american polar society meeting 2010 -...

AMERICAN POLAR SOCIETY MEETING 2010

Program and Abstracts

Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and National Snow and Ice Data Center

University of Colorado at Boulder May 13 -14, 2010

2

Compiled in 2010 by: Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) Terms of use: Material in the document may be copied without restraint for library, abstract service, educational, or personal research purposes. This report may be cited as: American Polar Society Meeting 2010, Program and Abstracts 2010. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado at Boulder, 30pp. This report is distributed by: Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research University of Colorado at Boulder 1560 30th Street Campus Box 450 Boulder, CO 80309-0450 http://instaar.colorado.edu

3

PROGRAM AND ABSTRACTS

AMERICAN POLAR SOCIETY

MEETING

May 13 – 14 2010

Boulder, Colorado

INSTAAR – Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research

And

NSIDC – National Snow and Ice Data Center

University of Colorado at Boulder

Organizing Committee:

John Behrendt - INSTAAR Ted Scambos – NSIDC Tad Pfeffer – INSTAAR Wendy Roth - INSTAAR

4

We would like to thank the following organization for their support of the

American Polar Society Meeting 2010.

TransPolar is here to support the American Polar Society, for TransPolar sees the society as a foundational institution which helps provide an advisory center of counsel during this new era in polar science and operations. Thank you for allowing us to participate.

5

PROGRAM

5:30 – 7:30pm Evening Reception, Check-in & Registration (hors d’oeuvres and non-alcoholic drinks will be served) University Memorial Center, Aspen Rooms

9:00am Meeting Welcome and Introduction (CIRES Auditorium, Room 338) John Behrendt – President American Polar Society and INSTAAR Gifford Miller – INSTAAR Associate Director Mark Serreze – Director NSIDC Wendy Roth – Meeting Questions Chair: Jim Collinson – Vice President American Polar Society 9:15 am Polar Connections – Emerging Results from the IPY 2007-2008 David Carlson, Director of International Programme Office, International Polar Year ipy@[email protected]

WEDNESDAY 12 MAY 2010

THURSDAY 13 MAY 2010

6

9:45am Biodiversity in the dry valleys and beyond Diana Wall, University Distinguished Professor, Director, School of Global Environmental Sustainability Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, [email protected]

10:15 MORNING BREAK 10:45am Greenland Ice Sheet History in the Disko and Umanak Systems of West Greenland Anne Jennings, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, [email protected] 11:15am Abrupt Onset and Intensification of the Little Ice Age Around the Northern North Atlantic: A Role of Volcanic Forcing? Gifford Miller, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, [email protected]

11:45 LUNCH CIRES Atrium


7

Chair: Bob Rutford – Vice President American Polar Society 12:45am Unknown Waters: A Firsthand Account of the Historic Under-Ice Survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf by USS Queenfish (SSN-651) Alfred S. McLaren Captain, USN (Ret.), Ph.D.,President Emeritus, The Explorers Club Director and Senior Pilot, Sub Aviator Systems LLC, Nederland, Colorado [email protected] 1:30pm Adventures in the Canadian and Greenland Arctic James P.M. Syvitski, Executive Director Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System and Former Director INSTAAR, University of Colorado at Boulder [email protected] 2:15pm Environmental Impacts of a Shrinking Arctic Sea Ice Cover Mark C. Serreze, Director, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder CO, [email protected]

2:45pm AFTERNOON BREAK


8

3:15pm Sea Ice Loss Induces Arctic Coastal Erosion Irina Overeem, Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System INSTAAR, University of Colorado at Boulder, [email protected] 3:45pm The First Determination of the Configuration and Volume of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in the International Year (IGY), 1957-65 John Behrendt, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder; U.S. Geological Survey; and President American Polar Society, [email protected] 4:15pm Book Announcements


9

6:00pm American Polar Society Banquet Millennium Hotel – Century Room Cash Bar, Book Signing and Dinner 8:00pm Keynote Speaker Telling Inconvenient Truths: the news media, climate change and public opinion Tom Yulsman Co-director, Center for Environmental Journalism School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder It is often argued that for effective policy action on climate change to happen, the public must have a strong understanding of climate science. And traditionally, the so-called "translator" of climate science for the general public has been the news media. So how has the news media been doing in covering the complexities of the issues? Are reporters in fact "translators" of science, or do they do something else? What trends in the news industry are affecting how the issues are presented to the public? And at the end of the day, what does the public really think about climate change?


