Antarctic Sea Ice Variability in the Southern Ocean-Climate System: A Workshop

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An ad hoc NRC committee will conduct a workshop to bring together Antarctic sea ice experts to review the current science for climate-ocean-sea ice interactions in the Southern Ocean, with an outlook back 50 years and an emphasis on the record extent of satellite sensed observations over the last 3 years. This increase in the annual areal extent is at odds with best available climate model projections that suggest the sea ice should be declining in response to increasing greenhouse gases, stratospheric ozone depletion, and a warming global ocean. It is also at variance with the marked Arctic sea ice decrease. It remains unclear as to exactly why sea ice extent is not decreasing around Antarctica, why it continues to increase in most but not all locations, whether or not the observed increase lies within the large inter-annual variability of the coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice-land ice system, and why climate models are unable to reproduce current observations.The workshop will help inform future research agenda at US and international agencies, including NSF, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Office of Naval Research. It will also contribute to the media and public discourse about Antarctic sea ice, providing more clarity about what we do and do not know. Finally, it will help forge new connections and collaborations among scientists working on the topic, in particular early career scientists.