ACE Steering Group meeting, no. 1
Wednesday, 25th April, 2005
Le Meridien Hotel, Opernring 13-15 Vienna

MINUTES
(taken by Carlota Escutia and Jane Francis)

Present: Martin Siegert, Colin Summerhayes, Chuck Kennicutt, Jane Francis, Rob Larter, Damian Gore, John Smellie, Ross Powell, Andreas Laufer (for Detlef Damaske), Carlota Escutia, Sandra Passchier, Fabio Florindo, Alan Heywood, Tony Payne.

Apologies: Rob Dunbar, Rob DeConto, Gary Wilson, Tim Naish

*********************** Meeting began at 14.00. ***********************

History of ACE.

MJS reported the history of ACE for those new to the committee:

• ACE started at the Erice ( Sicily ) meeting in September 2001, which ended ANTOSTRAT. The meeting voted to develop a new programme for SCAR, with a focus on modelling past Antarctic environments. The goals of ANTIME, the Quaternary geology component of SCAR’s GLOCHANT programme, were also enveloped within the new sets of goals encompassed by ACE.
• Proposal for ACE science programme was submitted to SCAR for delegates meeting in 2002. SCAR was undergoing structure change at this meeting. It was no longer possible to establish a science programme without a 2-year planning phase. Hence, ACE was awarded Scientific Programme Planning Group status, and a $10,000 budget ($2000 for first year – 2003, which paid for meeting at EGU in Nice 2003, and $8000 for last year – unspent).
• The Nice meeting allowed ACE to develop a full proposal, along the SCAR guidelines at the time.
• ACE submission was made in December 2003 (and again, as requested, in 2004).
• Although neither MJS nor RD were invited to the SCAR delegates meeting in Bremerhaven , Terry Wilson was there to provide a presentation about ACE at very short notice. The committee thanked Terry Wilson for doing such a good job on this.
• SCAR delegates voted en mass to accept ACE as a full Scientific Research Proposal, as of 1 January 2005 .
• Steering committee nominations were submitted to SCAR as requested. It was acknowledged that a balance between gender and nationalities needs developing.
• Budget is $21,000 ($15,000 +$6000) per year. $8000 unspent from last year has been carried over to this year.
• ACE has been asked to provide an implementation plan for SCAR prior to meeting in Sofia in July.
• Website is now running, based at U. Mass., and costs $2000 per year.
• Copies of the ACE proposal have been circulated, and are available on the website.

Science implementation plan.

Item 1. Officers.

• Jobs currently being done are: Chairs (Dunbar and Siegert), and ‘Website and Publicity’ (DeConto).
• Scientific implementation is focussed on time themes outlined in ACE proposal, to be headed by the following:
  
  • LGM/deglacial/Holocene Chair: Tony Payne
  • Pleistocene Chair: Tim Naish
  • Middle Miocene-Pliocene Chair: Alan Haywood
  • Oligocene-Miocene Chair: Rob DeConto
  • Eocene/Oligocene Chair: Jane Francis
  • Radio-Echo Sounding: Detlef Demaske (see later item on Radio-echo sounding sub-committee).
    
• We need ‘Secretary’ to liaise with SCAR, ACE and community. Currently being done by Siegert, but could also be supplemented by another person. (Group named Fabio Florindo as ACE Secretary).
• Between Chairs, Secretary and Publicity, allocation of funds can be proposed.
• ACTION. Need management structure for implementation plan. MJS

ACTION. Implementation plan; Theme Chairs to give MJS ½ page summary.

Colin Summerhayes suggested there was an absence of South America and Asia within ACE representation. MJS agreed. DG indicated that cultural issues such as permission from superiors, and not just finances, may constrain ready participation and that recognition at a high level (e.g. by ACE or SCAR) would facilitate participation. CS returned to representation and said that we need to call on personal contacts to bring in people from Sth America , Asia (Japan/China) for the broadest possible representation. [DG - Scandinavia & India weren't mentioned]

Jane Francis suggested the need for a Miocene ice sheet modeler and we discussed who such a person might be. DG said there were some around who were using GCMs to model ice sheet inception conditions but couldn't remember their names.

ACTION. Theme Chairs to co-opt members from other nations.

Item 2. Structure of implementation plan.

• We can take quite a bit of text from the existing proposal (one of the benefits of writing a 25 page proposal!). Each of the time-themes, and the timetable of activity, can simply be pasted into an implementation plan.

