Documents

SCAR XXVIII 01: Agenda 

SCAR XXVIII 02: Annotated Agenda

SCAR XXVIII 03: Timetable 

SCAR XXVIII 06: Report of the Twenty-seventh Meeting of SCAR, Shanghai, July 2002

Full overview of the proceedings of the twenty-seventh meeting of SCAR, which took place in Shanghai, China between the 22-26 July 2002.

SCAR XXVIII 07: Report of the SCAR Executive Committee Meeting, Brest, July 2003

SCAR Executive Committee Meeting Brest, France, 11–15 July 2003

SCAR XXVIII 08: Report of the SCAR Executive Committee Meeting, Bremerhaven, January 2004

SCAR Executive Committee Meeting Bremerhaven, Germany, 21 January 2004

SCAR XXVIII 09: Report of the SCAR Executive Committee Meeting, Bremen, July 2004

SCAR Executive Committee Meeting, Bremen, Germany, 25 and 30 July 2004

SCAR XXVIII 11: SCAR Election Procedures

At this XXVIII SCAR Meeting of Delegates two new Vice-Presidents will be elected. Election procedures (Sections 2 and 3. of the SCAR Rules of Procedure) are reproduced in this paper.

SCAR XXVIII 12: Report of the Standing Scientific Group on Geosciences (GSSG)

Introduction

This document presents a summary of activities carried out by the SCAR Standing Scientific Group on Geoscience (GSSG) since SCAR XXVII in Shanghai, July 2002. It includes:

• brief reports on the work of our Action, Expert and Programme Planning Groups,
• outcomes of the recommendations agreed at SCAR XXVII,
• new recommendations to SCAR and external organisations,
• budget proposals for 2005 and 2006,
• workplans for action and expert groups for the next two years.

Expanded reports on the work of the various sub-groups will be available from the GSSG website. 

SCAR XXVIII 13: Report of the Standing Scientific Group on Life Sciences (LSSSG)

SCAR Life Sciences Standing Scientific Group (LSSSG)

Draft Report of the meeting at XXVIII SCAR Bremen, Germany, 25 – 31 July 2004

SCAR XXVIII 14: Report of the Standing Scientific Group on Physical Sciences (SSG/PS)     

Introduction

This document presents a summary of activities carried out by the SCAR Standing Scientific Group on Physical Sciences (SSG/PS) since SCAR XXVII in Shanghai, July 2002. It included:

• brief reports on the work of our Action, Expert and Programme Planning Groups,
• outcomes of the recommendations agreed at SCAR XXVII,
• new recommendations to SCAR and external organisations,
• budget proposals for 2005 and 2006, and
• an action timetable for the next two years.

Expanded reports on the work of the various sub-groups are in the minutes of the SSG/PS meeting held in Bremen, available from the SSG/PS web site. The web site also contains national and other reports on science that comes under SSG/PS.

SCAR XXVIII 15: Report on the XXV Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, Warsaw, September 2002            

XXV Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting Warsaw, Poland, 10–20 September 2002

Report by the SCAR Observers: Professor Dr J Thiede, President, Professor D W H Walton, Chief Officer of the Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System, and Dr P D Clarkson, Executive Secretary.

SCAR XXVIII 16: Report on the XXVI Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, Madrid, June 2003            

SCAR Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System

Report to the SCAR Executive Committee on XXVI ATCM Madrid, Spain, 9–20 June 2003

SCAR XXVIII 17: Report on the XXVII Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, Cape Town, June 2004            

SCAR Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System

Report to the SCAR Executive Committee on XXVII ATCM Cape Town, South Africa, 24 May – 4 June 2004

SCAR XXVIII 18a: Report of the Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM)              

Annual Report of the Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM)

July 2002 – July 2003

This document reports JCADM activities, from JCADM-6 (Shanghai) to JCADM-7 (Brussels). Action items are identified from JCADM–7 and statistics on the Antarctic Master Directory presented for the last seven quarters.

