In 2012 ASPeCt has continued and has almost completed its reorganization. This was facilitated by opportunity meetings at several conferences and by a dedicated Workshop held in July 2012 at the SCAR OSC in Portland, OR. At that Workshop ASPeCt members also highlighted the scientific activities that they have been doing under the ASPeCt umbrella as well as their plans for continued research.  Some of these details are posted on the ASPeCt website (aspect.antarctica.gov.au) which is now hosted by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) and managed by ASPeCt member Dr. Petra Heil. In the future, ASPeCt’s data pages will be migrated to a new server (data.aad.gov.au), also hosted by the AAD. Multiple research papers have been published using the ASPeCt data, including the recent Chlorophyll a in Antarctic sea ice from historical ice core data Meiners, K.M., et al. (2012), Geophys. Res.Let., 39, L21602, doi:10.1029/2012GL053478. This paper was also highlighted in Research Spotlight in EOS, Vol.94, No 3, 15 Jan 2013. 

ASPeCt convened special sessions at the 2^nd International Polar Year Conference, Montreal April 2012, at the SCAR OSC in Portland, OR, July 2012 and at the Fall AGU meeting in San Francisco, in December 2012.  Steve Ackley, co-Chair of ASPeCt, was appointed to the Science Steering Committee of the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) as the sea ice representative and in this role led a forum on identifying Essential Observing Variables (EOVs) and their state of readiness for Antarctic Sea, at the AGU Fall Meeting, 2012. 

In 2013, ASPeCt expects to be quite busy. Important organizational tasks to be completed are the finalization of the Science Implementation Plan and the review paper, which is currently in draft form. This will be the subject of a Workshop scheduled for March 2013 at the GRC (Gordon Research Conference) in Ventura, California.  ASPeCt will also participate in the planning and execution of two important events, the Sea ice Workshop in June, 2013 and the WCRP Grand Challenge Cryosphere Workshop scheduled for October, 2013.  Both Workshops will be held in Tromso, Norway.  To make sure that its work advances, ASPeCt will also continue its tradition of holding opportunity meetings at conferences scheduled by other organizations where ASPeCt research may be presented.

ASPeCt’s future plans also include finalizing the sea ice core database and coordinating user interfaces for data access through the AAD data Centre. Additions to the ship observations data base (ASPeCt observations) are being made on a continuing basis, and sea ice thickness and sea ice core properties databases are being developed.

Presented by Marilyn Raphael, University of California, at the 9th CliC Scientific Steering Group meeting in Potsdam, Germany 2013.

2012-Boundary-Layer-Workshop-Report

(Media / 2012-Boundary-Layer-Workshop-Report)

The atmosphere-ocean boundary layer in which sea ice resides includes many complex processes that require a more realistic treatment in GCMs, particularly as models move toward full earth system descriptions. The primary purpose of the workshop was to define and discuss such coupled processes...

1998 No.1: ACSYS Arctic Forecast

(Media / 1998 No.1: ACSYS Arctic Forecast)

1. ACSYS Annual Report 2. Polar Processes Conference Summary 3. Historical Ice Chart Archive 4. Transport and Fate of Contaminants in the Northern Seas

2006-03 No. 7 Ice and Climate News

(Media / 2006-03 No. 7 Ice and Climate News)

- Ramblings from the CliC Office - The IGOS Partnership Cryosphere Team - The Russian National CliC Committee - Snow cover changes over Northern Eurasia during the last century - IPY planning chart - The Antarctic buoy program faces new challenges - Antarctic Sea-Ice Processes and Climate Program...

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