Documents

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Addendum 11 to Working Paper 12 (WP012)

ATT011 to WP012: Appendix. Antarctic Region: A Review of Findings

Appendix I to the Working Paper on Human Disturbance to Wildlife in the Broader Antarctic Region: A Review of Findings 

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Addendum 67 to Working Paper 10 (WP010)

ATT067 to WP010: Addendum to XXXI ATCM WP10

Status of the Regional, Antarctic Population of the Southern Giant Petrel – Workshop Outcome and Recommendations 

This addendue lists outcomes of a workshop undertaken by SCAR to consider the status of the Antarctic population (south of 60°S) of the Southern Giant Petrel and to make recommendations concerning the degree of endangerment of this regional population.

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Attachment 78 to Information Paper 60 (IP060)

ATT078 to IP060 – SCAR Lecture 2008: Space Weather and its Effects

by Louis J. Lanzerotti

Text is given in the Information Paper.

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Information Paper

IP059: International Polar Year 2007-2008 Planning Document: 2008 and Beyond (SCAR for IPY IPO)

Summary:

IPY seems poised to achieve and perhaps exceed the ambitious goals. The intellectual resources of thousands of scientists, many more than expected, often from ‘non-polar’ nations, and representing an unprecedented breadth of scientific specialties, supported by substantial new funding and the international array of polar research assets, will undoubtedly “make major advances in polar knowledge and understanding”. National and international polar organizations already undertake efforts to sustain new and improved observational systems.

The “most important legacies” however, take longer to develop. International outreach networks gradually build breadth and strength, largely through IPY Polar Science Days and other internationally-coordinated IPY events. In a short time, IPY participants, scientists and educators together, have stimulated:

• Extensive media coverage, networks and products (film, print, web)
• International educator networks, materials and resources
• A new Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS)
• New field schools and stronger polar higher education programs and consortia
• Stronger connections among polar and non-polar regions
• Enthusiastic and energetic individual and community advocates
• A polar focus in educational and awareness-raising activities

These outcomes and networks will, with time and with continued international coordination, achieve an “exceptional level of interest and participation”.

In this document we:

1. Provide a mid-IPY assessment, from the view of the IPO, of IPY legacies and legacy partners (Section 1);
2. Describe the networks and infrastructure developed during IPY, and possibilities for their continuation (Section 2);
3. Present initial plans for events in the time period February to April 2009 (Section 3);
4. Propose that success of IPY science and IPY communication requires continued international coordination (Section 4); and
5. Assess and align the tasks and resources of the IPO (Section 5).

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Information Paper

IP060: SCAR Lecture: Space Weather and its Effects

by Louis J. Lanzerotti

Antarctica is not only observed in its own right. It is also a platform for the scientific observation of the effects on the Earth of emanations from the Sun, which produce ‘weather’ in space that can harm electrically based technologies. These interactions are the focus of SCAR’s ICESTAR project, a bipolar research effort to ascertain the extent to which solar-terrestrial interactions are conjugate (i.e. occur simultaneously) in the northern and southern hemispheres, and are predictable.

Includes slide text. Slides are provided in Attachment 78 (ATT078).

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Information Paper

IP062: Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment: A Progress Report

Summary:

The Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (ACCE) project is an initiative of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), which aims to provide an up-to-date assessment of the climatic changes that have taken place on the continent and across the Southern Ocean, give improved estimates of how the climate may evolve over the next century and examine the possible impact on the biota and other aspects of the environment. The plan for ACCE was formulated in 2005 and approved by SCAR Delegates in 2006. A small editing team was established and, as of April 2008, all contributions to the document have been received and are being edited prior to a draft being circulated to the Antarctic science community. The draft will be discussed extensively at the SCAR/IASC Open Science Conference in St Petersburg and the SCAR Delegates’ Meeting in Moscow, both of which will be held in July 2008. It is planned to publish the final report later in 2008.

The ACCE review is the first of its type and tries to place Antarctica in its global context. It has the potential to make an important contribution to our understanding of the role of the Antarctic in the Earth system. In the following sections we highlight some of the main conclusions of the ACCE report. However, it should be appreciated that some of these may change as the document goes through the review process, hence the subtitle to this document – “a Progress Report”.

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Information Paper

IP074: SCAR Annual Report 2007-2008

Summary:

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is the foremost, non-governmental organisation for initiating, developing, and coordinating high quality international scientific research in the Antarctic region, including the study of Antarctica’s role in the Earth System. SCAR adds value to research conducted by individual nations by facilitating and encouraging researchers to extend beyond their programmes and to partner with other colleagues worldwide that have similar or complimentary research interests. Collectively, SCAR programmes can often accomplish research objectives that are not easily obtainable by any single country, research group, or researcher.

Through its biennial Open Science Conference SCAR provides a forum for the community of polar scientists, researchers, and students to gather to report on the latest science, exchange ideas and explore new opportunities. SCAR also supports research Fellows and provides a broad range of data management and information products and services.

