–Contributed by Martin Vancoppenolle, CNRS, Laboratoire d’Océanographie et du Climat, France
BEPSII (BEPSII – Biogeochemical exchange processes at Sea Ice Interfaces) 2017 meeting @SCRIPPS, La Jolla, California; Apr 3-5, 2017; 27 participants.
Local organizers: Lynn McNutt, Jeff Bowman, Nadja Steiner, Lisa Miller.
Supporting agencies: SOLAS, CliC, IASC, and SCAR.
The BEPSII research community held a 3-day workshop in April 2017, joined by the new SCOR Working Group (#152) on Measuring Essential Climate Variables in Sea Ice (ECV-Ice). Twenty-seven scientists from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States gathered in La Jolla, California to discuss the results of the past year’s activities, plan upcoming activities, and to present scientific talks and posters.
Scientific Highlights include the gathering of large-scale databases of sea ice biogeochemical parameters, including nutrients and POC/DOC, of which the paper by Fripiat et al (https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.1525/elementa.217/) is an example. Let us also mention the presentation of new optical sensors for sea ice by Raffel et al., or the mapping of chlorophyll on a sea ice floe by Meiners et al. using an ROV, as well as memorable discussions on whether nitrate in sea ice are intra-cellular or concealed in biofilms, following a presentation by Mundy et al. Some of BEPSII’s major upcoming activities planned for the coming 3 years include: method intercalibraiton experiments, advising the upcoming Arctic field campaign Mosaic, and sea ice model intercomparisons.
What is BEPSII ? BEPSII (Biogeochemical Exchange Processes at the Sea Ice Interfaces) research community is a global community of sea-ice researchers including biogeochemists, atmospheric scientists, oceanographers and sea-ice physicists, which was initiated as a SCOR WG (140) to address fundamental communication and methodological issues in sea-ice biogeochemistry. BEPSII was then approved by SOLAS and CliC (Climate and Cryosphere) as a longer-lived activity with additional endorsement from SCAR (the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research). The ongoing second phase of BEPSII is focused on developing the tools to tackle big-picture questions about the global relevance of biogeochemical processes within and around sea ice, including climate-change feedbacks.
Interested to join BEPSII or ECV-Ice ? Send a message the chairs Jacqueline Stefels and Nadja Steiner or to the leaders of the relevant task leaders. For entertaining reading, see the BEPSII special feature in Elementa Journal (https://www.elementascience.org/collections/special/special-feature-biogeochemical-exchange-processes-at-sea-ice-interfaces-bepsii/).
BEPSII co-chairs: Nadja Steiner (nadja.steiner[@]canada.ca); Jacqueline Stefels (J.Stefels[@]biol.rug.nl)
CliC BEPSII contact point: Martin Vancoppenolle (martin.vancoppenolle[@]locean-ipsl.upmc.fr)