Science and TechnologyWritten evidence submitted by the British Antarctic Survey

Summary

The purpose of this submission it complements that of RCUK (NERC) by providing more detail particularly concerning the importance of the polar oceans in the controlling the global climate system, the impacts on sea level rise, and sustainable fishing in the southern ocean and the opportunities in the Arctic.

The Importance of the Polar Marine Environments

1. The polar regions are changing are remote but what happens there affects us all.

2. The Southern Ocean is of global importance. It regulates the temperature of all the world’s oceans and hence the climate system and contains the largest unexploited marine protein resource in the world. It is also the largest oceanic “sink”, for greenhouse gases such carbon dioxide. It has fragile ecosystems and exceptional biological diversity that is unique. The Southern Ocean has the largest under-exploited marine resource left on the planet, but its exploitation is increasing very rapidly from a low base, with the Norwegians and the Chinese being pro-active

3. The Arctic is equally important. For example, about 25% of the oil and gas left on the planet is thought to lie under the Arctic Seas, the Northern Sea Route offers opportunities for faster, cheaper transit between Europe and the Far East but there are risks in exploiting these opportunities—see the recent report on the Arctic by the Environmental Audit Committee, for example.

4. The Arctic, and the Antarctic Peninsula are the regions in each hemisphere that are warming faster than any other on Earth, and the impacts are significant. For example the melting ice caps especially Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets are now contributing significantly to sea level rise. Sea level is rising about four times faster than 100 years ago. The concentrations of krill around South Georgia appear to have fallen by an order of magnitude in the last three decades. There in increasing evidence that the recent cold winters in the UK are related to the disappearing sea ice in the Arctic.

The British Antarctic Survey

5. British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is a component of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). This submission complements that of RCUK (NERC), and provides additional information on a few topics.

6. BAS supports stations in the Antarctic and South Georgia, five planes and two ice-strengthened ships. From a marine perspective, Rothera station (67° S; 68° W) has sophisticated marine laboratory facilities incorporating a cold water marine aquarium and a diving facility. The RRS James Clark Ross has advanced geophysical and oceanographic research capability. In addition to Antarctic research and logistics activities, she spends ~65 days per annum carrying out marine research in the Arctic. These assets are used to support the research of BAS, and the UK Universities.

7. The current BAS science research strategy is called Polar Science for Planet Earth (PSPE).1 PSPE concentrates on key questions of global or fundamental importance that can be best answered by research in both polar regions. This inter-disciplinary strategy involves major research activity on the Southern Ocean—both physical and biological elements in understanding the polar oceans, and the marine ecosystems. In addition the RRS James Clark Ross is extensively used for studies of the interaction of the ocean with the ice shelves, both from a modern day and a paleo perspective, and for marine geophysical survey.

8. In the Arctic, BAS operates NERC’s research station on Svalbard, and the NERC’ Arctic Office, the main objectives of which are to support UK Arctic researchers in establishing international collaborations and access to polar infrastructure operated by other nations, and to represent the UK in international Arctic science forums.

9. BAS is also responsible for coordinating and developing NERC’s £15 million Arctic Research Programme, 2011–2015, aimed at understanding key current scientific uncertainties in the Arctic. BAS is also responsible for ensuring the Programme achieves impact through knowledge exchange

10. An important component of the works of BAS is to provide advice to Government concerning the polar regions but with a particular focus on three UK Overseas Territories, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory, sustainable management of the South Ocean fisheries, and about the Arctic.

11. BAS, in conjunction with the wider UK research community, cooperates with international partners and programmes to tackle pressing scientific problems. The size of the UK scientific operation in Antarctica is second only to the USA and the scientific outputs are the most highly cited of any nation operating in Antarctica. In the North, the Arctic rim countries dominate the science agenda but with the Arctic Office continuing to be more effective, and with NERC’s Arctic Research Programme, the UK is playing a more leading role in many of the influential science committees and programmes such as the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), and the Svalbard Integrated Observing System (SIOS), and through NERC’s Arctic Research Programme.

12. BAS has a strong record of delivering scientific inputs to Government policy. These include:

Antarctic Treaty including a recent development Marine Protected Areas in the Southern Ocean.

Commission for the Conservation for Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)—the first international organisation to adopt an ecosystem framework for fisheries management providing a model for fisheries management now being adopted in many other fisheries.

