BEPSII (Biogeochemical Exchange Processes at Sea-Ice Interfaces)

The Expert Group on Biogeochemical Exchange Processes at the Sea-Ice Interfaces (BEPSII) represents a group of researchers in sea-ice biogeochemistry that started as a group in 2009 and was formalized as a SCOR (Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research) working group in 2012. It has since continued to grow.

BEPSII serves as a unique forum linking modellers and field scientists studying sea-ice biogeochemistry. As a SCOR working group, BEPSII has been organized around three task groups, focused on:

1. improving observation methods;
2. building large-scale databases; and
3. upscaling processes within models.

The working group’s lifetime in SCOR ended but the community sought to continue and expand the group’s goals and membership. With an increasing awareness of the important role of sea-ice biogeochemistry in climate-relevant elemental cycles, approval was been granted for BEPSII to continue as a SCAR Action Group within Life Sciences. BEPSII became an Expert Group in 2018.

The aim of BEPSII is to support and further develop an international community on sea-ice biogeochemistry; to stimulate the interaction between experimentalists and modelers working on this topic and to help the community articulate research priorities and identify optimized and cost-effective approaches and research platforms in internationally resource-limited times.

For more information, see the original BEPSII website.

Terms of Reference

The Terms of Reference for the BEPSII EG are:

• Develop dedicated consistent methodologies for sea-ice biogeochemical research;
• Establish effective sea-ice biogeochemical data archiving approaches and databases;
• Summarize existing knowledge in order to prioritize processes and model parameterizations;
• Foster ecological process studies to determine their impact on biogeochemical cycles;
• Foster technological developments towards large-scale, autonomous and high-frequency sampling of sea-ice biogeochemical parameters;
• Improve the representation and evaluation of sea-ice biogeochemistry in regional and Earth System numerical models;
• Synthesize and integrate observational and modeling efforts;
• Continually revise and renew scientific foci, teams, and objectives.