Documents

Discussion Session Outcomes and Suggested Future Research of the Taking the Temperature of the Antarctic Continent (TACtical) Workshop 21-23 March 2018, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

Statements about data acquisition from the SERCE SRP

The leadership team and steering committee of the SERCE SRP.

Key papers published during the SERCE programme

Outstanding research questions compiled during three SERCE workshops – the 2017 GIA workshop in Reykjavik, the 2018 TACtical workshop in Hobart, and the 2019 GIA workshop in Ottawa. 

A meeting of the Geothermal Heat Flux group, a sub-group of the SERCE (Solid Earth Response and influence on Cryospheric Evolution) Scientific Research Programme.

The meeting was held on Friday 26 July 2019 at Songdo Convensia, Incheon, Korea as part of XIII ISAES (International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences).

Background

The geothermal heat flux to the base of the Antarctic ice sheet is inherently difficult to measure, yet accurate estimates are necessary to better understand cryosphere dynamics. This is crucial to improve models of ice flow, mass loss and sea level change, and optimise site selection for ice core paleoclimate studies. At the POLAR2018 meeting in Davos a proposal was put forward to form a sub-group of SERCE focusing on better understanding geothermal heat flux across Antarctica. This ISAES Side Meeting facilitated a meeting of this sub-group and any other interested delegates to build on discussions that took place at POLAR2018 and also the SERCE-funded workshop, “TACtical” held in Hobart in March 2018 (see SERCE news for a report on the TACtical Workshop). 

 SCAR-SERCE White Paper Antarctic Geothermal Heat Flow: Future research directions.

Authors: Alex Burton-Johnson¹, Ricarda Dziadek², Carlos Martin¹, Jacqueline A. Halpin³, Pippa L. Whitehouse⁴, Jörg Ebbing⁵, Yasmina Martos⁶, Adam Martin⁷, Dustin Schroeder⁸, Weisen Shen⁹, Catherine Ritz¹⁰, John Goodge¹¹, Brice Van Liefferinge¹², Frank Pattyn¹³, Anya Reading³, Fausto Ferraccioli¹, and The SERCE Geothermal Heat Flow Sub-Group 

¹British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK; ²Alfred Wegener Institute – Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany; ³Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia; ⁴Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, UK; ⁵Institute of Geosciences, Kiel University, Germany; ⁶Planetary Magnetospheres Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA; ⁷GNS Science, Dunedin, New Zealand; ⁸Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; ⁹Stony Brook University, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY; ¹⁰Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France; ¹¹Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Minnesota, Duluth, USA; ¹²Norwegian Polar Institute Fram Centre, Tromsø, Norway; ¹³Laboratoire de Glaciologie, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. 

Antarctic geothermal heat flow (GHF) affects the ice sheet temperature, determining how it slides and internally deforms, as well as the rheological behaviour of the lithosphere. However, GHF remains poorly constrained, with few borehole-derived estimates, and there are large discrepancies in currently available glaciological and geophysical estimates. This SCAR White Paper details current methods, discusses their challenges and limitations, and recommends key future directions in GHF research. We highlight the timely need for a more multidisciplinary and internationally-coordinated approach to tackle this complex problem. 

Major activities held during the lifetime of the SERCE programme.

Solid Earth Response and influence on Cryospheric Evolution (SERCE) Implementation Plan

SERCE Proposal 2012