Management of the fisheries in waters surrounding the South Atlantic Overseas Territories (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands).

Agreement on Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP)—part of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).

Wider policy areas such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and ozone.

Q1. Since 2007 has there been improved strategic oversight and coordination of marine science? 

13. No comment

Q2. What progress has been made in delivering the 2010 Marine Science Strategy? 

14. The focus of the Marine Science Strategy is essentially local to the UK and hence international waters and Overseas Territories are not included. However, the Overseas Territory Bill recently presented to Parliament does include important statements concerning the marine environment.

Q3. How effective have the Marine Science Co-ordination Committee (MSCC) and Marine Management Organisation been and what improvements could be made?

15. No comment

Q4. Has the selection of proposed Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) been based on robust scientific evidence? How well has the scientific evidence been balanced with socio-economic considerations and communicated to affected coastal communities?

16. The Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in British Antarctic Territory and around South Georgia both were heavily influenced by scientific evidence. The fundamental objectives of the MPAs are to:

protect rare or vulnerable benthic and pelagic habitats;

protect areas of ecosystem importance;

protect trophically important pelagic prey species;

protect areas important for key life cycle stages and processes for commercially important species;

promote recovery of the marine ecosystem following historical harvesting; and

maximise ecosystem robustness and resilience to climate variability and change.

17. There is still additional scientific evidence required to determine more robustly if the scale size of these MPAs is well matched to the size at which these ecosystems operate.

Q5. How effectively does the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) support marine science in polar and non-polar regions?

18. RCUK (NERC) has provided detailed information on its marine science spend in its return including that of BAS.

19. About one third of BAS’s core science funding from NERC is spent on marine-related science with significant additional income come from NERC’s research programme and responsive mode grants, the EU and some other funding organisations.

20. BAS co-supervises about 20 PhD students in marine science, many of whom are supported by NERC. The students have access to a vibrant inter-disciplinary research environment often progressing to further research positions both in the UK and abroad.

Q6. How well are the current and potential impacts of global warming on the oceans (for example temperature changes and acidification) being monitored and addressed by Government and others?

21. In this section, examples are given of the progress made in understanding the marine environment in the polar regions and what steps are required to improve predictions and hence the better quantification of the impacts of warming.

The Southern Ocean

22. The Southern Ocean is disproportionately important in influencing the Earth system. It connects the major ocean basins, links the shallow and deep limbs of the overturning circulation, and exerts great influence on global biogeochemical and carbon cycles. The Southern Ocean is rapidly changing now, with potentially global impacts. These changes include a warming, freshening, and acidification, with concordant changes in the distribution of marine organisms and feedbacks on the global carbon cycle.

23. Via NERC’s core funding of BAS and through NERC’s responsive mode funding, critical advances have been made in understanding how the Southern Ocean and the Arctic influence the global system. Recent research has made significant progress in determining the sensitivity of the Southern Ocean overturning to changes in climatic forcing is one of the biggest unknowns in global environmental science today. This research has also identified the key locations and processes by which anthropogenic carbon is stored in the deep ocean.

24. The ocean abyss is not immune from climate change. The vast majority of the seabed of the World Ocean is ventilated by waters that form around Antarctica. These waters are warming significantly, most notably in the Atlantic and with particular relevance to the UK. This warming is important scientifically and for society, since it impacts on the rate of global sea level rise, benthic biodiversity, and so. BAS has clarified the causes of the warming of these abyssal waters in the Atlantic, hence improving predictability of future change. It has also progressed understanding of the concurrent freshening of these waters, highlighting their sensitivity to abrupt changes close to the Antarctic continent.

25. There is much effort globally in attempting predictions of future climate, and key to improving these is assessing the performance of current-generation climate models. BAS scientists have undertaken much work in benchmarking the performance of the latest IPCC-class models in the polar regions, with information being published and made available for the current Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment.

26. The combination of these observational and modelling studies has highlighted the need to have higher resolution climate and Earth system models, which could then include some of the key processes currently missing from the present generation of models.

27. Data coverage in the Southern Ocean remains the sparsest globally, inhibiting our ability to detect, interpret, predict such changes and to robustly test the models. This need has led to the design and implementation of a Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS), sponsored by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), and endorsed by the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). It addresses six overarching challenges of high scientific and societal relevance:

The role of the Southern Ocean in the planet’s heat and freshwater balance.

The stability of the Southern Ocean overturning circulation.