ACTION MJS to coordinate implementation plan.

ACTION. CS to send MJS draft versions of the SCAR communications strategy and the SCAR capacity building strategy, for people to consider when finalising the IP.

• We need sub-groups for each theme. Alan Haywood has already started to think about how to proceed (see action below).
• Haywood’s proposed sub-group structure, John Smellie (co-chair; UK ), Allan Ashworth (USA), Dave Cantrill (Sweden), Sandra Passchier (The Netherlands), Paul Valdes (UK), Carrie Lear (UK).
• Need to establish terms of reference common to all sub-groups.

ACTION. Alan Haywood to circulate his template to leads of other sub-committees.

John Turner’s proforma to gather input from international community.

• MJS circulated a proforma, based on AGCS’s, modified for ACE purpose, to SCAR delegates and SCAR Geoscience members ( 21 February 2005 ).
• Only six proforma forms received. No proforma from France .
• MJS to send an e-mail to all of us that we can then send off to members of the community we know so the word can be spread. Among others, Carlota to send and e-mail to Xavier Crosta ( France ) and Manabu Tanahashi ( Japan ).
• 2006 Hobart there is a SCAR meeting to try to get the Asian community involved.
• Too early to collate material. MJS will keep an eye on how it progresses.

ACTION MJS to reply to Polish respondee (Gazdzicki), and weave them into ACE.

Prof. Dr. Andrzej Gazdzicki, Institute of Paleobiology , Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55-818 Warszawa , POLAND
Phone: (+48 22) 697-8796
Fax: (+48 22) 620-6225
e-mail: gazdzick@twarda.pan.pl

ACTION ALL. We need to call on personal contacts to bring in people from South America , Asia (Japan/China) for the broadest possible representation.

Carlota Escutia’s meeting on EAIS.

• Report about workshop on East Antarctic Ice Sheet Evolution from 18-20 September 2005. Organized by Laura De Santis (Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e Geofisica Sperimentale -OGS) and Carlota Escutia (CSIC-Univ. Granada ). 21-23 September, Spoleto ( Italy ). The workshop will take place before the GeoItalia 2005-Quinto Forum Italiano di Scienze della Terra (FIST) where there is a Session on "Paleoclimatic evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and of the Southern Ocean "
• Aims of the workshop are to: 1) provide for a forum for synthesizing what is know about Cenozoic East Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution from the study of glacial stratigraphy, processes and their products-onshore and offshore. 2) Define future directions of research / IODP Wilkes Land drilling (now with the IODP Operations Task Force to present IODP-SPC with scheduling options for US FY2007 in October 2005), and 3) Promote collaborations for integrating existing data and for planning future field work.
• First circular sent to gather Expressions of Interest. Positive response from scientists from 10 countries. Some funding received from the Italian National Antarctic Program (PNRA) for registration and meals during the workshop and the FIST conference, a social dinner and a field trip. Seeking funds from ESF and ACE for travel and accommodation to guarantee we can co-finance participation in order to maintain a high level of representation and the mix of nationalities.
• Next steps to post announcement in ACE and SCAR web pages and EOS.
• ACE Steering Committee agrees to help finance workshop. Amount to be determined after there is an outcome from other proposals sent.
• Collin Summerhayes suggested additional venues to seek funding: Tinker Foundation, NATO Research Fellowships and the ESF-European Polar Board.

ACTION. Funds for conferences, MJS and Dunbar to allocate funds to various conferences this summer.

IAS meeting in Aberystwyth.

From conference website (http://www.aber.ac.uk/visitors/glaciology/confinfo.doc)

Dates: 22-27 August 2005
Venue: Aberystwyth, Wales.
Sponsor: International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS)
Co-sponsors: IUGG Commission for the Cryospheric Sciences (formerly ICSI); International Glaciological Society (IGS); International Quaternary Association (INQUA); Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE); Scientific Commission on Antarctic Research (SCAR); Quaternary Research Association (QRA); British Geological Survey (BGS)

The aim of this conference is to promote dialogue between researchers in the fields of contemporary glacial processes, glacial sedimentology and ice sheet modelling in order to advance these fields in an integrated way. Contributions are invited from researchers working on all aspects of glacial sedimentary processes and products, covering glaciomarine, glaciolacustrine and terrestrial settings, from.