10

8:00am APS - Board of Governors Meeting Chair: Ted Scambos 9:15am South Pole Queen Maud Land Traverses, 1964-68 Charles R. Bentley, Department of Geosciences, University of Wisconsin – Madison, [email protected] 9:45am Queen Maud Land Traverses: Surface Glaciology Richard Cameron, Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri, [email protected]

10:15am MORNING BREAK 10:45am Pioneering a Heavey Cargo Haul Route From McMurdo to South Pole ( 2002- 2006) John H. Wright, ITT Antarctic Services, Inc. [email protected]

FRIDAY 14 MAY 2010

11

11:15am Sixty years of watching glaciers melt, or why I moved from the shores of Puget Sound to Colorado Mark Meier, Professor Emeritus, INSTAAR, University of Colorado at Boulder, [email protected]

12:00pm LUNCH CIRES Atrium Chair: John Behrendt –President American Polar Society 1:00pm Cold Places, Warm Bodies: the Future of Tourism in Polar Regions Denise Landau, Denise J. Landau and Associates Inc. Environmental Consulting [email protected] 1:30pm From meteors and meteorites to the Big Bang: Astronomy in Antarctica Kim Malville, Dept. of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, [email protected]

2:00pm AFTERNOON BREAK

FRIDAY 14 MAY 2010

12

2:30pm Navigating in a White World at the Bottom of the Earth Leilani Henry, Being & Living Enterprises [email protected] 3:15pm Antarctic Treaty: Thoughts at Half-century Dian Belanger, Independent Historian, author of Deep Freeze: The United States, the International Geophysical Year, and the Origins of Antarctica’s Age of Science [email protected] 3:45pm New Technology for Tracking Climate Change: beyond the AWS (Automated Weather Station) Ted Scambos, National Snow and Ice Center,University of Colorado, Boulder, [email protected] 4:15pm Closing Remarks John Behrendt – APS President

** Canceled Talk **

The IPY Norway-US Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica: challenges and successes Zoe Courville, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research Development Center, 72 Lyme Rd, Hanover, NH 03755 [email protected]

THANK YOU FOR COMING!

FRIDAY 14 MAY 2010

13

ABSTRACTS LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY AUTHOR’S LASTNAME

John C. Behrendt Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder and U.S. Geological Survey

The First Determination of the Configuration and Volume of

the Antarctic Ice Sheet in the International Year (IGY),

1957-59 The only field projects of IGY in Antarctica were a series of oversnow geophysical traverses, mostly US and USSR, making seismic reflection measurements of thickness of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, surface elevation, mean annual temperature, gravity and magnetic fields, as well as geological reconnaissance of occasional mountains and nunataks. However, geology and topographic mapping were not included in the official IGY program because of the political sensitivity of mineral resources and competing territorial claims prior to the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. I participated in the Filchner Ice Shelf Traverse as a 25-year-old graduate student. Other US traverses operating out of Little America V on the Ross Ice Shelf and Byrd Station in West Antarctica and the USSR traverses in East Antarctica made similar measurements. In a few years we produced a first approximation of the volume and elevation of the Antarctic Ice sheet using what today seem very primitive techniques. Charles Bentley,(1) Richard Cameron, and John Clough (1)University of Wisconsin, Dept. of Geology South Pole Queen Maud Land Traverses, 1964-68 Between early December, 1964, and late January, 1968, the three-part "South Pole Queen Maud Land Traverse" (SPQMLT), supported by the U.S. Antarctic Research Program (USARP), explored the previously unexamined interior of Queen Maud Land, making measurements of surface height and slope, surface mass balance, bore-hole temperatures, ice thickness, seismic wave velocities in and below the ice, gravity, and magnetics. The traverse followed a zigzag, space-filling route between Pole Station, the abandoned Pole of Relative Inaccessibility station, and Plateau Station on the east and roughly the Greenwich Meridian on the west

14

Dave Carlson Director, International Programme Office International Polar Year Cambridge, UK [email protected] Polar Connections - Emerging Results from the IPY 2007-2008 Unlike previous IPY's (including IGY), this IPY included a rich array of geophysical AND ecological AND sociological studies. As the early results emerge, some remarkable and fascinating discoveries of this IPY occur where geophysics, biology and sociology intersect.

