Community Review of Southern Ocean Satellite Data Needs

This review represents the Southern Ocean community’s satellite data needs for the coming decade. Developed through widespread engagement, and incorporating perspectives from a range of stakeholders (both research and operational), it is designed as an important community-driven strategy paper that provides the rationale and information required for future planning and investment. The Southern Ocean is vast but globally connected, and the communities that require satellite-derived data in the region are diverse. This review includes many observable variables, including sea-ice properties, sea-surface temperature, sea-surface height, atmospheric parameters, marine biology (both micro and macro) and related activities, terrestrial cryospheric connections, sea-surface salinity, and a discussion of coincident and in situ data collection. Recommendations include commitment to data continuity, increase in particular capabilities (sensor types, spatial, temporal), improvements in dissemination of data/products/uncertainties, and innovation in calibration/validation capabilities. Full recommendations are detailed by variable as well as summarized. This review provides a starting point for scientists to understand more about Southern Ocean processes and their global roles, for funders to understand the desires of the community, for commercial operators to safely conduct their activities in the Southern Ocean, and for space agencies to gain greater impact from Southern Ocean-related acquisitions and missions.The authors acknowledge the Climate at the Cryosphere program and the Southern Ocean Observing System for initiating this community effort, WCRP, SCAR, and SCOR for endorsing the effort, and CliC, SOOS, and SCAR for supporting authors’ travel for collaboration on the review. Jamie Shutler’s time on this review was funded by the European Space Agency project OceanFlux Greenhouse Gases Evolution (Contract number 4000112091/14/I-LG)

The First Training Workshop on Permafrost Research Methods: IMPETUS 2007 : OSL-APECS-PYRN Training Workshop; St. Petersburg, Russia, 29 November to 2 December 2007

Fifty young researchers from 14 countries met in St. Petersburg, Russia, to learn about the latest methods used in permafrost research and engineering and to discuss future plans to address climate change issues in permafrost areas. This workshop was an official International Polar Year (IPY) event organized jointly by the Otto Schmidt Laboratory for Polar and Marine Sciences (OSL) in St. Petersburg, the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN), and the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS). The workshop provided insights into the latest techniques and methods used in permafrost research in fields as diverse as permafrost modeling, investigations of mountain ice segregation, bubbling from thermokarst lakes, and submarine permafrost detection. It brought together experts to provide young investigators with a multidisciplinary and cross-border perspective on permafrost research, a much needed approach in a discipline marked by strong research history yet strongly entangled within national borders. Presentations and speaker biographies are now available on the conference Web site (http://pyrn.ways.org/activities/pyrn-meetings/2007-saint-petersburg)

Association of Polar Early Career Scientists - EGU 2008

The International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY) is advancing our fundamental understanding of the Polar Regions and the cryosphere as a whole. To ensure the legacy of these scientific advances, the next generation of polar scientists must be recruited, nurtured, educated, and mentored. To retain the current cohort of early career polar scientists and recruit the next generation of researchers, professional development and networking activities must be expanded to address difficulties in international and interdisciplinary collaborations, rapidly developing technologies, logistical requirements of field work, and the increasing need to disseminate science results to the public and policy makers. The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), founded in 2006, is an international and interdisciplinary organization for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, early faculty members and educators with interests in polar regions and the cryosphere. By providing networking and career development opportunities, APECS activities aim to raise the profile of polar research, develop effective leaders in education and outreach, and stimulate interdisciplinary and international research collaborations. APECS builds on extensive national and disciplinary networks to develop integrated research directions, meet career development needs, and communicate the urgencies of polar science to a worldwide audience. In addition to being a networking organization, APECS facilitates mentoring by and liaises with senior researchers. APECS’ primary objective is to assist young researchers in addressing the challenges of polar research as they progress through the early stages of their careers. Education and outreach is a high priority of APECS members for a number of reasons, including the stimulation and engagement of the next generation of polar scientists that will be needed to meet growing scientific challenges. APECS’ membership includes more than 700 early career researchers from every continent ranging from undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and new faculty members. For more information, visit: http://arcticportal.org/apecs

