Description: Over the twenty-first century, large changes in climate are projected for Antarctica and the Southern Ocean under scenarios of greenhouse gas increase and stratospheric ozone recovery.These changes would potentially have important environmental and societal implications, affecting, for example, sea level change, global ocean heat and carbon uptake, and ecosystem function. However, our ability to make precise estimates of these impacts is hampered by uncertainties in state-of-the-art climate models. Model evaluation is a key step in reducing this model uncertainty by helping to identify biases and shortcomings common to the current generation of models and highlighting priorities for future model development. The evaluation of climate models’ representation of Antarctic climate from the perspective of long-term twenty-first-century climate change was the subject of a workshop organized by Antarctic Climate 21 (AntClim21), one of six current scientific research programs of the Scientific Committee onAntarctic Research (SCAR; see www.scar.org/srp/antclim21).

Description: On interannual to decadal time scales tropospheric Antarctic circulation is driven by three forces: ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation), AAO (Antarctic Oscillation or Southern Annular Mode), and potentially ACW (Antarctic Circumpolar Wave) but there is widespread disagreement on their relative influences and temporal robustness.We present high resolution records from three snow pits from the McMurdo Sound region (Victoria Lower Glacier, Evans Piedmont Glacier and Mt Erebus). The snow pits are dated using annual layer counting and represent up to ~50 years. Water chemistry (major ion Ca, K, Mg, Na & Cl, NO3, SO4, trace elements Al, Fe, Mn, P, S, Si, Sr), isotopic ratios (oxygen, deuterium, and d-excess data), dust concentration, and density fluctuations are presented. The ice core proxies were calibrated to meteorological (AWS) data using transfer functions.Our data support the concept of a double-sided ENSO effect in the Ross Sea Region, but show that the ENSO forcing is non-linear and non-stationary. We suggest a new mechanism that could explain a teleconnection with positive feedbacks between ENSO and AAO. Furthermore, we present data from a firn core from Victoria Lower Glacier representing the last millennium. The core has been dated using volcanic benchmarks found in the non-seasalt SO4 signal. The isotope record indicates a reoccurring pattern of rapid changes between cooler and warmer climate modes, suggesting that the relative influence of ENSO and AAO and possibly ACW has varied through time.

Description: From its original formulation in 1990 the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) has had as its primary aim the collection and interpretation of a continent-wide array of environmental parameters assembled through the coordinated efforts of scientists from several nations. ITASE offers the ground-based opportunities of traditional style traverse travel coupled with the modern technology of GPS, crevasse detecting radar, satellite communications and multi-disciplinary research. By operating predominantly in the mode of an oversnow traverse ITASE offers scientists the opportunity to experience the dynamic range of the Antarctic environment. ITASE also offers an important interactive venue for research similar to that afforded by oceanographic research vessels and large polar field camps, without the cost of the former or the lack of mobility of the latter. More importantly, the combination of disciplines represented by ITASE provides a unique, multi-dimensional (x, y, z and time) view of the ice sheet and its history. ITASE has now completed 〉20,000 km of snow radar, recovered more than 240 firn/ice cores (total depth 7000m), remotely penetrated to ~4000 m into the ice sheet, and sampled the atmosphere to heights of 〉20 km.

Description: A quantitative assessment of observed and projected environmental changes in the Southern Ocean (SO) with apotential impact on the marine ecosystem shows: (i) large proportions of the SO are and will be affected by one ormore climate change processes; areas projected to be affected in the future are larger than areas that are already under environmental stress, (ii) areas affected by changes in sea-ice in the past and likely in the future are much larger than areas affected by ocean warming. The smallest areas (〈1% area of the SO) are affected by glacier retreat and warming in the deeper euphotic layer. In the future, decrease in the sea-ice is expected to be widespread. Changes in iceberg impact resulting from further collapse of ice-shelves can potentially affect large parts of shelf and ephemerally in the off-shore regions. However, aragonite undersaturation (acidification) might become one of the biggest problems for the Antarctic marine ecosystem by affecting almost the entire SO. Direct and indirect impacts of various environmental changes to the three major habitats, sea-ice, pelagic and benthos and their biota are complex. The areas affected by environmental stressors range from 33% of the SO for a single stressor, 11% for two and 2% for three, to 〈1% for fourand five overlapping factors. In the future, areas expected to be affected by 2 and 3 overlapping factors are equally large, including potential iceberg changes, and together cover almost 86% of the SO ecosystem.

Description: Un updated compilation of published and new data of major ion (Ca, Cl, K, Mg, Na, NO3, SO4) and methylsulfonate (MS) concentrations in snow from 520 Antarctic sites is provided by the national ITASE (International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition) programmes of Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom, the United States, and the national Antarctic programme of Finland. The comparison shows that snow chemistry concentrations vary by up to four orders of magnitude across Antarctica and exhibit distinct geographical patterns. The Antarctic-wide comparison of glaciochemical records provides a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of the fundamental factors that ultimately control the chemistry of snow or ice samples. This paper aims to initiate data compilation and administration in order to provide a framework for facilitation of antarctic-wide snow chemistry discussions across all ITASE nations and other contributing groups. The data are made available through the ITASE web page (http://www2.umaine.edu/itase/content/syngroups/snowchem.html) and will be updated with new data as they are provided. In addition, recommendations for future research efforts are summarized.

Description: Antarctic and Southern Ocean science is vital to understanding natural variability, the processes that govern global change and the role of humans in the Earth and climate system. The potential for new knowledge to be gained from future Antarctic science is substantial. Therefore, the international Antarctic community came together to ‘scan the horizon’ to identify the highest priority scientific questions that researchers should aspire to answer in the next two decades and beyond. Wide consultation was a fundamental principle for the development of a collective, international view of the most important future directions in Antarctic science. From the many possibilities, the horizon scan identified 80 key scientific questions through structured debate, discussion, revision and voting. Questions were clustered into seven topics: i)Antarctic atmosphere and global connections, ii) Southern Ocean and sea ice in a warming world, iii) ice sheet and sea level, iv) the dynamic Earth, v) life on the precipice, vi) near-Earth space and beyond, and vii) human presence in Antarctica. Answering the questions identified by the horizon scan will require innovative experimental designs, novel applications of technology, invention of next-generation field and laboratory approaches, and expanded observing systems and networks. Unbiased, non-contaminating procedures will be required to retrieve the requisite air, biota, sediment, rock, ice and water samples. Sustained year-round access toAntarctica and the Southern Ocean will be essential to increase winter-time measurements. Improved models are needed that represent Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the Earth System, and provide predictions at spatial and temporal resolutions useful for decision making. A co-ordinated portfolio of cross-disciplinary science, based on new models of international collaboration, will be essential as no scientist, programme or nation can realize these aspirations alone.