Themes and topics:

1. Contemporary glacial processes
2. The sedimentary record of past glacial systems
3. Modelling ice dynamics and glacial depositional systems
4. Glaciological maps (special poster session)

Details of conference, see website or contact Neil Glasser (nfg@aber.ac.uk)

ACE paying £200 for abstract volume.
ACE can pay for some attendees, if required.

ACTION. Funds for conferences, MJS and Dunbar to allocate funds to various conferences this summer.

ACE support for ANDRILL (Wilson/Francis)

“I would like to see ACE support workshops and proposal writing for the ANDRILL Science Committee to develop the next phases of ANDRILL. The first of these will be hosted by Jane Francis at Leeds this coming July.” Email from Gary Wilson to MJS, 15 March 2005 .

• ANDRILL UK Consortium. Meeting on 13-16 July. 1 day meeting of the ANDRILL Steering Committee, 1 day of talks, 1 day for discussion of future portfolios, 1 day to write ANDRILL Consortium proposal.
• ACE Steering Committee agrees to finance meals for this workshop.

ACTION. Funds for conferences, MJS and Dunbar to allocate funds to various conferences this summer.

Workshop on sedimentary basins ( Wilson )

“I would like to see us hold a workshop on Antarctic sedimentary basins, the processes that form them and their stratigraphic records – we still have a lot to do in understanding the link between basins and records and knowing where to look for what parts of the ACE time periods and there is a lot of new geophysical work being undertaken or recently undertaken.” Email from Gary Wilson to MJS, 15 March 2005 .

ACTION. Funds for conferences, MJS and Dunbar to allocate funds to various conferences this summer.

*********************** tea break ***********************

MJS welcomed Tony Payne

New subcommittees: (a) data management (b) outreach and (c) Radio-echo sounding

Data management. Rob Larter informed committee about data management systems, e.g. seismic data on CDs which are circulated after 4 years to research groups that have contributed data. These CDs are open to all after 8 years. These are organised by OGS Trieste and individual national programmes pay for this service.

However, ACE is a network of scientists not really a specific science programme. The data of interest to ACE are therefore numerous and complex. Consequently we should simply have a portal on web to link data and sample stores to inform people where the data are (a data map).

ACTION. Rob Larter asked to compile ½ page on data management for implementation plan.

Outreach. SCAR is developing strategy for capacity building (bringing in other countries etc.). SCAR also has detailed communication plans.

ACTION. Damian Gore and Sandra Passchier to consider this issue e.g. tag ACE meeting on to Argentinian national conference.

Education is a different issue. Colin Summerhayes noted that ACE is encouraged to leave education to SCAR, and concentrate on public outreach.

SCAR Fellowship programme – 3 young scientists from developing countries to work in other countries to focus on SCAR programmes.

ACTION. MJS to broadcast SCAR fellowships and funding on ACE website.

Radio-echo sounding committee. ACE needs data for modelling bed boundary condition. Long range aircraft needed to acquire subglacial data. Don Blankenship is a good person to lead this but there are political issues to consider. Maybe more appropriate in the first instance to get Detlef Demaske to lead this committee.

ACTION. MJS to contact Detlef Demaske about heading RES committee for ACE.

ACTION. Implementation plan (Theme Chairs to give MJS ½ page summary)

ACE publicity. MJS reported website is up and running. We should ask other sites to link to ACE website, and certainly link to PAGES and other global programmes.

ACTION. Rob Dunbar to get PAGES and ACE linked.

Edited book on ACE

Fabio Florindo reported on publications that link ACE, e.g. Palaeo3 2003, G&PC 2005, and one in progress in P3.

Elsevier are interested in an edited book on ACE. Can use the ACE structure as a template for the book, to be published for IPY.

Could try Island Press, a non-profit publication co. CUP was also mentioned as a possible publisher.

ACTION. FF and MJS to look into book chapters and notify lead authors about tasks and timelines.

ACE resources.

Several items discussed previously. New items are:

Pay for attendees to international conferences from developing countries.

Santa Barbara Antarctic Earth Science meeting; encourage the $5000 donation to ACE to be spent on encouraging people from developing countries to attend this meeting.

ACTION. Rob Dunbar to coordinate the allocation of $5000 to Santa Barbara meeting.

If ACE gets one of the SCAR fellowships annually, then ACE could provide extra money to support the bursary.

ACTION. MJS to advertise this on the website, to say that ACE will add extra money to SCAR bursary for fellowships on ACE topic.

ACTION. MJS to write an email to alert to above item and send to all committee members for further distribution.