SCAR provides objective and independent scientific advice on the underlying scientific knowledge and principles necessary for the wise management of the Antarctic environment by the Antarctic Treaty Parties (through Consultative Meetings); the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR); the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (CCAS), the Advisory Committee of the Agreement on Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) and the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programmes (COMNAP).

SCAR has led the development of a network of the four main bodies of the International Council for Science (ICSU) that are concerned with research in the Polar Regions and/or the cryosphere; these include SCAR, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), and the newly formed International Association for Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) of the International Union for Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). Creation of this 4-component network will help to ensure that polar scientific research is effectively coordinated.

We are now in the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2009, to which SCAR is making a significant contribution through its scientific research programmes. In recognition of the importance of the IPY the SCAR Open Science Conference for July 8-11 2008 (St Petersburg, Russia) has been broadened to be the SCAR/IASC Open Science Conference, and has the theme “Polar Research – Arctic and Antarctic Perspectives in the IPY”. The IPY Steering Committee has formally adopted it as the first of three thematic IPY conferences (the second will be in Oslo in June 2010 and the third in Canada in 2012). Planning for the conference, which has attracted almost 1400 registrants, has occupied much of the year.

SCAR leverages its limited resources by partnering with selected global science programmes, providing them with an Antarctic perspective. These include the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), elements of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Permafrost Association (IPA), the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the Partnership for Observations of the Global Ocean (POGO), the Census of Marine Life (COML), the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), and the Scientific Committee on Solar Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP).

During 2007, SCAR’s research focused on five themes in Antarctic science: (i) the modern ocean- atmosphere-ice system; (ii) the evolution of climate over the past 34 million years since glaciation began; (iii) the response of life to change; (iv) preparations to study subglacial lakes and their environs; and (v) the response of the Earth’s outer atmosphere to the changing impact of the solar wind at both poles. Highlights of scientific discoveries include:

1. A new medium depth (136 m) ice core has been drilled in a high accumulation site on the southwestern Antarctic Peninsula. It records a doubling of accumulation since the 1850s, with acceleration in recent decades. This rapid increase is strongly associated with changes in the regional meteorology – especially in the Southern hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM).
2. Excess deuterium data from Dome A shallow ice cores show an increasing trend during the past ~4000 years, implying that the average moisture sources of Dome A in the southern hemisphere are moving equatorwards.
3. New marine geological data suggest the possibility of rapid and synchronous ice retreat from much of Antarctica’s continental margin following the last glaciation, beginning about 11,500 years ago and lasting less than 1,000 years, which may be related to globally-relevant meltwater pulses.
4. The latest inventory of Antarctic subglacial lakes and aquatic environments has identified more than 160 features. The spectrum of subglacial environments provides a framework for comparing and contrasting lake environments enhancing our ability to test hypotheses about the origin, evolution, and significance of subglacial aquatic environments.
5. Tests of the extent to which auroral events in both hemispheres are joined together (inter-hemispheric conjugacy) have long showed that some auroral structures are synchronous and may even pulsate in tune (i.e. are conjugate). Recent observations with ground-based all-sky TV-cameras confirm this conjugacy but also show some non-conjugate auroras: (i) pulsating auroras in both hemispheres with different spatial appearance and period, and (ii) pulsating auroras in one hemisphere only.
6. A continent-wide analysis of biological distribution patterns provides many independent examples of long- term persistence and evolution within Antarctica, over timescales from the Pleistocene to Gondwana breakup, providing a new challenge and constraint to reconstructions of the history of ice on the continent.

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Information Paper

IP088: Antarctic Treaty Summit: Science-Policy Interactions in International Governance (IPY IPO)

Summary:

This paper provides information on the ‘Antarctic Treaty Summit: Science-Policy Interactions in International Governance’. The Anatarctic Treaty Summit will assess the legacy lessons of the Antarctic Treaty and look forward to the next 50 years. It will be convened at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC from November 30 to December 3, 2009.

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

An overview of SCAR Papers submitted to ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Working Paper

WP010: Status of the Regional, Antarctic Population of the Southern Giant Petrel – Progress

This paper provides 7 points of progress on the status of the regional, Antarctic population of the Southern Giant Petrel.

See also the Attachment 67 (ATT067) Addendum – Workshop Outcome and Recommendations.

ATCM XXXI and CEP XI 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine

Working Paper

WP012: Human Disturbance to Wildlife in the Broader Antarctic Region: A Review of Findings

Summary:

This paper is in response to a discussion at ATCM XXX about the basis for the 5 m separation distance from fauna recommended in the Site Guidelines for frequently visited tourist sites. The CEP requested SCAR to provide a report on the current state of knowledge with respect to human disturbance of wildlife. A review of the available scientific research on direct human disturbance to wildlife was commissioned by SCAR (Appendix I), which forms the basis for this paper.

Also see Attachment 11 (ATT011)