Documents

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP004: SCAR’s Environmental Code of Conduct for Terrestrial Scientific Field Research in Antarctica

Summary:

The SCAR Environmental Code of Conduct provides guidance for scientists undertaking terrestrial scientific field research in Antarctica. Reference was made to the need for this Code during CEP IX (Paragraph 132), where SCAR offered to make a version available. The Code has been reviewed by the SCAR community and COMNAP, and was approved by the XXX SCAR Delegates Meeting in Moscow July 2008). The requirement, expressed in this code of conduct, of avoiding the introduction of propagules of alien species is common in several management plans for Antarctic Specially Protected Areas and in operational procedures of research stations. However, it is expressed in differing terminologies and wording in various protocols. A unified code of conduct for fieldwork anywhere in the Antarctic, including protected areas, using a common terminology is provided in this paper.

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP005: SCAR’s Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (ACCE) Review Report

Summary:

The Antarctic climate system varies on time scales from sub-annual to millennial and is closely coupled to other parts of the global climate system. The Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment review discusses these variations in the geological timeframe and over the last 50 years, discusses their consequences for the biosphere, and shows how the latest numerical models project change into the future, taking into account human interference in the form of the release of greenhouse gases and chlorofluorcarbons into the atmosphere. For recommendations relevant to the Treaty Parties, see paragraphs 78 – 81.

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP007: SCAR’s Role in the Antarctic Treaty System

Summary:

This paper provides an overview of SCAR including what SCAR is, its mission and what research it does. It covers SCAR’s approach to advising the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), what governs SCAR’s role in the ATCM and CEP and SCAR’s vision for its advisory role to the ATS. Appendices include a list of SCAR members, SCAR’s research programmes, recent SCAR achievements (to end of 2007), ATCM and CEP requirements for independent scientific advice, and SCAR contributions to the development of the ATS.

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP009: SCAR’s Annual Report

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.

During 2008, SCAR’s research continued focusing on five themes: (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 recent scientific discoveries include:

1. Decadal warming and freshening of intermediate-depth water masses across large regions of the Southern Ocean since the 1960s has likely been driven by decadal-scale changes in the major modes of Southern Hemisphere climate variability (such as the Southern Annular Mode, El Niño – Southern Oscillation and the Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation). The same water masses show reduced oxygen content, suggesting a decline in the rate of ventilation of the Southern Ocean’s intermediate layers in that period.
2. Direct sampling of Antarctic subglacial lakes is now close to becoming a reality. The subglacial lake community has proposed three programs (one each led by Russia, the UK, and the USA) to directly sample a lake beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. The Russian and UK proposals are funded and plan to enter Subglacial Lakes Vostok and Ellsworth within the next 2-4 years. The US plan to examine an entire watershed beneath the Mercer and Whillans Ice Streams beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is now in review.
3. Application of traditional and molecular biological techniques to marine organisms and terrestrial microbes supports long-term persistence of biota across the Antarctic continent and continental shelf. In combination with programmes such as the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), and the increasing use of SCAR biodiversity databases, data are now available to provide a benchmark assessment of the status of Antarctic biodiversity, and objective advice on the status and threats of non-indigenous organisms.
4. The NASA THEMIS mission shown that sudden auroral brightenings (at so called substorm onsets) are associated with a global disruption in the electric currents flowing across the near-Earth magnetotail. Tests of the extent to which auroral events in both hemispheres are joined together (inter-hemispheric conjugacy) have long shown 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.

SCAR organized with the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) the first International Polar Year science conference, which took place in St Petersburg, Russia, in July, and attracted 1150 attendees. SCAR’s legal status changed during the year; it is now a Company Limited by Guarantee, and a UK Charity, while still an Interdisciplinary Body of the International Council for Science (ICSU). Three SCAR Medals and Four SCAR Fellowships were awarded. SCAR continues to provide high quality independent scientific advice to the Antarctic Treaty Parties.

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP010: The IPY Aliens in Antarctica Project

Poster

Summary:

The attached poster is a preliminary report on one aspect of this IPY project, submitted by Dutch scientists and relating to their particular contribution. It was prepared for the Dutch Polar Symposium to mark the ending of the IPY, and SCAR considered it to be helpful in giving some insights at this time into how the programme is developing. In addition it should be noted that eight countries make up the core researchers for IPY Aliens in Antarctica (Netherlands, Japan, UK, Belgium, France, South Africa, Poland, Australia); that three nations allowed access to their new stations (Germany, UK and Belgium) for the purposes of gathering data; that over 25 ATCM/COMNAP countries as well as most IAATO members agreed to participate in the project; and that surveys and/or investigations involved passengers, food and cargo as transport vectors. A working paper containing results and recommendations will be submitted for ATCM and CEP in 2010.

