Documents

SCAR Bulletin, No. 153, April 2004

Twenty-sixth Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting Madrid, Spain, 9-20 June 2003

Content: Decisions, Resolutions and Measures

• Measure 2 – Antarctic protected area system: management plans for Antarctic specially protected areas: Eastern Dallman Bay; Botany Bay, Victoria Land; Lewis Bay, Mt Erebus; Frazier Islands, Wilkes Land; Terra Nova Bay, Ross Sea;
• Measure 3 – Antarctic protected areas system: revised list of historic sites and monuments

SCAR Bulletin, No. 154, October 2004

Report of SCAR Executive Committee (EXCOM) Meeting, Bremerhaven, January 2004

Content:

• Stations of SCAR Nations operating in the Antarctic, Winter 2004
• SCAR Executive Committee Meeting, Bremerhaven, Germany, 21 January 2004. Report of the Meeting
• XXVlll SCAR and COMNAP XVI Meetings

SCAR Bulletin, No. 155, October 2004

Twenty-seventh Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, Cape Town, South Africa, 24 May – 4 June 2004

Content: Decisions, Resolutions and Measures

• Decision 1 – Revised rules on procedures
• Decision 2 – Financial considerations for the Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty
• Decision 3 – Appointment of the Executive Secretary
• Decision 4 – Guidelines for Ships Operating in Arctic and Antarctic Ice-Covered Waters
• Resolution 1 – Enhancing Prevention of Marine Pollution by Fishing Activities
• Resolution 2 – Guidelines for the Operation of Aircraft near Concentrations of Birds in Antarctica
• Resolution 3 – Tourism and Non-Governmental Activities: Enhanced Co-operation amongst Parties
• Resolution 4 – Guidelines on Contingency Planning, Insurance and Other Matters for Tourist and Other Non-Governmental Activities in the Antarctic Treaty Area
• Resolution 5 – Establishment of an Intersessional Contact Group to Improve Exchange of Information
• Measure 1 – Antarctic Protected Area System: Management Plans for Antarctic Specially Managed Areas Management Plan for Dry Valleys

SCAR Bulletin, No. 156, January 2005

Twenty-seventh Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting Cape Town, South Africa, 24 May – 4 June 2004

Content:

• Measure 1- Antarctic Protected Area System: Management Plans for Antarctic Specially Managed Areas
• Management Plan for Cape Denison
• Measure 2 -Antarctic Protected Area System: Management Plans for Antarctic Specially Protected Areas
• Management Plan for Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 113 Litchfield Is.
• Management Plan for Arrival Heights, Hut Point Peninsula, Ross Island
• Management Plan for Biscoe Point, Anvers Island, Palmer Archipelago
• Management Plan for Svarthamaren
• Proposed Management Plan for SPA, Mawsons Hut
• Antarctic Protected Area System: Historic Sites and Monuments:Antarctic Protected Area System: Historic Sites and Monuments:Cape Denison, Commonwealth Bay, George V Land and Plaque and Monument at India Point and, Humboldt Mountains, Central Dronning Maud Land, Monument at India Point and, Humboldt Mountains, Central Dronning Maud Land

SCAR Bulletin, No. 157, April 2005

Report of the XXVIII Meeting of SCAR Delegates, Bremerhaven, Germany, 4-8 October 2004

SCAR Bulletin, No. 158, July 2005

SCAR Annual Report 2004

Including:

SCAR Bulletin, No. 159, October 2005

Report from the SCAR Executive Committee (EXCOM) Meeting, Sofia, Bulgaria, 11-13 July 2005 and SSG Chief Officers Meeting, 10 July 2005

SCAR BULLETIN, No 16, JANUARY 1964

Seventh Meeting of SCAR, Cape Town, 23-27 September 1963

Other Content

• Matters arising from minutes of 6th Meeting
• Liasion with other international organisations
• Proposed Swiss expedition
• Sub Antarctic Islands review
• Observations of Whales
• Netherlands forms committe on Antarctic Research
• Election of 1963-66 President, Dr Gould. 
• Reports and recommendations of working groups
• Updates on National Committess of SCAR
• Permenent delegates to SCAR
• Exchange scientists in the Antarctic 1962-63
• Stations operating in the Antarctic Winter 1963

Reprinted from Polar Record, Vol. 12, No. 76, 1964, pp. 87-101

SCAR Bulletin, No. 160, April 2006

SCAR Annual Report 2005

Executive Summary

SCARʼs main objective is to initiate, develop, and co- ordinate high quality international scientific research in the Antarctic region, and on the role of the Antarctic region in the Earth system. SCAR coordinates scientific research that adds value to ongoing national research by enabling national researchers to tackle issues of pan-Antarctic scale and having global reach.

