UK IGBP E-newsletter - January 2008

The UK IGBP National Committee is a working group of the Royal Society's Global Environmental Research Committee (GERC) with responsibility for UK contributions to and interests in the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). The Committee is chaired by Dr Roger Harris (Plymouth Marine Laboratory).

The Committee meets twice a year and has up to 12 members selected from the UK science community to represent the interests of the different IGBP programme elements. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is also represented as the UK's primary funder for IGBP related research.

UK IGBP activities
The Committee organises meetings, normally one day meetings at the Royal Society, to present UK IGBP activities and set them in the wider international context.  Recent meetings have included “Understanding land-ocean atmosphere interactions in the climate system – the role of earth observation from space” and “Palaeo and modern perspectives on global change”.  If you would like to recommend a future activity for the UK IGBP committee please contact the committee Secretary.

4th IGBP Congress
The 4th IGBP Congress will be held in Cape Town, South Africa from 5-9 May 2008. IGBP Congresses are held every four years and bring together the leadership of the IGBP community to discuss forward-looking scientific issues that cut across the programme and aid integration and synthesis. The 4th Congress is designed to aid the development of the scientific agenda for the period 2008-2013. Although attendance at the Congress is by invitation only, there will be many participants from the UK IGBP community, including several sessions chaired by UK scientists. A list of sessions co-convened by UK participants is available from the UK IGBP National Committee website (see link below), if you would like to contribute ideas to a session please contact the UK member.
http://web.pml.ac.uk/uk-igbp/activities/congress.htm

IGBP 20th Anniversary symposium
IGBP celebrated 20 years of international, interdisciplinary global environmental change research with a high profile symposium in collaboration with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in September 2007.  The symposium was designed to encourage dialogue between the major stakeholders and to address political and societal questions related to global environmental change.  Presentations from the meeting are available from the symposium website:
http://www.igbp.kva.se/page.php?pid=389

UK News from the IGBP Core Projects

 GLOBEC/IMBER
GLOBEC and IMBER are sponsoring a symposium to be held in Plymouth, UK on 23-26 June 2008 on Advances in Marine Ecosystem Modelling Research (AMEMR), following on from the successful 2005 symposium.  Registration is open and the deadline for abstract submission is 18 January 2008. For further details see the symposium website:
http://www.amemr.info/default.asp?page=2008Symposium

GLP
The Global Land Project has established a new nodal office on integration and modelling in Aberdeen, as a joint initiative between The Macaulay Institute and the University of Aberdeen.  The  office will host two workshops in 2008:

• 28 February – 2 March 2008. The design of integrative models of natural and social systems in land change science.  The Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, UK
• 17-19 July 2008. Data and model integration for coupled models of land use change. The Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, UK.  For further information see the website:  http://glp.macaulay.ac.uk/index.php

IGAC
7-12 September 2008.  10th IGAC Confence. Bridging the scales in atmospheric chemistry: local to global. Annency-le-vieux, France.  Conference programme chair: Paul Monks, University of Leicester, UK.  For further information see:
http://www.igacfrance2008.fr/ 

SOLAS
What a difference a year makes.  In 2006, the NERC-funded UK SOLAS programme suffered a series of setbacks, including the postponement of two research cruises and a ‘wild weather’ cruise that achieved less than 10% of its science objectives, with major equipment loss.  Since then, there have been four very successful ship-based field campaigns, all on RRS Discovery.       

Research cruises in spring and early summer 2007, led by Ian Brooks (Leeds) and Rob Upstill-Goddard (Newcastle), focussed on physical exchanges across the air-sea interface in the north-east Atlantic.   Rob’s cruise (Discovery 320) included a series of dual-release tracer studies, with experimental addition of surfactants linked to real-time measurements of kw and gas exchange rates.  Partners from 11 institutions (UK, US and the Netherlands) were involved.

The other two UK SOLAS cruises in 2007 took place further south, off north-west Africa; both were concerned with the dynamics of reactive halogens, linking with measurements at the land-based, atmospheric component of the international SOLAS Observatory on Cape Verde (www.york.ac.uk/capeverde).  The cruise led by Gill Malin (UEA) included experimental studies of iodocarbon rates and exchanges under different productivity regimes, whilst the one led by Gordon McFiggans (Manchester) was complemented by an aircraft campaign, using the instrumented NERC Dornier 228-101 (led by Ally Lewis, York).

Field studies currently underway (5 Jan – 16 Feb 2008) are investigating the effect of dust inputs to the ocean, led by Eric Achterberg (Southampton); see cruise blog at www.eur-oceans.info/diary/dust_cruise).  Plans are well-developed for an upwelling research cruise in May-June 2008, also off north-west Africa, to be led by Carol Robinson (UEA).

Further north, a full year’s dataset has now been obtained by the High Wind Air-Sea Exchanges (HiWASE) study on the Norwegian weathership MS Polarfront, led by Margaret Yelland (Southampton).  Direct flux measurements (for CO2 and latent heat) have been obtained for 10 min mean wind speeds up to 25 m/s and for wave heights up to 10m.

Key findings of the national SOLAS programme will be on display at the Royal Society Summer exhibition, 30 June – 3 July 2008.  “The breathing ocean” display will link the UK SOLAS programme with other SOLAS studies, included the EU-supported CarboOcean project.

Phil Williamson, UK SOLAS Science Coordinator, p.williamson@uea.ac.uk