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SCAR Newsletter: Issue 23, June 2010
SCAR Business News
XXXI SCAR Meeting Website Open for Registration
The website for the XXXI SCAR meeting is now open for business. The meeting includes (i) SCAR Business week (July 30-August 2) for meetings of the Standing Scientific Groups and their subgroups, and for small workshops; (ii) the 4th SCAR Open Science Conference (August 3-6); and (iii) the SCAR Delegates meeting (August 9-11). The Second Circular with further details is also available.
Call for session proposals at the next International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences
The next International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences (ISAES XI) will be held on 10-16 July 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
We invite proposals for Sessions up until 31 August 2010. To propose a session, simply fill in the session proposal form (MS Word document) and return it by email to the organisers listed on the form. Alternatively, visit the ISAES XI website and download the form from there.
Abstract submission will open on 30 September 2010.
We look forward to seeing you in Edinburgh next July!
SCAR and IASC meet to discuss bipolar initiatives and the IPY Legacy
During the IPY meeting in Oslo, members of the SCAR and International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) Executive Committees met to discuss the way forward for future bipolar cooperation and the legacy of the IPY. SCAR and IASC already cooperate in a number of bipolar projects and this was felt to be a fruitful relationship. It was also agreed that SCAR and IASC should certainly play a lead role in taking forward IPY legacy issues, but this must be done taking into account the resource limitations (both human and financial) of both organizations. The outcomes and implications of the meeting will be discussed by both Executive Committees. It was also felt that another joint meeting of representatives of both Executive Committees should be arranged in the future to continue discussions.
International Polar Year comes to a close
The International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY), the largest polar research and education venture ever undertaken, formally came to a close at a ceremony in Oslo on Saturday 12 June — the final day of the IPY Oslo Science Conference. The IPY sponsors, the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), thanked the many thousands of participants who made the IPY a spectacular international success, before passing the baton to those who will secure the legacy of this important initiative — including the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the WMO Executive Council Panel on Polar Observations, Research and Services.
Deliang Chen, Executive Director of ICSU, added: 'IPY has paved the way for a solid understanding of the polar regions at a critical time for society's relationship with the Earth. The collaboration among many nations and among many scientific disciplines has been critical to the success of IPY, and it is crucial that the energy and partnerships that converged in IPY are sustained in the long-term.'
SCAR Medals for Achievement to be awarded in Buenos Aires
During the SCAR Open Science Conference in Buenos Aires, two SCAR medals will be awarded. The first, the SCAR Medal for Excellence in Antarctic Research will go to to John Turner for his extensive contributions to Antarctic Science and to SCAR; and the second, the SCAR Medal for International Scientific Coordination, will be awarded jointly to Bob Rutford and Alan Cooper for their collaborative and coordination roles in the science community and the leadership and vision they have both shown to the community.
The medals will be awarded during the banquet by the SCAR President, Professor Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt II.
SCAR congratulates the Awardees and wishes them continued success in their scientific endeavours.
APECS Panel and networking event at the SCAR Open Science Conference
An APECS panel and networking event, entitled "Antarctic Science: Role of SCAR in promoting early career research opportunities", is being held on Wednesday the 4th of August during the SCAR Open Science Conference.
Antarctica is facing major challenges scientifically. Climate change, melting ice at an increasing rate and sea level rise are common themes associated with Antarctica. With a major burst of energy from the International Polar Year, new opportunities have risen addressing these and other research questions. APECS will bring together polar research experts to discuss the following issues:
- What are the major new discovers from the last 3 years of Antarctic research and what does the future hold in these areas?
- How can early career scientists contributed to increasing our research efforts?
- What new opportunities are available to early career scientists now, particularly for South American young scientists?
For further details, please contact José Carlos Caetano Xavier <jccx@cantab.net>.
New printed copies of Climate Change Report available
SCAR will be carrying out a second print run of the Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment report. The number of copies printed will be based on demand. Cost including postage will be £30/$44. For further details please contact Rosemary Nash (RN283@cam.ac.uk) or see the ACCE book flyer.
