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SCAR Newsletter: Issue 25, December 2010
SCAR Science and Business News
GBIF grant awarded for development of Nodes Portal Toolkit (NPT)
4 November 2010
Dr Bruno Danis and Mr Nabil Youdjou have been awarded a Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) grant to become Project Coordinators for the development of the Nodes Portal Toolkit – NPT.
The NPT is broadly defined as a suite of tools that will enable GBIF Participants to easily deploy biodiversity data portals at the national, regional or thematic level. It has been envisaged as a community-led project, involving active engagement from GBIF Participant Nodes, strategic partners, and other key stakeholders.
'Our vision is inspired by the Antarctic Treaty (1959): "[...] scientific observations and results [...] shall be exchanged and made freely available." It is time that this vision is translated into tangible actions. We think that the NPT is a crucial part of the puzzle and will be another catalyser to shift the data sharing norms from our community', commented Danis and Youdjou.
Dr Danis (on the left in the photo above) works for the Belgium Biodiversity Platform as project manager for the SCAR-MarBIN and AntaBIF initiatives. Mr Youdjou (on the right) also works for the Belgium Biodiversity Platform, in the role of IT Engineer since 2006. Both Danis and Youdjou bring to the NPT development a wealth of experience in working with large scientific communities, and also in the planning, design, and implementation of biodiversity data portals.
Danis and Youdjou will be working together with the various NPT stakeholders towards the development of the NPT core modules.
Further information on the NPT is available on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility website.
SCAR Membership
10 November 2010
At the last SCAR Delegates' meeting in Buenos Aires in August, Monaco became the latest country to join the SCAR family, having successfully applied to become an Associate Member of SCAR. In view of its increased profile in Antarctic and Southern Ocean research, the Republic of Korea also recently elected to increase its membership level to category B (SCAR currently has four Full Member Categories, A to D plus Associate Members, who are category E.)
SCAR has three categories of membership: Full Members, ICSU scientific unions members and Associate Members. Full Members are those countries with active scientific research programme in Antarctica, currently 31; union members are those ICSU scientific unions that have an interest in Antarctic research, currently 9; and Associate Members are those countries without an independent research programme as yet or which are planning a research programme in the future, currently 5.
SCAR Updates its Logo
13 December 2010
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SCAR has recently updated its logo. Copies (in .jpg and .eps formats) are available from the logos page of the SCAR website or from the SCAR Secretariat. |
Antarctic Science News
Glacial Silicic Acid Concentrations in the Southern Ocean
29 October 2010
In research published recently in Science by Michael Ellwood, Martin Wille and William Maher, reconstruction of nutrient concentrations in the deep Southern Ocean has produced conflicting results. The cadmium/calcium (Cd/Ca) dataset suggests little change in nutrient concentrations during the last glacial period, whereas the carbon isotope (
13C) dataset suggests nutrient concentrations were higher. The researchers determined the silicon isotope (30Si) composition of sponge spicules from the Atlantic and Pacific sectors of the Southern Ocean and found higher silicic acid concentrations in the Pacific sector during the last glacial period. In their paper, they propose that this increase results from changes in the stoichiometric uptake of silicic acid relative to nitrate and phosphate by diatoms, thus facilitating a redistribution of nutrients across the Pacific and Southern Ocean. Their results are consistent with the global Cd/Ca dataset and support the silicic acid leakage hypothesis.
Read the full report in Science
Pine Island Losses
10 November 2010
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Image by Jesse Allen / NASA / |
Mass loss from the Antarctic ice sheet is responsible for much of the observed rise in global sea level. No part of the Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass more quickly than the Pine Island Glacier, whose flow velocity has nearly doubled since the mid-1970s, although it has been unclear exactly how much mass it is losing and which factors are most responsible. Joughin et al. have developed a basin-scale glaciological model to examine the sensitivity of the Pine Island Glacier to various environmental forcings. They find that the factor most responsible for mass loss by the glacier is melting due to exposure of the ice shelf to warm ocean currents, which causes ice shelf thinning, retreat of the grounding line, and a resulting increase in the speed of ice stream flow to the sea. Their model indicates that mass loss there may continue throughout the 21st century at rates similar to, or even slightly greater than, that of the present. They suggest that the rise in sea level by the year 2100 due purely to mass loss by Pine Island Glacier will probably lie between 1.1 and 1.8 cm, perhaps inching up to 2.7 cm — a large increase but still substantially less than the theoretical maximum of between 11 and 39 cm. |
Read the full article in Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 37, L20502, 5 pp., 2010
Feather of the Penguin
12 November 2010
Penguins are highly adapted for their cold, aquatic environment. Changes in their wings and feathers have allowed rapid swimming and protection from the near-freezing water. In This Week in Science, Clarke et al. describe an early penguin, dating to about 35 million years ago, that includes well-preserved feathers. The melanosomes in the feathers, which influence their strength, as well as their colour, are like those of many other aquatic birds and unlike those of present-day penguins, even though the morphology of the wings and feathers had already been modified. Thus, in penguins, the shape and form of the feather evolved before microstructural changes occurred. The melanosome arrangement also suggests that the penguin was mostly grey-brown.
