeting.
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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