The role of the ocean in the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet and its contribution to sea-level rise.

The future and consequences of Southern Ocean carbon uptake.

The future of Antarctic sea ice.

The impacts of global change on Southern Ocean ecosystems.

28. SOOS is a global community effort with BAS playing a major role in developing the strategy and now taking the lead in driving its implementation. SOOS is already the primary system for tracking climate change in the Southern Ocean, and deriving information on its causes and consequences, including acidification and ecosystems response. As implementation progresses, the efficacy of the system will increase, enabling further critical insight to be obtained. The data will be used to drive and constrain the next generation of predictive models, which is key to improving their performance. SOOS is a key area for NERC to continue to invest, especially given the UK’s overseas interests and polar capabilities.

Southern ocean fisheries

29. Antarctic krill potentially offers one of the few remaining major under-exploited sources of marine protein. New extraction technologies and new markets mean that it is highly probable that the krill fishery will expand rapidly in the near future. Although the catch by the commercial fishery for Antarctic krill is currently restricted and in global terms is tiny, if appropriate management procedures can be agreed internationally, the total allowable catch could increase to 5.6 million tonnes, equivalent to approximately 7% of the global fishery landings currently reported by Food and Agriculture Organisation.

30. BAS scientists have played major roles in developing the present fisheries management system, but there are many challenges including the impact of increasing ocean temperature, ocean acidity and of harvesting—all factors known to drive ecosystem change. There is an imperative to maintain both the long term monitoring projects in the South West Atlantic, and for cutting edge science to determine the impacts of the multiple stresses on the ecosystem, and thus be able to have accurate predictions and thus sustainable management of this fishery of rapidly growing importance.

31. Currently the structure and functioning of polar ocean ecosystems is poorly understood and quantified in most regions of the Antarctic (and indeed Arctic). To provide circum-polar perspective on these topics requires international coordination and BAS scientists are playing a leading role the development of understanding impacts of climate change in Southern Ocean ecosystems through the international programme, Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics (ICED) which is sponsored through the international organisations IGBP and SCOR, and supported by the EU consortium EUR-Oceans. ICED results are demonstrating the need for further regional investigations to then integrate to the circumpolar scale.

Sea level rise

32. Sea-level is currently rising at a little more than 3 mm/yr, and the cumulative rise over coming decades to centuries will likely be sufficient to alter the frequency of flooding in most of the vulnerable coastlines around the world, requiring substantial investment, and relocation of populations from some areas.

33. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets were identified in the last assessment by the IPCC as the largest uncertainty in sea-level rise projections for the next 100–200 years. BAS research is aimed at reducing the uncertainties in sea-level rise through understanding the critical processes of ice-sheet change, the development of numerical models that can simulate those processes, and collection of a wide variety of data that show current and past changes in the ice sheet that are used to robustly test the models. The research is supported by NERC through both core funding and responsive mode grants.

34. BAS leads a major EU-funded programme ice2sea2 which involves 24 institutional partners from (UK and overseas) and which will provide projections of the contributions of glaciers and polar ice sheets to sea-level rise for the next 100–200 years.

35. NERC’s £7 million directed programme iSTAR, which is coordinated by BAS on behalf of and involves participants from around 12 UK HEIs, focuses on the Antarctic glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, that together account for ~10% of global sea-level rise. The programme involves a coordinated series of over-snow and ship-borne activities that seek to understand the present and future role of oceans in driving ice-sheet change.

The Arctic

36. NERC has funded a £15 million research programme with the fundamental aim to improve the UK’s ability to predict changes in the Arctic, particularly over timescales of months to decades, and to determine the impacts on the Earth system. There are four main objectives:

Understanding and attributing the current rapid changes in the Arctic.

Quantifying processes leading to Arctic methane and carbon dioxide release.

Reducing uncertainty in Arctic climate and associated regional biogeochemistry predictions.

Assessing the likely risks of submarine hazards associated with rapid Arctic climate change.

The five year programme, being coordinated by BAS, started in 2011. The major field elements will be in summer 2013 and 2014.

37. NERC has also funded an Arctic Office, located in BAS. Its principal aim is to coordinate more effective UK science in the Arctic. The Office is also beginning to act as a knowledge base for UK business on topics such as environmental issues associated with exploitation of energy, and transport between Europe and the Far East through northern sea routes. The market potential in these areas is significant.

September 2012