Documents

International Partnership in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) 2018-2020 Report

Expert Group of the Physical Sciences Group

Report Author(s): Tas van Ommen (Australia), Hubertus Fischer (Switzerland)

Summary of activities from 2018-20

Major progress since 2018 delegates meeting has been in the planning and implementation of Oldest Ice core drilling in Antarctica. This has a goal to retrieve an ice core reaching back beyond the Mid Pleistocene Transition to 1.5 Myr (details available in IPICS White Paper). Several national projects are planned with varying degrees of progress: from Australia, Japan, Korea and Russia. The European Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice (BE-OI) project finished its reconnaissance phase in 2019 and the drilling phase officially started in June 2019. BE-OI is funded by the EU and national contributions and has established a drill site and camp at Little Dome C, around 35 km from Concordia Station.

In other activities, older ice from Antarctic blue ice areas has also featured prominently in the literature, while the ICE MEMORY initiative has progressed in its goal to retrieve and secure high alpine ice core records threatened by climate change. A number of other international activities in Greenland and Antarctica and cannot be fully described here, however the WAICSWAIN project has conducted fieldwork with an ice core retrieved to investigate the sensitivity of the West Antarctic ice sheet to warmer climate conditions in the last interglacial, and the EAIIST project conducted extensive traverse studies using ice cores retrieved from central East Antarctica.

In September 2019, a major symposium in ice core drilling was held at the University of Copenhagen, furthering this aspect of IPICS work as descried in the White Paper on “Ice core drilling technical challenges”. A key difficulty has been created by the coronavirus pandemic. This has impeded planning meetings and also resulted in deferring the planned Open Science Conference from October 2020 to October 2021.

Integrated Science for the Sub-Antarctic (ISSA) 2018-2020 Report

Expert Group of the Life Sciences Group

Report Author(s): Justine Shaw, The University of Queensland, Australia

Summary of activities from 2018-20 and any other important issues or factors

• Following Davos 2018, the programme grew in members and scope. Links were established with input to existing and emergent research groups.
• Several large international grants were submitted by members that focused on sub-Antarctic science, facilitated and through new collaborations formed in association with ISSA.
• We contributed to the ANTOS program, highlighting the need for more time series observations to document change in the environment and to processes.
• We have notable input to the development of the proposed SCAR SRP AntICON.
• An international ISSA workshop held in late 2018 in New Zealand brought together key researchers from across the region, with representatives from France, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the UK.
• During 2019 and 2020, considerable effort was put into the design and promotion of a sub-Antarctic Forum (to be held as part of the SCAR activities), in conjunction with the governments of Tasmania, Australia and New Zealand. During this process, new linkage were formed between responsible agencies, managers, researchers and national programs. There was considerable uptake for the Forum and it triggered sharing of information and links related to sub-Antarctic research in the lead. ECRs were engaged and many became involved in virtual discussion and sharing of ideas.
• ISSA members submitted a session to SCAR Open Science Conference in 2020 -Sub-Antarctic Islands: Sentinels of Change
• ISSA has maintained strong relationships with the Antarctic Nearshore and Terrestrial Observing System, Southern Ocean Observing System.

Integrated Science for the Sub-Antarctic (ISSA) 2018-2020 Report

Action Group of the Life Sciences Group

Report Author(s): Justine Shaw, The University of Queensland, Australia

Summary of activities from 2018-20 and any other important issues or factors

• Following Davos 2018, the programme grew in members and scope. Links were established with input to existing and emergent research groups.
• Several large international grants were submitted by members that focused on sub-Antarctic science, facilitated and through new collaborations formed in association with ISSA.
• We contributed to the ANTOS program, highlighting the need for more time series observations to document change in the environment and to processes.
• We have notable input to the development of the proposed SCAR SRP AntICON.
• An international ISSA workshop held in late 2018 in New Zealand brought together key researchers from across the region, with representatives from France, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the UK.
• During 2019 and 2020, considerable effort was put into the design and promotion of a sub-Antarctic Forum (to be held as part of the SCAR activities), in conjunction with the governments of Tasmania, Australia and New Zealand. During this process, new linkage were formed between responsible agencies, managers, researchers and national programs. There was considerable uptake for the Forum and it triggered sharing of information and links related to sub-Antarctic research in the lead. ECRs were engaged and many became involved in virtual discussion and sharing of ideas.
• ISSA members submitted a session to SCAR Open Science Conference in 2020 -Sub-Antarctic Islands: Sentinels of Change
• ISSA has maintained strong relationships with the Antarctic Nearshore and Terrestrial Observing System, Southern Ocean Observing System.