Based on the latest evidence from over 100 world-leading scientists from eight countries, the review focuses on the impact and consequences of rapid warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and the Southern Ocean; rapid ice loss in parts of Antarctica and the increase in sea ice around the continent; the impact of climate change on Antarctica's plants and animals; the unprecedented increase in carbon dioxide levels; the connections between human-induced global change and natural variability; and the extraordinary finding that the ozone hole has shielded most of Antarctica from global warming.
SCAR Presentations on ACCE and Psychrophiles now available
The two SCAR presentations given at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay in May are now available to download. The first is a short presentation by SCAR Executive Director Mike Sparrow on the Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment report (a zipped file of the Powerpoint presentation, along with its associated video clips, is available from the SCAR Secretariat). The second presentation is the SCAR Lecture by Professor Charles Gerday on "Psychrophiles: a challenge for life". Both are available on the Communications page.
Antarctic Science News
The History of the Antarctic - available to download
Melvyn Bragg discusses the geological and political history of the Antarctic (BBC Radio 4, 'In Our Time'), with Jane Francis, David Walton and Julian Dowdeswell.
Listen to the programme (via BBC iPlayer)
Download the programme (Podcast)
Could East Antarctica Be Headed for Big Melt?
New research highlighted in Science (Science 25 June 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5986, pp. 1630) suggests that the world's largest ice sheet may be more vulnerable than once thought to rising CO2 levels and temperatures.
The Orangeburg Scarp, a band of hard, crusty sediment teeming with tiny plankton fossils that runs from Florida to Virginia, marks an ancient shoreline where waves eroded bedrock 3 million years ago. That period, the middle Pliocene, saw carbon dioxide levels and temperatures that many scientists say could recur by 2100. The question is: Could those conditions also result in Pliocene-epoch sea levels within the next 10 to 20 centuries, sea levels that may have been as much as 35 meters higher than they are today? The answer, say climate scientists, may lie 17,000 kilometers away in East Antarctica. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is the world's largest, a formation up to 4 km thick and 11 million km2 in area that covers three-quarters of the southernmost continent. Its glaciers were thought to sit mostly above sea level, protecting them from the type of ocean-induced losses that are affecting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. But studies of ancient sea levels that focus on the Orangeburg Scarp and other sites challenge that long-held assumption.
Not everybody believes the records from Orangeburg. But combined with several other new lines of evidence, they support the idea that parts of East Antarctica could indeed be more prone to melting than expected.
For further details, see the full Science article.
Underwater Ridge clue to Antarctic ice loss
The discovery of an underwater ridge in West Antarctica could help explain why there has been an acceleration in the ice flowing from a glacier in the area. Researchers suggest that the base of Pine Island Glacier once sat on the ridge, but recently became detached from the feature. The team made the discovery during surveys that used an unmanned submarine to examine waters under the glacier. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Geoscience and highlighted by the BBC. "We found something very unexpected," said co-author Pierre Dutrieux, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), referring to the 400m-high ridge. "Acoustic instruments on the submarine told us that there was a ridge at the bottom of the ocean, sitting transverse to the flow of ice." Dr Dutrieux said that there was also evidence that the base of the glacier was once attached to the ridge. "Some decades ago, the glacier was sitting on this ridge and the friction of the ridge was restraining the flow of the glacier," he explained. "When the glacier became detached from the ridge, the ice flow was able to accelerate significantly." Dr Dutrieux said that the glacier was located in an area where there was intense melting of land ice, which was flowing into the ocean and contributing to sea level rise. Researchers estimate that the accelerating flow of glaciers in West Antarctica is contributing about 10% of the observed rise in the mean global sea level.
For further details, see the full BBC News article.
How Do Polar Marine Ecosystems Respond to Rapid Climate Change?