SCAR also provides objective and independent scientific advice on issues affecting the management of the environment to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings; the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR); and the Advisory Committee of the Agreement on Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP).

Through 2005, SCAR focused on ramping up the effort on its five major new Scientific Research Programmes (SRPs) that will be SCARʼs scientific flagships for the next 5–10 years, and published implementation plans for each. They are:

• Antarctica and the Global Climate System (AGCS), a study of the modern ocean-atmosphere-ice system;
• Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE), a study of climate change over the past 34 million years since glaciation began;
• Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic (EBA), a study of the response of life to change;
• Subglacial Antarctic Lake Exploration (SALE), a study of the chemistry and biology of lakes long-buried beneath the ice sheet;
• Interhemispheric Conjugacy Effects in Solar-Terrestrial and Aeronomy Research (ICESTAR), a study of the response of the Earthʼs outer atmosphere to the changing impact of the solar wind at both poles.

Particular highlights include the following: A major warming was revealed in the Antarctic winter troposphere that is larger than any previously identified regional tropospheric warming on Earth. The largest warming is close to 5 km above sea level where temperatures increased at a rate of 0.5 – 0.7° C per decade over the last 30 years.

Numerical models show that the shift in the Southern hemisphere Annular Mode in the atmosphere in recent decades was probably due to anthropogenic forcing. This is the first evidence that the rapid warming on the Antarctic Peninsula is man-made.

SCAR launched the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), a major five-year international project to investigate Antarcticaʼs marine biodiversity. A science plan was published and expeditions are now being organised for the International Polar Year.

The inventory of sub-glacial lakes increased to over 140, showing that they are widespread beneath Antarcticaʼs ice sheets. These lakes are believed to help to control ice flow.

Around 750 abstracts have been submitted for SCARʼs second Open Science Conference (Hobart, 12–14 July 2006), which should be very well attended.

SCAR programmes were prominent among the proposals endorsed by the Steering Committee for the International Polar year.

SCAR Bulletin, No. 161, December 2006

Report on the XXIX Meeting of SCAR Delegates (17-19 July 2006) and SCAR Science Week (8-14 July 2006)

SCAR Bulletin, No. 162, February 2007

Progress Reports of SCAR’s Scientific Research Programmes

Reports for:

• Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE)
• Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments (SALE)
• Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic (EBA)
• Antarctica and the Global Climate System (AGCS)
• Interhemispheric Conjugacy Effects in Solar-Terrestrial and Aeronomy Research (ICESTAR)

SCAR Bulletin, No. 163, March 2007

SCAR Annual Report 2006

Executive Summary

SCAR initiates, develops, and co-ordinates high quality international scientific research in the Antarctic region, and on the role of the Antarctic region in the Earth system. SCAR adds value to national research by enabling researchers to tackle issues of pan-Antarctic scale or global reach. SCAR also provides objective and independent scientific advice on issues affecting the management of the environment to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM); the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR); and the Advisory Committee of the Agreement on Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP). During 2006, SCAR’s main focus was on the XXIXth SCAR Meeting and 2nd Open Science Conference, hosted in Hobart, Tasmania, by the Australian Antarctic Division, which attracted 850 participants.