Zoe Courville University of New Hampshire The IPY Norway-US Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica: challenges and successes The Norway-US Traverse was a two year project spanning 2007-2009. It represented a true international collaboration, with considerable support from both the National Science Foundation and the Norwegian Polar Institute. The first year of the traverse consisted of a route from the Norwegian base Troll and ended just short of the South Pole. The second year began with a month-long effort to modify the traverse vehicles and then a return trip to Troll. The team collected radar data, ice cores and snow pit samples along the way. The traverse encountered several challenges along the way, including problems with the vehicles the first year and a snapped drill cable in the second year, but in the end, the traverse was a success due to tremendous determination and support.

15

Leilani Henry Being & Living Enterprises Navigating in a White World at the Bottom of the Earth. George W. Gibbs, Jr. (Leilani Henry’s father) sailed twice as member of a U.S. Navy crew on a 68 year old wooden ship, the U.S.S. Bear. He was the first African American to set foot on Antarctica during Admiral Byrd’s III expedition to the South Pole, 1939-41. This expedition is the least written about among Admiral Byrd’s eleven trips to Antarctica. During 1941, the members left the ice very quickly when WWII began. Normal trip documentation was not completed. There are no remaining survivors of the expedition. This interactive presentation will address leadership, perspective of a crew member and highlight the expedition accomplishments. Anne Jennings INSTAAR ,University of Colorado

Greenland Ice Sheet History in the Disko and Umanak Systems of West Greenland

Recent observations suggest that the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) may have entered a state of rapidly increasing negative mass balance, which is a major concern, because the GIS stores enough fresh water to raise global sea level by c. 6.5 m. An understanding of the longer-term Late Quaternary-Holocene history of the GIS and its ice streams, and the ice sheet response to past climate would facilitate modeling of its response to future climate warming.

16

Kim Malville Dept. of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences University of Colorado, Boulder

From meteors and meteorites to the Big Bang: Astronomy in Antarctica Antarctica is now recognized as the best place on the planet for astronomy. Only the moon or space is better. The first formal astronomy in the Antarctic was an unsuccessful search for faint meteors in Little America. Ironically, more meteorites from the moon, Mars and the asteroids have been found in Antarctica than anywhere else. Micrometeorites stream in constantly and form part of the sludge in snow melting equipment. The IGY was a watershed for studies of the aurora because of the discovery of the Van Allen Belt. Now there is a bevy of telescopes- some remotely controlled- sprouting up around the continent, the largest being the 10 meter South Pole Telescope at work searching for dark matter and radiation from the Big Bang.

17

Alfred S. McLaren Captain, USN (Ret.), Ph.D. President Emeritus, The Explorers Club Director and Senior Pilot, Sub Aviator Systems LLC Nederland, Colorado

Unknown Waters: A Firsthand Account of the Historic Under-Ice Survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf by USS Queenfish (SSN-651) During the summer of 1970, the nuclear attack submarine USS Queenfish (SSN-651), under the command of Commander Alfred S. McLaren, USN, surfaced at the North Pole enroute to conducting the first-ever hydrographic survey of the entire Siberian continental shelf – a distance of some 5,200 kilometers. The survey began at the northwestern corner of the Laptev Sea, off the northernmost island of the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago and proceeded through the uncharted ice-covered shallow waters of the Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas, and ended just north of the Bering Strait. In the course of this operation, Queenfish retraced the route of USS Nautilus (SSN-578) across the Arctic Basin in 1958 in order to assess changes in the ice draft data over the 12-year period. The overall expedition was recognized by the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations with a Navy Unit Commendation to both submarine and crew and the Legion of Merit to her captain. In a beautifully illustrated PowerPoint talk, Captain McLaren, USN (Ret.), Ph.D. , will describe this extremely hazardous undertaking by Queenfish’s crew. The depth soundings obtained in sea-ice-covered shallow waters throughout the Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas have recently been entered on Arctic Ocean charts published by the Office of Naval Research. McLaren will also discuss the ice-draft data that have laid the foundation for significant follow-on global climate change research.