In a recent article in Science, Oscar Schofield and co-authors discuss how Southern Ocean observations are required in order to study the future of polar ecosystems as climate change progresses. Climate change will alter marine ecosystems; however, the complexity of the food webs, combined with chronic undersampling, constrains efforts to predict their future and to optimally manage and protect marine resources. Sustained observations at the West Antarctic Peninsula show that in this region, rapid environmental change has coincided with shifts in the food web, from its base up to apex predators. New strategies will be required to gain further insight into how the marine climate system has influenced such changes and how it will do so in the future. Robotic networks, satellites, ships, and instruments mounted on animals and ice will collect data needed to improve numerical models that can then be used to make predictions of how the ecosystem will change. The SCAR/SCOR Oceanography Expert Group, co-chaired by one of the co-authors of the article, Mike Meredith, is producing a plan for a Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) in consultation and partnership with the science, logistics and other communities.
Read the full Science article.
Southern Ocean store of CO2
Past glacial-interglacial increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) are thought to arise from the rapid release of CO2 sequestered in the deep sea, primarily via the Southern Ocean. Two recent articles in Science (28 May 2010:Vol. 328. no. 5982) discuss this in terms of radiocarbon evidence from the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean that strongly supports this hypothesis (Ventilation of the Deep Southern Ocean and Deglacial CO2 Rise, Skinner et al.). Anderson and Carr (Uncorking the Southern Ocean's Vintage CO2) discuss the scenarios involved. In particular, how CO2 records from ice cores and 14C records from marine archives reveal that the 14C content of atmospheric CO2 declined as CO2 rose during the last deglaciation. This relationship supports hypotheses that attribute the rise in CO2 to the release of 14C-depleted CO2 from a reservoir long isolated from the atmosphere. The deep ocean (below 2000 m) is thought to provide such a reservoir.
Other Polar News and Announcements
Major International Global-Change Science Conference 2012 announced
The International Council for Science's (ICSU) global change programmes have announced that the UK will host a major global-change open science conference in 2012, 'Planet Under Pressure: new knowledge, new solutions'. The conference aims to provide scientific input into the Earth Summit (Rio +20) also in 2012. The event, provisionally booked for 7-10 May 2012, will take place prior to the next UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, also scheduled for that year. Presenting the latest research findings, the London conference is anticipated to provide a solid scientific foundation for the summit.
Further details are available on the IGBP website.
Universality of Science in the Polar Regions
SCAR's parent body, the International Council for Science (ICSU) has released a statement on the Universality of Science in the Polar Regions. Building on the international collaborative spirit witnessed during the International Polar Year, and for the global population to benefit from the improved understanding of changes and influence of the polar regions that this spirit enables, ICSU calls on all parties conducting or influencing polar research to support the principle of Universality of Science.
View the full ICSU statement.
Call for Participation of Young Researchers in NRF Open Assembly
The Northern Research Forum (NRF), an Institute of the University of the Arctic (UArctic), is a venue for open dialogue to address issues and opportunities which face people living in the regions of the Circumpolar North. In order to do so, the NRF hosts a biennial Open Assembly where stakeholders, including researchers, educators, politicians, business leaders, civil servants, community leaders, NGO representatives, and resource users and managers come together and address the issues that are in focus.
The 6th NRF Open Assembly will be held in Oslo and Kirkenes, Norway on the 24th – 27th of October this year. The NRF is currently searching for Young Researchers to participate at the Assembly, where the NRF gives out travel grants for participation. Further information is available from the Assembly website.
Other SCAR Related Newsletters
- The May 2010 edition of GeoReach, the newsletter of the SCAR GeoSciences Standing Scientific Group, is now available.
- Monthly 'Notes from the President', a series of open letters from SCAR President, Chuck Kennicutt, are posted in the Communication and Education section of the SCAR website.
Events
Events of interest to the SCAR Community are listed on the Events page.
Newsletter prepared by Mike Sparrow and Rosemary Nash, SCAR Secretariat. Please send feedback to info@scar.org
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