IPY

The ACE EoI was met with favourable response from IPY. ACE asked to develop into core programme on IPY.

ACTION. Rob Dunbar to talk to Rainer Gersonde to see how ACE and BIPOMAC could link together.

ACTION. Rob Dunbar to make the necessary links with other EoIs and take this forward.

ACE performance review

SCAR assessment will be by external peer review, and framed against our own objectives - e.g conferences, proceedings volumes, special journal issues etc. Chuck suggested that assessments and "quality of science" were important. Fabio's publications can be incorporated as part of the contributions of ACE in the "nominated" phase. The implementation plan should be 6 pages of A4, so that means <1 page per research theme. Each theme Chair needs to set out a plan of objectives & strategies to implement. The implementation plan needs to be with SCAR by the end of May so Chairs have ~2 weeks to get organized. Colin noted that we need to collate media output, MS noted that we need to install web counters.

ACTION. Rob Deconto to put counter on website

ACTION Collate ACE outputs (including Outreach items) on an ongoing basis

Outputs for far:

Website contains information about publications etc.,
Posters/fliers have been made.
No counter yet on website. ACTION. Rob Deconto to put counter on website
Model developments have been made.
Contribution to IPY being made.
(ACE is doing well with outputs)

Inputs:

Links to other SCAR programmes (e.g. SALE ) are good. Need links with AGCS and EBA
Meetings have been organised.
Participation from broad range of scientists is good, but could be broader.
ACTION. Rob Larter to send MJS details of EPICA (Eric Wolfe) for links to ACE.
ACTION. Alan Haywood to asks at BAS to find link to AGCS.

AOB

Email to be sent to Peter Barrett on behalf on ACE with best wishes.

Logo, FF presented alternatives. ACTION. FF to circulate logos for comments. Possibly we could use the website to judge the logo!

ACTION. MJS to set future ACE meetings at international meetings (including SCAR meetings) and put on website for future.

Next meeting to be held at Aberystwyth in August, where action items will be reported. ACTION. MJS to confirm date/place of next meeting.

Ross Powell suggests organising a fieldtrip for ACE participants to see modern temperate glacial environments in Alaska as part of ISAES X in August 2007.

LIST of ACTION items

ACTION. Implementation plan; Theme Chairs to give MJS ½ page summary by 15 th May.

ACTION. Theme Chairs to co-opt members from other nations.

ACTION MJS to coordinate implementation plan.

ACTION. CS to send MJS draft versions of the SCAR communications strategy and the SCAR capacity building strategy, for people to consider when finalising the IP.

ACTION. Alan Haywood to circulate his template to leads of other sub-committees.

ACTION MJS to reply to Polish respondee (Gazdzicki), and weave them into ACE.

ACTION ALL. We need to call on personal contacts to bring in people from Sth America , Asia (Japan/China) for the broadest possible representation.

ACTION. Funds for conferences, MJS and Dunbar to allocate funds to various conferences this summer.

ACTION. Rob Larter asked to compile ½ page on data management for implementation plan.

ACTION. Damian Gore and Sandra Passchier to consider this issue e.g. tag ACE meeting on to Argentinian national conference.

ACTION. MJS to broadcast SCAR fellowships and funding on ACE website.

ACTION. MJS to contact Detlef Demaske about heading RES committee for ACE.

ACTION. Implementation plan (Theme Chairs to give MJS ½ page summary)

ACTION. Rob Dunbar to get PAGES and ACE linked.

ACTION. FF and MJS to look into book chapters and notify lead authors about tasks and timelines.

ACTION. Rob Dunbar to coordinate the allocation of $5000 to Santa Barbara meeting.

ACTION. MJS to advertise this on the website, to say that ACE will add extra money to SCAR bursary for fellowships on ACE topic.

ACTION. MJS to write an email to alert to above item and send to all committee members for further distribution.

ACTION. Rob Dunbar to talk to Rainer Gersonde to see how ACE and BIPOMAC could link together.

ACTION. Rob Dunbar to make the necessary links with other EoIs and take this forward.

ACTION. Rob Deconto to put counter on website

ACTION Collate ACE outputs (including Outreach items) on an ongoing basis

ACTION. Rob Larter to send MJS details of EPICA (Eric Wolfe) for links to ACE.

ACTION. Alan Haywood to asks at BAS to find link to AGCS.

ACTION. FF to circulate logos for comments.

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