This project will provide travel support for six US investigators, including graduate students, to participate in a workshop on Antarctic Sea Ice Thickness, scheduled for 5-7 July 2006, in conjunction with the SCAR meetings in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
The ICSU/WMO Joint Steering Committee for the International Polar Year has approved Antarctic Sea Ice in IPY, as the coordinating project on antarctic sea ice for the IPY period 2007-2009. This workshop will start the coordination of planned data collection efforts on sea ice thickness, using airborne, satellite and surface methods, and will include planning for the archiving, synthesis and quality control of the data sets collected by various methodologies.
Participation in the workshop will strengthen existing, and establish new, strategic alliances between US scientists and scientists from other countries active in sea ice research. It will also provide increased access to new technologies and address key objectives within the US Antarctic Program. The workshop will provide a forum to identify key gaps in our knowledge of antarctic sea ice, and to consider future field campaigns and validation experiments to address these. One aim of this workshop is to focus on emerging technologies for measuring sea ice thickness, and to establish new research programs that link these technologies together.
