NZARI to support new research into Antartic ice cover

NZARI to support new research projects to investigate Antarctica’s changing ice cover

The New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute (NZARI) will provide $500,000 in funding to six new research projects to investigate how Antarctica’s ice cover will change as the world warms.

The new projects, funded by support NZARI received from the Aotearoa Foundation and Air New Zealand explore how ice floating at the edge of Antarctica interacts with the surrounding Southern Ocean.

“An area which was once deemed one of the most stable parts of our planet is now showing real signs of change,” says NZARI Director, Professor Gary Wilson.

“I congratulate these funding recipients for the ambitious nature of their science objectives. Each proposal directly supports NZARI’s goal of enabling high-quality, collaborative research which seeks answers to some of the global challenges presented by a changing climate today.”

This year NZARI funded research is supporting science which aims to understand if ocean warming is affecting the rate at which ice is melting and if the melting ice is in-turn refreezing the ocean.

Researchers will also investigate the impact that changes to Antarctica’s ice sheets will have on the planet. For New Zealand, this means better understanding the effect this has on sea levels and the climate. This is important as we may already be seeing changing patterns of rainfall and drought.

This research will also determine whether the changes in Antarctica will adjust our perceptions of its fragile ice free environments, which will require careful planning for our human activities in Antarctica.

The six projects were chosen from 30 applications through a rigorous peer-review process that involved 49 expert reviewers under the guidance of an International Science Panel. The new funding will support New Zealand research teams from across four New Zealand universities and two crown research institutes enabling them to team up with international collaborators in Australia, Denmark, Korea, United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Three of the successful projects will undertake fieldwork in Antarctica during the next two seasons (2015/16 and 2016/17) as part of New Zealand's Antarctic Programme. The logistics support for this research is provided by Antarctica New Zealand.

“New Zealand has a strong reputation of scientific leadership in Antarctica and NZARI is committed to tackling global challenges,” says Professor Wilson. “NZARI research is not constrained by what scientists think they can achieve with existing resources, rather we are focussed on the future of our planet and what its ecosystems require.”

Preliminary results from this research are expected towards the end of 2017.

Summary of successful projects

Antarctic influences on New Zealand climate during the Antarctic Cold Reversal

Associate Professor Andrew Mackintosh, Antarctic Research Centre – Victoria University of Wellington

Investigating Antarctic ice sheet response to past anomalous Southern Ocean warming

Dr Catherine Beltran, Department of Geology – University of Otago

Interfacing human impact assessment and social valuation of climate sensitive landforms in the Ross Sea Region

Dr Barbara Bollard Breen, Institute for Applied Ecology, Professor Mark Orams, NZ Tourism Research Institute and Professor Steve Pointing, Institute for Applied Ecology – Auckland University of Technology

Supercooled ice shelf cavity water and the influence on sea ice growth

Associate Professor Craig Stevens, NIWA and Associate Professor Patricia Langhorne, Department of Physics – University of Otago

Constraining Antarctica’s contribution to past global sea level rise in Northern Victoria Land and the Western Ross Sea

Dr Kevin Norton, School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences – Victoria University of Wellington

Reconstructing the history of the Ross Ice Shelf since the Last Glacial Maximum

Dr Christian Ohneiser, Department of Geology and Dr Christina Riesselman, Department of Marine Science – University of Otago

ENDS

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