Joint Expert Group on Human Biology and Medicine 2018-2020 Report

Expert Group of the Life Sciences Group

Report Author(s): Anne Hicks (UK), Nathalie Pattyn (Belgium), Paul LaForet (France)

Summary of activities from 2018-20

Activities/achievements:

1. POLAR 2019 Open Science Conference, August 2019, Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The Joint Expert Group on Human Biology and Medicine (JEGHBM) attended by members from 21 countries, met to update information and discuss best methods to assess and collaborate to preserve human health and well-being within the context of International Antarctic Treaty, specifically in terms of expeditioner health, gathering of critical data on medical support in the extreme environment of Antarctica, health and medical resources, best clinical practices.
2. Update of the JEGHBM-EG webpage on the SCAR website, with general access for membership and select access for licensed clinical providers.
3. Mobilization of CONMAP/SCAR International Clinical community to address the global COVID 19 Pandemic. Report available to membership of JEGHBM members and affiliated groups on JEGHBM webpages and COMNAP website members area.
4. SCAR 2020 special program addressing extreme environments from Antarctica to Outer Space. Citation of sessions planned or currently still on the books for remote activity.

SCAR 2020 LS virtual meeting

Report Authors: Yan Ropert-Coudert (head), Marc Shepanek (co-head) and Ian McDonald (secretary).

Recommendations to the Delegates and EXCOM

Dear Delegates, Dear Excom Members:

The Covid situation has meant that we cannot meet face-to-face with you all. We also could not meet properly with the Life Sciences national representatives to discuss the various business that took place during 2019 and part of 2020 and those to come. We do not know what form the Delegates meeting will take this year, nor what decisions can or cannot be taken, but we felt it was important to show that Life Sciences continues to be an active community even in these troubled times. Below are the positions of the Life Sciences representatives on several items that we know are of interest.

The Life Sciences community has exchanged ideas and information using a Google doc in which items to discuss were listed and detailed. Links to AG and EG reports were given. At the end of each item that required an endorsement by the community, the heads of Life Sciences provided an initial statement and a link to a voting table. This voting table had all 37 countries in rows and items in columns. Each country could vote “agree”, “disagree”, “abstention” and comment in a box. Following a first round of voting, items were either closed when there were only “Agree” or “Abstention”. If one country disagreed, the Life Sciences heads made a synthesis of the discussion, online (zoom, skype…) meetings were also held with several countries. Then, a new statement was made with a second table of voting, similar to the first round. After these two rounds, a final Life Sciences synthesis document was produced, validated by the representatives, and this is the document you are about to read below.

We appreciate the many challenges you have been dealing with and hope you will appreciate the effort made to keep the dialog between the different levels of hierarchy in SCAR, and look forward to the next in-person meeting. We are also ready to discuss with you any of the items below should any be unclear and if you wish to.

Cordially,
Yan Ropert-Coudert (head), Marc Shepanek (co-head) and Ian McDonald (secretary).

Operational Meteorology in the Antarctic (OpMet) 2018-2020 Report

Expert Group of the Physical Sciences Group

Report Author(s): Steve Colwell (UK)

Summary of activities from 2018-20

The group continues to maintain webpages that are updated on a weekly basis with news, information and data monitoring at
https://legacy.bas.ac.uk/met/jds/met/SCAR_oma.htm

Data is updated on a monthly basis on the MET-READER website at https://www.scar.org/data-products/ref-data-environmental-research/

An archive of high resolution radiosonde data collected during the Special Observing Period (SOP) of the Year of Polar Predication – Southern Hemisphere (YOPP-SH) has been created at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), this can be found at ftp://ftp.bas.ac.uk/src/YOPP-SH/radiosondes/

Accommodation expenses were covered for a couple of people to attend the 13th Antarctic Meteorological and Climate Workshop (July 16-18, 2018) in Madison, Wisconsin and the 14th Antarctic Meteorological and Climate Workshop (June 25-28, 2019) in Charleston, South Carolina.

