by Keith Nicholls during
Southern
Ocean observing System Seeing Below the Ice Workshop
Video recording provided by SOOS, CSIRO
(Hobart)
Video editing by Molly Zhongnan Jia.
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The Southern Ocean
Observing System (SOOS), an international program hosted and sponsored by the
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) at the University of
Tasmania, led the Seeing Below the Ice Workshop, which was sponsored by CSIRO
‘Wealth from Oceans Flagship’, the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project of the
World Climate Research Programme, and the Partnership for Observations of the
Global Ocean (POGO).
More than 50
international scientists attended the Seeing Below the Ice Workshop (22-25
October 2012, Hobart, Australia) to develop a strategy to observe ocean
structure and circulation and ice-ocean interactions in the Antarctic sea ice
zone.
Climate signals
indicate that the Antarctic sea ice zone is undergoing rapid and accelerating
changes where warming ocean meets both the sea-ice and ice shelves. These
changes have far-reaching effects through their impact on global sea-level rise
and warming rates, yet oceans below the ice are amongst the least understood
and most poorly monitored systems in the world.
The four-day workshop
gave scientists the opportunity to present the current status of polar
observing systems in both hemispheres, discuss key questions, define problems
and recommend the solutions required to develop a sustained strategy for
observations in the Southern Ocean sea-ice zone. A 10-year plan will now be
developed to outline the measurements needed, how to collect them and from
where, in the sea ice zone to study ocean - ice interactions.
Guest speakers at the
workshop came from over 20 countries and included Professor Walter Munk,
physical oceanographer, whose pioneering research more than 50 years ago
demonstrated the relationship between winds and ocean circulation. Professor
Munk also celebrated his 95th birthday in Hobart.
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