Bottom of Lake Vostok mapped
1 December 2010
Russian polar explorers and scientists have mapped the bottom of subglacial Lake Vostok. Information for mapping was obtained by means of complex seismic and radar investigations. Lake Vostok is the largest subglacial Antarctic lake known to date. The lake's coastline is 1030 kilometers long, and its water surface area is 15.5 thousand square kilometers. For mapping the lake's bottom, Russian researchers have developed unique techniques, including seismic sounding that required exploding 5-6 lines of detonating cord.
See further details at Russia-InfoCentre.
Other Polar News and Announcements
Ancient giant penguin unearthed in Peru
4 October 2010
The fossil of a giant penguin that lived 36 million years ago has been discovered in Peru. Scientists say the find shows that key features of the plumage were present quite early on in penguin evolution. The team writes in Science that the penguin's feathers were brown and grey, distinct from the black "tuxedo" look of modern penguins. It was nearly twice the size of an Emperor Penguin, the largest living species. The bird, named Inkayacu paracasensis, lived during the late Eocene period.
Circumpolar Remote Sensing Workshop - Online!
4 October 2010
The UK Polar Network recently organized a workshop for early career scientists focused on polar remote sensing, and hosted at Cambridge University's Scott Polar Research Institute. Topics ranged from open access data sources to innovative uses of remote sensing in glaciology and penguin biology. We know that a lot of people weren't able to make it - so, with international cooperation in mind, materials from the workshop (handouts, slides, and videos) have been placed online on the UKPN website. Video hosting is via SCAR's YouTube channel.
The UK Polar Network is the UK branch of SCAR parter APECS (the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists). The workshop was supported by the NERC EO Technology Cluster and Environmental Research & Assessment.
2010 Meteorological Year Warmest Ever
13 December 2010
According to NASA, the 2010 meteorological year, which ended on 30 November, was the warmest in NASA's 130-year record. Over the oceans as well as on land, the average global temperature for the 12-month period that began last December was 14.65˚C. That's 0.65˚C warmer than the average global temperature between 1951 and 1980, the period used as a basis for comparison. The 2010 meteorological year was slightly warmer than the previous warmest year, the 2005 calendar year, when the average temperature was 14.53˚C.
In 2010, temperatures measured over land alone were also the warmest ever, with instruments showing a December-November average of 14.85˚C. Combining this warming with above-average ocean temperatures led to the global average of 14.65˚C.
November brought frigid temperatures to certain areas of Europe. But the data, compiled by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, show that, globally, last month was the warmest November ever recorded, nearly 0.96˚C warmer than the 1951 to 1980 average for the month.
According to NASA climatologist and Goddard director James Hansen, the main driver for the increased warmth was the Arctic, where temperatures in Hudson Bay were "10˚C above normal" for November. That month, Hansen says, "sea ice was absent while normally that [body of water] is covered by sea ice." Water devoid of ice absorbs much more solar radiation than water covered with ice, which reflects much of the radiation back toward space.
The record temperatures occurred despite a moderate occurrence of La Niña, a phenomenon over the Pacific Ocean that tends to lead to cooler temperatures at the surface, affecting the global mean.
Other Newsletters
To find out about events in 2011 of interest to the SCAR community, please visit our Events page.
Newsletter prepared by Mike Sparrow and Rosemary Nash, SCAR Secretariat. Please send feedback to info@scar.org
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