In conjunction with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Executive Council’s Panel of Experts on Polar and High Mountain Observations, Research and Services (EC-PHORS) we have begun the implementation of an Antarctic Regional Climate Centre (RCC). This was started with a scoping workshop in Bologna from the 7-9th October 2019.

Plastic in Polar Environments (PLASTIC-AG) 2018-2020 Report

Action Group of the Life Sciences Group

Report Author(s): Claire Waluda (UK), Cath Waller (UK), Ilaria Corsi (Italy), Elisa Bergami (Italy), Clara Manno (UK)

Summary of activities from 2018-20

Activities/achievements

1. POLAR 2018 Open Science Conference, 17 June 2018, Davos, Switzerland. Establishment of “Plastic at the Poles” Action Group (PLASTIC-AG) attended by members from 23 countries. Report available at: https://www.scar.org/library/science-4/life-sciences/plastic/5180-plastic-workshop-2018/ 
2. Establishment of the mission, declaration of the expected achievements, logo design agreed.
3. Development of the PLASTIC-AG webpage on the SCAR website, set up of mailing list and organization of AG events.
4. First AG workshop entitled “Plastic in the Polar Environment: sources, impacts and solutions” (October 28-29 2019), hosted by the Energy and Environment Institute (EEI), University of Hull (UK) and sponsored by AirB&B and Hurtigruten. This was attended by 45 scientists from 14 countries. Report available at: https://www.scar.org/scar-news/plastic-news/workshop-report-2019/
5. Special issue of Environment International (Elsevier, IF 7.943) entitled “Plastics in Polar Regions”. Guest editors (Ilaria Corsi & Elisa Bergami). The special issue includes 10 key research papers from the Plastic-AG community on plastic pollution in Arctic and Antarctica. A selection of these are listed in Additional Information below.
6. Establishment of Plastic AG Early Career Researcher network (currently more than 25 members) for sharing activities, upcoming events and opportunities.

“SCAR Action Group on the Development of a satellite-based, Antarctic-wide, remote sensing approach to monitor bird and animal populations” 2018-2020 Report

Action Group of the Physical Sciences/Life Sciences Group

Report Author(s): Osama Mustafa & Hans-Ulrich Peter; Germany

Summary of activities from 2018-20

• Organizing an Action Group Meeting during the Polar2018 Conference in Davos with presentations from Colin Harris, Fritz Hertel, Roger Colominas, Christian Pfeifer, Heather Lynch & Fabian Reise
• Providing input for the Information Paper 10 of XLII ATCM (Prague 2019) “An update to the state of knowledge of wildlife responses to unmanned aerial vehicles” .
• Since 2016 Communication with the European Space Agency (ESA) resulted in a regular coverage of Antarctic coastline by Sentinel-2 every 10 days from September 2018 to April 2019.
• Organizing an Action Group Meeting during the SCAR OSC in Hobart , Joint meeting with SOOS working group CAPS (cancelled)
• Future plans: Integration of our remote sensing AG into the Earth Observation Action Group.

SCAGI Meeting Report

Submitted to the SCAR XXXVI Delegates Meeting, Online, 16-25 March 2021

Proposal for a SCAR KRILL Expert Group

Name of the Proposed Group: To be decided

Name(s) of the lead proponent(s) Prof. Dr. Bettina Meyer, Dr. So Kawaguchi

Sponsoring Science Group(s) or Standing Committee(s): Life Sciences

Summary of SCAR Krill Action Group

Recent findings on Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba have demonstrated that, even after almost 100 years of research on this species, there remain crucial gaps in our understanding of its life history, response to climate variability, spatial dynamics, and the environmental mechanisms that drive variability of its lifecycle throughout the Southern Ocean (SO).