Delivering 21st century Antarctic and Southern Ocean science

The Antarctic Roadmap Challenges (ARC) project identified critical requirements to deliver high priority Antarctic research in the 21st century. The ARC project addressed the challenges of enabling technologies, facilitating access, providing logistics and infrastructure, and capitalizing on international co-operation. Technological requirements include: i) innovative automated in situ observing systems, sensors and interoperable platforms (including power demands), ii) realistic and holistic numerical models, iii) enhanced remote sensing and sensors, iv) expanded sample collection and retrieval technologies, and v) greater cyber-infrastructure to process ‘big data’ collection, transmission and analyses while promoting data accessibility. These technologies must be widely available, performance and reliability must be improved and technologies used elsewhere must be applied to the Antarctic. Considerable Antarctic research is field-based, making access to vital geographical targets essential. Future research will require continent- and ocean-wide environmentally responsible access to coastal and interior Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Year-round access is indispensable. The cost of future Antarctic science is great but there are opportunities for all to participate commensurate with national resources, expertise and interests. The scope of future Antarctic research will necessitate enhanced and inventive interdisciplinary and international collaborations. The full promise of Antarctic science will only be realized if nations act together

A roadmap for Antarctic and Southern Ocean science for the next two decades and beyond

Antarctic and Southern Ocean science is vital to understanding natural variability, the processes that govern global change and the role of humans in the Earth and climate system. The potential for new knowledge to be gained from future Antarctic science is substantial. Therefore, the international Antarctic community came together to ‘scan the horizon’ to identify the highest priority scientific questions that researchers should aspire to answer in the next two decades and beyond. Wide consultation was a fundamental principle for the development of a collective, international view of the most important future directions in Antarctic science. From the many possibilities, the horizon scan identified 80 key scientific questions through structured debate, discussion, revision and voting. Questions were clustered into seven topics: i)Antarctic atmosphere and global connections, ii) Southern Ocean and sea ice in a warming world, iii) ice sheet and sea level, iv) the dynamic Earth, v) life on the precipice, vi) near-Earth space and beyond, and vii) human presence in Antarctica. Answering the questions identified by the horizon scan will require innovative experimental designs, novel applications of technology, invention of next-generation field and laboratory approaches, and expanded observing systems and networks. Unbiased, non-contaminating procedures will be required to retrieve the requisite air, biota, sediment, rock, ice and water samples. Sustained year-round access toAntarctica and the Southern Ocean will be essential to increase winter-time measurements. Improved models are needed that represent Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the Earth System, and provide predictions at spatial and temporal resolutions useful for decision making. A co-ordinated portfolio of cross-disciplinary science, based on new models of international collaboration, will be essential as no scientist, programme or nation can realize these aspirations alone.Tinker Foundation, Antarctica New Zealand, The New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP), the Alfred Wegner Institut, Helmholtz Zentrum für Polar und Meeresforschung (Germany), and the British Antarctic Survey (UK).http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=ANShb201

Climate Changes at the Poles: Research immersion experience at Bellingshausen, Antarctica

This immersion experience exposed students from multiple disciplines and several nations to basic and advanced Antarctic research techniques necessary for understanding the area of the world most affected by climate change.This course offered a general overview of several fields, techniques and technologies used to collect and analyze data, hands-on training in multiple disciplines and incorporate research projects that use a systems approach and were enhanced by international perspectives on newly synthesized science hypotheses. The field school provided the opportunity and forum for collaborations between a number of scientists and young researchers from a variety of backgrounds. The students gained knowledge of one of the most rapidly warming region on Earth and sociological impacts. They also acquired hands-on field techniques for collecting data, data sharing and management. They learned logistical requirements for research at several international Antarctic stations and developed international and interdisciplinary research projects and collaborators. In addition, they will participate in disseminating this information and knowledge to other young researchers around the world. The abstract has been submitted while the summer school has been conducted in Antarctica