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Interactions with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

SCAR's interest in climate change science has increased considerably in the last decade, in part as a consequence of growing concern that anthropogenic influence on the carbon cycle is becoming evident from monitoring climate, ice and ocean in the Antarctic region. In addition, it is now clear that a knowledge of the history of the region on time scales from millennia to millions of years is becoming increasingly relevant in assessing future ice and climate behaviour.

A focus on past and present climate and the ice sheet has been provided since 2004 by two SCAR Research programmes - Antarctica and the Global Climate System (AGCS) and Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE). In addition there has been a growing body of relevant research into terrestrial and marine ecosystems and how they are affected or are likely to be affected by climate change. As a consequence, two SCAR Scientific Standing Committees (Geosciences and Life Sciences) and the IASC/SCAR Bipolar Action Group proposed to the Delegates' Meeting in 2008 in Moscow that SCAR seek observer status with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to ensure Antarctic science was better represented in the IPCC's deliberations, and to gain a better understanding of IPCC processes.

Thus far (November 2009), SCAR has been unable to obtain observer status in its own right with the IPCC. However, SCAR has managed to persuade its parent body (ICSU) that SCAR should be allowed to attend appropriate IPCC meetings as a member of the ICSU delegation, ICSU being an accredited observer to the IPCC. In due course we hope to persuade the IPCC of the relevance of our case for observer status independent of ICSU. As a first step towards that goal, in October 2009, SCAR gained independent observer status to the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to which the IPCC reports, and will as a result be making a report on Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment during the climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. Once that is concluded, SCAR intends to reapply to the IPCC for independent observer status, citing as a precedent SCAR's status in relation to the UNFCCC.

In the meantime, Dr Peter Barrett was appointed by SCAR's EXCOM to attend the 31st session of the IPCC, from 26-29 October, 2009, in Bali. Read his report on the session. It suggests that reasonable attention is being paid to the role of Antarctica in the global climate system.

Nevertheless, Dr Barrett was moved to persuade the meeting organisers that the IPCC needs to pay more attention to those periods of Earth history beyond the past 1 million years, to give us information on climates that may be like the one planet Earth is heading towards - namely periods when the climate was warmer and CO2 was higher. His proposal is outlined in a note on the subject.

The key message Dr Barrett learned at Bali was the importance of getting good people nominated through the National Committee process. SCAR's ACE and AGCS communities should be thinking about this.

IISD summary of the Bali meeting

The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science

Dr Bob Bindschadler attended the Kuala Lumpur IPCC workshop on Sea Level Rise and Ice Sheet Instabilities held 21-24 June 2010 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The following is a report on the breakout group on "Ice Sheets: Antarctica -- Observations and Projections of Changes".