CCAMLR is an international organization established in response to increasing commercial interest in Antarctic krill resources, a keystone component of the Antarctic ecosystem and a history of over-exploitation of several other marine resources in the Southern Ocean. CCAMLR had a working group focusing solely on krill in its early years but there is no longer a working group within CCAMLR that solely considers krill biology and ecology. The CCAMLR Scientific Committee has emphasised the need for a mechanism to better incorporate the relevant science being done on krill into CCAMLR. Thus a SCAR Krill Action Group (SKAG) was initiated in 2018 to become a prime conduit between CCAMLR and the wider krill science community. SKAG provides a forum to guide research directions, promote collaboration, improve understanding of krill biology and ecology, and through the SCAR Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System, will assist in providing critical scientific information relevant to krill fishery management. Furthermore, the group will provide a forum for an information exchange on upcoming cruises and funding opportunities, as well as lab facilities for experimental krill work, and will serve as a platform for the development of future international collaborative research proposals and programs.

SKAG has a close interaction with, and provides input to, the existing SCAR group Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics in the Southern Ocean – ICED. In addition, because krill are so central to the SO ecosystem, knowledge about krill is essential to answering many of the fundamental questions of groups such as the Expert Group on Birds and Marine Mammals – EGBAMM and the Southern Ocean Continuous Plankton Recorder – SO-CPR.

EG-Continuous Plankton Recorder and the SCAR Southern Ocean CPR Survey (SO-CPR) 2018-20 Report

Expert Group of the Life Sciences Group

Report Authors: Kunio T. Takahashi (JAPAN), John A. Kitchener, (AUSTRALIA)

Summary of activities from 2018-20 and any other important issues or factors

Since the last report 2018, we have completed over 80 CPR tows during the 2018/19 and 2019/20 Antarctic field season from research vessels from several countries. Approximately 272,000 nautical miles have been sampled since the commencement of the SO-CPR Survey in 1991, representing some 55,000 samples for 293 zooplankton taxa coupled with environmental data.

Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) 2018-2020 Report

Report Authors: Louise Newman (SOOS IPO), Eileen Hofmann (SOOS Co-Chair, USA), Mike Williams (SOOS Co-Chair, NZ), Sian Henley (SOOS Vice Chair, UK), Phillippa Bricher (SOOS IPO), Alyce Hancock (SOOS IPO)

Summary of activities from 2018-20

Please provide highlights of your groups progress since the SCAR Delegates meeting in 2018, covering major activities/achievements, upcoming activities and key challenges faced.

SORP (CLIVAR-CliC-SCAR Southern Ocean Region Panel) 2018-2020 Report

Expert Group of the Physical Sciences Group

Report Authors: Torge Martin (Germany) and Inga Smith (New Zealand)

Summary of activities from 2018-20

The Southern Ocean Region Panel (SORP) is co-sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme’s core projects the Climate and Ocean: Variability, Predictability and Change (CLIVAR) and the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC), and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The SORP serves as a forum for the discussion and communication of scientific advances in the understanding of climate variability and change in the Southern Ocean. It advises CLIVAR, CliC, and SCAR on progress, achievements, new opportunities and impediments in internationally-coordinated Southern Ocean research.

Tropic Antarctic Teleconnections (TATE) 2018-2020 Report

Action Group of the Physical Sciences Group

Report Authors: Sheeba Chenoli (Malaysia), Seong-Joong Kim (Korea), Francisco Aquino (Brazil)

Summary of activities from 2018-20

The Tropical Antarctic Teleconnections (TATE) group sponsored a half -day workshop on TATE which was held on 20 June 2019 in conjunction with 8th Malaysian International Seminar on Antarctica. A total number of 6 papers were presented at the workshop. TATE would also be linking to the Asian Forum for Polar Sciences (AFOPS) and plans to contribute to the Near-term Variability and Prediction of the Antarctic Climate System (AntClimnow).