SCAR XXVIII 18b: JCADM Proposal to COMNAP and SCAR              

JCADM Proposal to COMNAP and SCAR July 2003 – June 2004

Background

A SCAR-COMNAP ad hoc Planning Group on Antarctic Data Management was established at XXII SCAR in June 1992. The Group’s first report (October 1992) proposed a committee for Antarctic data management overseeing the development of an Antarctic Data Directory System, comprising National Antarctic Data Centres linked to an Antarctic Master Directory (AMD). The Antarctic Treaty Meeting in November 1992 and the SCAR and COMNAP Executives accepted the recommendations from the report in April 1993.

The SCAR-COMNAP Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM) replaced the ad hoc Planning Group in 1997. JCADM is comprised of managers of each National Antarctic Data Centre (NADC), or relevant national contacts if an NADC has not yet been nominated. To date 26 countries are represented in JCADM.

JCADM’s priorities over the last few years have been to enlist NADCs and to assist them in documenting their national Antarctic datasets through the creation and use of index (metadata) records. An index record is a description of a dataset, its location and contact details. The AMD, within the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) was set-up to hold these index records. The AMD is a web based metadata catalogue, which can be accessed by anyone interested in Antarctic information.

The AMD has grown over the past few years to a catalogue of over 2800 data records (approximately 25% of the GCMD total). JCADM’s annual budget grew to $40,000 USD per year for a two-year period to initially set-up the AMD. All these funds went to the GCMD to establish the AMD and to support the NADCs. Since the implementation stage the annual budget has been reduced. The work plan presented in this paper is for a total annual budget of $10,000 USD.

SCAR XXVIII 19: Joint Meeting of the SCAR and COMNAP Executive Committees Bremen, July 2004

Joint Meeting of the SCAR and COMNAP Executive Committees Bremen, Germany, 29 July 2004

SCAR XXVIII 20: XXVII SCAR Recommendations

XXVII SCAR Recommendations 1-20

SCAR XXVIII 21: XXVIII SCAR Recommendations

SCAR XXVIII 22: Proposal for a SCAR Scientific Research Programme on Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE)

Executive Summary

ACE is a new international initiative that promotes the exchange of data and ideas between research groups focussing on the evolution of Antarctica’s climate system and ice sheet. ACE will exist to facilitate scientific exchange between the modelling and data acquisition communities for the purposes of project development and hypothesis testing. The broad outcomes of the programme will be: (1) quantitative assessment of the climate and glacial history of Antarctica; (2) identification of the processes which govern Antarctic change, and those which feed back this change around the globe; (3) improvements in our technical ability to model past changes in Antarctica; and (4) precisely documented case studies of past changes, which models of future change in Antarctica can be tested against.

The Southern Ocean plays a lead role in the development and maintenance of the Earth’s climate system. Equator-to-pole heat transport through the ocean and atmosphere is largely controlled by the latitudinal thermal gradient, which in turn is mostly a function of polar temperatures. Past variability in Antarctic temperatures and the extent of glacial and sea ice thereby impacts climate systems throughout the globe. The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth and exerts an influence on global sea levels and hydrology, as well as ocean chemistry. The seas surrounding Antarctica contain the world’s only zonal circum-global current system wherein mixing occurs between water masses from all the ocean basins. Circumpolar flow maintains the thermal isolation of Antarctica from warmer surface waters to the north and has been linked to the development of continental glaciers and a dynamic sea ice regime. The Southern Ocean impacts the global thermohaline circulation as a major site of bottom and intermediate water formation. The southern seas are also important for ventilation of CO2 between the atmosphere and the ocean, by virtue of large-scale processes of upwelling, downwelling, and isopycnal mixing in a region of cold surface waters and strong winds. Antarctica, thus, has a key position in global climate processes now and in the past. To understand these processes it is necessary to examine their role in documented past climate change. The ACE programme aims to do this by formulating geological-based hypotheses on past changes in Antarctica and testing them using coupled climate/ice-sheet models.