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP020: Antarctic Treaty Summit: Science-Policy Interactions in International Governance

Summary:

The 50th anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in Washington, D.C. will be on 1 December 2009. To celebrate this international landmark and the global vision of the twelve original signatories, the Antarctic Treaty Summit: Science-Policy Interactions in International Governance will be convened from 30 November through 3 December 2009 at the Smithsonian Institution to highlight lessons learned about international governance from this unique institution that was adopted “with the interests of science and the progress of all mankind”.

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP055: Improvements to the Alien Species Database (with Australia)

Summary:

The Australian Antarctic Data Centre is considering ways to modify the Biodiversity Database to improve the management of non-native species records. A new facility to associate images with species records could assist with species identification, and an online data entry form could provide a consistent format for entering and distributing new records. Feedback from Members on these enhancements would be welcome.

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP065: Biological Prospecting in the Antarctic: An Update on the Review by SCAR

Summary:

During ATCM XXXI, SCAR was asked to prepare a paper for ATCM XXXII to inform the on-going discussions of biological prospecting. After consultations, SCAR agreed to review recent published research on biological prospecting in the Antarctic Treaty region and assess these efforts from discovery to development to commercialisation to product use. The assessment is to be based on fundamental scientific principles, and a survey of biological prospecting research being undertaken within the SCAR community.

The question of biological prospecting in the region has a considerable history of consideration, and SCAR took note of the several papers submitted to ATCM since IP 123 submitted by SCAR at ATCM XXIII, and the outcomes of academic workshops on this question, including IP047 submitted by New Zealand to ATCM XXVI. SCAR has commenced a review of published research and submitted a questionnaire survey to its members (Appendix A).

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP069: Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Antarctic

Summary:

At CEP 8 (ATCM XXXI), the Committee noted that the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) had requested a review of information on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the Antarctic Region. During the discussion SCAR offered to provide this information to the Committee. The newly formed SCAR Action Group on Environmental Contamination in Antarctica undertook this task under the leadership of Prof. Roger Fuoco, Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Italy, and Prof. Gabriele Capodaglio, Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Università Ca’ Foscari – Venezia, Italy. This review of information is an update of the material presented in the United Nations Environment Programme Report of 2002, entitled ‘Regionally Based Assessment of Persistent Toxic Substances. Antarctica Regional Report’.

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Information Paper

IP071: The SCAR Lecture – Marine Life and Change in the Southern Ocean

by Prof. Dr. Karin Lochte, Director, AWI, Bremerhaven

This paper provides lecture slide text. See also the lecture slides. 

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

An overview of SCAR Papers submitted to ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Attachment to Working Paper 48 (WP048)

Resolution I (2009) Ensuring the Legacy of the International Polar Year (IPY)

ATCM XXXII and CEP XII 2009, Baltimore, United States

Working Paper

WP048: IPY Report: Accomplishments and Challenges

Summary:

The International Polar Year (IPY) has emerged as the largest internationally coordinated planetary research effort in the past 50 years. It has engaged the intellectual resources of thousands of scientists – many more than expected and often from non-polar countries – representing an unprecedented breadth of specialties, from geophysical to biological to social sciences. IPY has been a truly international, interdisciplinary endeavour with over 160 endorsed science projects involving researchers in more than 60 countries. Substantial new funding – more than USD 400 million – was pledged for IPY, which coordinated with and supplemented ongoing polar research and monitoring programmes. In addition, novel system-level approaches, and observational and analysis technologies, including in-situ and remote sensing, were fundamental features of IPY science. Many IPY projects and their offspring will continue beyond the formal observational period, which ends in March 2009.

The planners of IPY 2007–2008 intended that it would pave the way for a new era of scientific progress in knowledge and understanding of the polar regions, and leave a vital legacy of sustained observing systems, increased international research coordination and collaboration, stronger links between researchers across different disciplinary fields, reference datasets for comparison with the future and the past, development of a new generation of enthused polar researchers, and full engagement and understanding of the public and decision-makers worldwide in the purpose and value of polar research.

This paper looks at the achievements of IPY and provides recommendations for the way forward including a resolution to ensure the IPY legacy.

See also Resolution I (2009) Ensuring the legacy of the International Polar Year (IPY).