He will conclude with a short discussion of his present work as senior pilot of the revolutionary new Super Aviator submersible and follow-on, ready-to-be built, Orca-Sub, both of which have considerable potential for under-ice operations.

18

Mark Meier Professor Emeritus, INSTAAR, University of Colorado at Boulder Sixty years of watching glaciers disappear, or why I moved from Puget Sound to Boulder The study of glaciers has a long history – formal international programs and cooperation date from the 19th Century – but new field and analytical methods revolutionized the field mid-20th Century, from the IGY and IHP to the present. I was lucky to have watched, and, to a minor extent, participated in this transition, from when the most important new developments were the aluminum grain scoop and Rite-in-the-Rain notebook paper to the present day when mass balance data can be checked with satellite geodesy and 3-D flow models can be verified with interferometric radar. Perhaps most important, glaciers, ice caps, and ice sheets are now recognized as significant components of the earth system, rather than just paleoclimate indicators or hazards to development. Process understanding, especially ice dynamics, has proceeded apace on both “small glaciers” and ice sheets; unfortunately two separate groups of investigators have developed and there has been far too little cross-fertilization between them. Global sea-level rise and the hydrology of glacierized mountains are currently of great societal interest. In spite of numerous programs to inventory and determine volumes and mass balances of glaciers and ice caps, insufficient hard data are forthcoming – the number of researchers making these syntheses is few, and the tragic death of Mark Dyurgerov in late 2009 has significantly slowed progress. New blood, and new analytical techniques are needed to know and project the impact of glaciers and ice caps on sea level and the water resources of high mountain drainages.

19

Gifford Miller INSTAAR, University of Colorado Abrupt Onset and Intensification of the Little Ice Age Around the Northern North Atlantic: A Role for Volcanic Forcing? Aslaug Geirsdottir, [email protected], Darren Larsen, [email protected], Yafang Zhong, [email protected] Precise radiocarbon dates on dead vegetation emerging beneath retreating thin ice caps in NE Arctic Canada provide evidence of two pulses of ice cap growth, between 1250 and 1300 AD and around 1450 AD, with ice caps remaining in an expanded state until the warming of the past decades. Similarly, a 3000 year annually resolved lacustrine record of glacier power and a complementary independent proxies for landscape instability in the highlands of Iceland show an initial increase in both records between 1250 and 1300 AD, amplification around 1450 AD, and dramatic increases around 1800 AD, retracting in the 20th Century. A subdecadal record of hillslope stability and within-lake primary productivity in sediments from a low-elevation lake in northern Iceland shows parallel changes at similar times. Sea ice proxies document the first appearance of sea ice around Iceland about 1250 AD. The similarity in the onset and intensification of Little Ice Age cold-weather proxies across a wide region of the northern North Atlantic suggests at least a regional driver of abrupt climate change. The time intervals for which these abrupt changes occur coincide with the three most intense episodes of repeated explosive volcanic eruptions that introduced large volumes of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere during the past millennium. Although the direct impacts of volcanic aerosols has a duration of only a few years, the memory stored by the cooled ocean surface waters allows a cumulative expansion of Arctic Ocean sea ice over several decades. Expanded sea ice coverage amplifies the initial cooling related to explosive volcanism and through a complex ice-ocean feedback the sea ice may remain in an expanded state for more than a century following the volcanic perturbation.

20

Irina Overeem Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System INSTAAR, University of Colorado at Boulder

Sea Ice Loss Induces Arctic Coastal Erosion Long stretches of the Arctic coast erode at rapid rates; and rates have accelerated over the last 50 years. Along the Alaskan Beaufort Sea the mean annual erosion rates doubled from ~7m for 1955-1979 to ~14m for 2002-2007. Arctic coastal communities are threatened by this rapid landloss, and existing oil and gas infrastructure in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) is increasingly at risk of washing into the Arctic Ocean. We observe and model erosional processes as well as controlling factors, i.e. air temperature, wind, sea ice, and seawater temperature, and find that the loss of nearshore sea ice has almost tripled the seasonal wave action. Even moderate wind events cause small waves that bath the frozen cliffs and melt and notch them so that they topple over into the ocean. T. Scambos National Snow and Ice Center University of Colorado, Boulder New Technology for Tracking Climate Change: beyond the AWS (Automated Weather Station) A new type of measurement station, combining weather, geophysical data, and in situ images with daily Iridium uplinking of data, is being used to study regions of rapid change in the Arctic and Antarctic. The AMIGOS system (Automated Met-Ice-Geophysics Observing Station) includes a full weather station, sun and snow sensor, snow temperature profiler, steerable digital camera, and precision GPS receiver. We have installed these systems on icebergs, glaciers, and ice shelves, and have plans to install a high-resolution-imaging version overlooking a active glacier in Greenland. Preliminary results from 3 recently-installed AMIGOS in Antarctica will be presented.

