Workshop Proposal: West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS)

西南极冰盖会议自1994年以来每年举行一次。该奖项支持在宾夕法尼亚州立大学举行的第17届WAIS年会。这一奖项的学术价值在于，目前对下个世纪海平面上升的估计存在很大的不确定性，这是政策制定者和公众关注的原因。对下个世纪海平面上升的预测表明，极地大冰盖(特别是格陵兰冰盖、南极半岛和西南极阿蒙森海部分的边缘融化)是主要贡献者，但这些贡献的大小和时间存在很大不确定性。为了更好地约束这些不确定性，需要更好的冰盖模型和对冰盖模型的更好投入，以及包括冰盖建模人员、海洋建模人员和观测工作在内的协调一致的跨学科努力。在过去二十年中，极地冰盖在全球环境和社会关切方面的作用日益重要。WAIS社区由冰川学家、地质学家、大气和地球科学家、海洋学家和其他人组成。这个工作坊奖支持一次会议，该会议将研究这些问题，并将为未来制定社区战略。要讨论的具体科学课题是：1)海洋和冰的相互作用：有多重要，了解得如何？2)基本性质：毫米到公里尺度的重要性；热流；3)冰盖模型：最新进展和未来展望；4)观测：卫星、飞机、滑雪道和冰爪；5)冰盖的历史：冰芯、海底特征、地质学。为了鼓励早期职业科学家和以前可能没有参加过WAIS的科学家的广泛代表，该奖项为参与者支持提供资金，这将降低许多参与者的出席成本。该奖项的更广泛影响是，将优先支持职业生涯早期的科学家、来自代表性不足群体的科学家、学生和来自WAIS重要科学学科的科学家，他们过去一直缺席。会议将于2010年9月底在宾夕法尼亚州中部举行。WAIS会议具有很强的跨学科和高知名度。学生和研究人员在一个鼓励思想自由交流的非正式环境中交往。WAIS会议汇集了来自许多领域的科学家，重点是了解冰盖和海平面相互作用，这些问题迄今仍存在很大的不确定性。

The WAIS (West Antarctic Ice Sheet) meetings have been held annually since 1994. This award supports the 17th annual WAIS meeting at the Pennsylvania State University. The intellectual merit of this award is that there are currently large uncertainties in sea-level rise estimates over the next century that are cause for concern for policymakers and the public. Projections of sea-level rise for the next century implicate the large polar ice sheets (in particular, marginal melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet and of the Antarctic Peninsula and the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica) as the major contributors, but with significant uncertainty on the magnitude and timing of those contributions. Obtaining better constraints on those uncertainties requires better ice-sheet models and better inputs to the ice-sheet models, and a concerted, interdisciplinary effort including ice sheet modelers, ocean modelers, and observational efforts. Over the last two decades, the role of the Polar ice sheets has grown in importance with regards to global environmental and societal concerns. The WAIS community consists of glaciologists, geologists, atmospheric- and earth-scientists, oceanographers, and others. This workshop award supports a meeting that will examine these questions and will formulate a community strategy for the future. The particular science topics to be addressed are: 1) Ocean & Ice interactions: how important and how well-understood?; 2) Basal properties: mm to km scale importance; heat flow; 3) Ice sheet models: recent advances and future prospects; 4) Observations: satellites, airplanes, skidoos, and crampons; 5) History of the ice sheet: ice cores, ocean-bottom features, geology. In order to encourage a broad representation of early career scientists and scientists who might not have attended WAIS previously, this award provides funding for participant support that will lower the cost of attendance for many of the attendees. The broader impacts of this award are that priority for support will be given to early-career scientists, scientists from underrepresented groups, students, and scientists from science disciplines of importance to WAIS who have been absent in the past.The meeting will be held in central Pennsylvania in late September, 2010. WAIS is strongly interdisciplinary and high-visibility meeting. Students and researchers mingle in an informal setting that encourages the free exchange of ideas. WAIS meetings bring together scientists from many fields with a central focus on understanding ice sheets and sea level interactions, which as yet have large uncertainties.