On the 31st of March this year, the Commission for the Conservation of Marine Living Organisms (CCAMLR) held a scientific priorities workshop at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. CCAMLR is an international body that sets catch quotas, manages marine protected areas and assesses the sustainability of fishing and other commercial activities south of 60S in Antarctic waters. It is very much evidence based and operates on the precautionary principle, so the CCAMRL science advisory group is a valuable part of the process.
During this meeting OCEAN ICE members attended to provide overviews of the state of the physical environment of the Southern Ocean and its bounding cryosphere. Andrew Meijers presented a talk covering ongoing and projected climate driven changes in ocean temperatures, stratification, circulation and ongoing ice shelf melt - drawing heavily on cutting edge and ongoing OCEAN ICE research. This was well received and formed the basis for ongoing discussions in the meeting around the robustness of elements of CCAMLR's management system, notably the regional zones it uses to divide up the Southern Ocean, and how these may shift in time under climate change.
The author of the article - Andrew Meijers (British Antarctic Survey)