Through 2006, SCAR continued to focus on research in five main thematic areas: (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. Particular highlights include the following:

• the Antarctic plateau has been shown to be the best place on Earth for surface- based astronomy – future plans call for possible installation of a terahertz telescope at Dome A, and a 2.4-metre optical/IR telescope at Dome C.
• advanced numerical models show that intermediate depths in the Southern Ocean have warmed by 0.2oC, and would have warmed by twice as much but for the masking effect of aerosols including volcanic dust.
• analysis of climate models suggests that by 2100 the marginal ice zone will warm in winter by up to 0.6oC/decade, resulting in a decrease of 25% in sea-ice cover; central Antarctica will warm at 0.4oC/decade in all seasons; precipitation will increase 3.3mm/decade on average over the continent, mostly around the edges; westerly winds will strengthen over the ocean, mostly in autumn, but coastal easterlies will decrease; katabatic winds will decrease slightly as temperatures on the polar plateau rise by several degrees.
• drilling through the Ross Sea ice shelf shows that the shelf has come and gone repeatedly over the past few hundred thousand years in response to climate change.
• there is a striking biogeographical ‘divide’ between the biota of the Antarctic Peninsula and that of the rest of the continent, suggesting that the biota does not have a ‘recent’ origin.
• evidence of rapid water movement beneath ice sheets suggests that subglacial hydrologic systems exist beneath the polar plateau and may link subglacial lakes.
• conjugate studies of aurora showed that the onsets of simultaneous Arctic and Antarctic substorm onsets are not symmetric, which has implications for predicting space weather events that could have deleterious technological impacts.

SCAR Bulletin, No. 164, September 2007

Report of SCAR Executive Committee (EXCOM) Meeting, Washington, USA, 9-11 July 2007

SCAR Bulletin, No. 165, February 2008

Report of the SCAR Standing Committee on Antarctic Geographic Information (SC-AGI) Inter-sessional Meeting, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 8-10 October 2007

SCAR Bulletin, No. 166, May 2008

SCAR Annual Report 2007

Executive 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.

SCAR Bulletin, No. 167, September 2008

Report on the XXX Meeting of SCAR Delegates, Moscow, Russia, 14-16 July 2008

SCAR Bulletin, No. 168, October 2008

Policy Advice: Reports of SCAR’s Interactions with the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM), the Committee on Environmental Protection (CEP), and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources (CCAMLR) between October 2006 and July 2008

Introduction

The meeting in New Delhi took place at Vigyan Bhavan from 30 April to 11 May 2007.

The SCAR Delegation comprised Colin Summerhayes (Head), Steven Chown, and Chris Rapley who presented the SCAR lecture. The Director of the IPY-IPO was initially included in the SCAR Delegation, though it later turned out that ATCM provided him with a separate IPY-IPO name-plate.

Most of the Members of SC-ATS attended the meeting (S. Chown, C. Kennicutt, H. Miller, S. Marenssi), which facilitated decision making on key issues concerning SCAR’s presentations to the CEP and the ATCM.

The SCAR lecture took place between 1130 and 1300 on Wednesday May 2. SCAR hosted a reception immediately after the lecture to bring delegates together. The Indian organisers shared the costs of the reception.

SCAR Bulletin, No. 169, December 2008

Report on SCAR Science Week, St Petersburg, Russia, 4-11 July 2008

Introduction

The XXX Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Meeting and the SCAR and International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) Open Science Conference “Polar Research – Arctic and Antarctic perspectives in the International Polar Year” were held in St. Petersburg, Russia between July 4th and July 11th 2008.

SCAR is the international committee responsible for initiation, promotion and co-ordination of high quality scientific research in Antarctica. SCAR is the leading international body for coordinating and facilitating scientific research in Antarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean. The 34 national Members of SCAR are the national academies of science of the various countries. The SCAR science is designed by the academic and government scientists appointed by the national academies to address fundamental questions regarding what is to be found or seen in the Antarctic, how what is found or seen is controlled by underlying processes, and how that knowledge and understanding can be fed into advanced numerical models to forecast what change we may expect to see in the future.

The scientific business of SCAR is conducted by its three discipline-based Standing Scientific Groups (Geosciences, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences), which represent the scientific disciplines active in Antarctic research.

SCAR BULLETIN. No. 17, May 1964

Reprinted from Polar Record, Vol. 12, No. 77, 1964, pp. 211-228

Isotopes in Relation to Polar Glaciology, by C. Lorius

Isotopic applications are relevant to Antarctic Ice Sheet/Glaciology

Other Content

• International Years of the Quiet Sun (IQSY) 1964-5: Stations in the Antarctic
• International Antarctic Analysis Center account and update after 5 years operations

SCAR Bulletin, No. 170, February 2009

SCAR Annual Report 2008

EXECUTIVE 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.