21

Mark C. Serreze Director, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder CO Environmental Impacts of a Shrinking Arctic Sea Ice Cover Arctic sea ice extent at the end of the summer melt season has declined sharply over the period of satellite observations and is projected to disappear entirely as concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to rise. While the factors forcing this trend have and will continue to be widely studied, less attention has been paid to the environmental impacts of current and future sea ice loss. Ice loss is already resulting in strong rises in atmospheric temperature during autumn, not just at and near the surface, but extending through a considerable depth of the atmosphere. Through atmospheric transports, this strong warming, known as Arctic amplification, is starting to extend well beyond areas of ice loss, and will eventually influence Arctic land areas, glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland ice sheet. Though altering horizontal temperature gradients, continued loss of the ice cover is in turn likely to impact on patterns of atmospheric circulation and precipitation not just within the Arctic, but into middle latitudes. James P.M. Syvitski Executive Director Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System And Former Director INSTAAR University of Colorado-Boulder Adventures in the Canadian Arctic (preliminary title) Between 1982-87 I ran one of Canada's most complex research expeditions in Arctic Canada to ten Baffin Island Fjords. The Project was called SAFE: Sedimentology of Arctic Fjords Experiment. We threw everything at it --- multiple ships, submarines, helicopter land expeditions. We explored areas never before explored. The project was a success with over fifty science journal publications. As Chief Scientist I led a multinational team into dangerous waters: sampling water and ice at actively calving tidewater glacier fronts, submersible diving onto sea floors actively experiencing turbidity currents, being stalked by polar bears, and having helicopters succumb to katabatic winds.

22

Diana Wall University Distinguished Professor Director, School of Global Environmental Sustainability Professor, Dept. of Biology Senior Scientist, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory School of Global Environmental Sustainability Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO Biodiversity in the dry valleys and beyond The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are ice-free polar desert ecosystem that were early characterized as having minimal and hidden life. However, current evidence shows greater soil species diversity distributed across the valleys and a less-Mars like habitat. Understanding where these soil organisms occur, their unique survival mechanisms and their role in carbon cycling contributes to understanding how the Dry Valley ecosystems function. This talk will present an update of recent results and how Dry Valley biodiversity may respond to future climate changes of increased temperature and moisture.

23

PIONEERING A HEAVY CARGO HAUL ROUTE FROM McMURDO TO SOUTH POLE (2002-2006) John H. Wright, ITT Antarctic Services, Inc. [email protected] In 2002 the National Science Foundation – Office of Polar Programs aimed to establish and prove a heavy cargo haul route from McMurdo to South Pole. The “South Pole Traverse Proof-of-Concept Project,” as the NSF called it, asked could such a crossing be done safely, reliably, and over and over again? Benefits of success to the US Antarctic Program included 1) freeing LC-130 cargo flights to Pole for other deep field science support missions, 2) cheaper delivery costs to Pole for bulk material and outsized cargo, and 3) environmental wins in fuel consumption and exhaust emissions. Over four years, a team of seasonal contract workers steadily advanced the face of the trail across the central Ross Ice Shelf, up the Transantarctic Mountains by way of the Leverett Glacier, and over the Polar Plateau. They crossed crevasse fields, snow swamps, and vast regions of hard sastrugi developing terrain-mobility solutions as they went. Ground penetrating radar, satellite imagery, and modern communications supported the pioneering effort. On November 11, 2005 the traverse fleet launched from McMurdo and arrived at Pole in time for Christmas, delivering eleven LC-130 loads of cargo (220,000 pounds). When the fleet arrived back in McMurdo on January 14, 2006, completing the round trip… the “Concept” had been proved.

american polar society meeting 2010 -...

Documents