news from iacs (issue 4, march 2015) · microsnow intercomparison march 2014: field experiment in...

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IACS is a constituent Association of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics IUGG and aims at promoting the study of the cryosphere in all of its aspects

International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics IUGG Union Géodésique et Géophysique Internationale UGGI http://www.iugg.org

News from IACS (Issue 4, March 2015)

This issue of the newsletter of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) will cover a long time span from when I took over the presidency of IACS until today. It is overdue, I admit, but you’ll see that this long silence does not mean IACS was inactive! This period starts at the end of our very successful Joint Davos Atmosphere and Cryosphere Assembly DACA-‐13, 8-‐12 July 2013 in Davos, Switzerland. Those of you who missed that event may want to read the report published in the 2013 September issue of the In-‐ternational Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) E-‐Journal. To close, I will look ahead to the forthcom-‐ing XXVI IUGG General Assembly (GA) that will take place 22 June – 2 July 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic.

IACS Working Groups (WG) The WG “Flow law for polycrystalline ice” ended in 2014. However, the member of the WG agreed to

work on a peer-‐reviewed publication that should be submitted in 2015. The Working Group “From quantitative stratigraphy to microstructure-‐based modelling of snow” start-‐

ed 2012 and organised a well-‐attended Workshop in 2013 (see webpage). This event resulted in an In-‐tercomparison Workshop organized by Martin Schneebeli March 2014 in Davos, Switzerland. Around 20 researchers tested their state-‐of-‐the-‐art instruments to measure the Specific Surface Area of snow, both in the lab and in the field. The results were discussed later that year prior to a second Workshop held August 2014 in Reading, UK. The outcome will be a special issue of The Cryosphere with the title "Intercomparison of methods to characterise snow microstructure". The Workshop that followed gath-‐ered around 50 participants to discuss issues related to microstructure and microwave radiation. A summary of the Workshop can be found in EOS (doi:10.1002/2014EO470005). The WG acquired a new name at the Workshop and we are looking forward to the next Workshop organized by the WG “Mi-‐croSnow” July 2015 in the USA.

Microsnow Intercomparison March 2014: field experiment in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

News from IACS -‐ The IACS newsletter

IACS is a constituent Association of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics IUGG http://www.cryosphericsciences.org

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Two new WG were launched July 2014, both dealing with different aspects of mountain glaciers: The WG “Randolph Glacier Inventory and infrastructure for glacier monitoring” and the “Glacier thickness estimation” WG. Both are already active and will coordinate sessions at the IUGG GA in Prague.

IACS Standing Groups (SG) GAPHAZ, the SG on Glacier And Permafrost HAZard in mountains launched a new webpage and has or-‐

ganized a one-‐day “retreat” Workshop on the 14th September, 2014 in Torino, Italy. About 35 partici-‐pants including myself discussed the activities and goals of the SG (see report). The SG also links IACS to the Union Commission on GeoRisk and with the help of the IUGG Secretariat we nominated Dr John Reynolds as a candidate to become a member of the IDRD scientific committee. Unfortunately, the lat-‐ter effort was unsuccessful.

The GTN-‐G Steering Committee is an IACS SG whose main task is to coordinate, support, and advise the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), and the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space initiative (GLIMS) concerning the monitoring of glaciers and ice caps. In June 2014, the advisory board of that SG consisting of Cecilie Rolstad Denby, Liss M. An-‐dreassen, Anthony Arendt, Graham Cogley, Alex Gardner and Vladimir Ryabinin formally evaluated the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers (GTN-‐G). This included a site visit to NSIDC in Boulder, USA. Alt-‐hough the final version of the report (containing supporting documentation) has not yet been officially released, the draft report is comprehensive; it is both supportive of GTN-‐G activities and offers a number of useful suggestions for future activities.

IACS sponsored activities In addition to supporting financially the activities of our WG and SG, we also support events that are of in-‐terest to the cryospheric community. Our contributions are either to cover part of the travel costs of at-‐tendees (Early Career Scientists (ECS) and scientists from developing countries) or towards IACS awards for outstanding presentations and posters by ECS. These activities and events are listed below. The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), a Service of IACS, organised a Summer School on Mass

Balance Measurements and Analysis, 2-‐7 September 2013 in Zermatt, Switzerland (report). I gave a short welcome address at the beginning of the course to stress the importance of WGMS within the IACS structure.

2013 IACS co-‐sponsored an award at the second International symposium on Physics, Chemistry and Mechanics of Snow held 23-‐27 September 2013 in Yuzhno-‐Sakhalinsk. The recipients were Darya Bobrova and Hiroki Matsushita and S. Sokratov presented the awards on behalf of IACS.

2014 we again co-‐sponsored the International Summer School in Glaciology organized by Regine Hock (University of Fairbanks) in McCarthy, Alaska, USA. We could partly support two attendees who gave a very positive feedback that shows how welcome even small contributions are and how important these activities are. The two awardees thanked the organizer Regine Hock and IACS, in their words: “This summer I took part in the UAF Summer School in Glaciology which was held in McCarthy, Alaska. I am one of the students who received financial support from IACS to cover some of my travel costs. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank IACS for providing the funding. The course was incredibly useful to me in improving my understanding of Glaciology as well as giv-‐ing me the opportunity to travel to a unique location and meet a wide range of people studying in different areas of Glaciology. Without the support of IACS I would have found it difficult to cover the costs of travelling to Alaska, so once again thank you and I hope that other students will be lucky enough to receive the same opportunity in future.” (Alistair Everett)



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“Hi Charles and Andrew, I am Sathiyaseelan from India, participant of the Summer School on Glaciology 2014 conducted at McCarthy organised by Geophysical Institute, UoA Fairbanks. It was so great and I gained lot of knowledge and experience from the summer school. The topics like remote sensing in glaciology, glacier mass balance and glacier meteorology, response of glaciers to climate change, glacier dynamics and hydrology were very useful. The field excur-‐sion to a nearby root glacier was adventurous and exciting for a modeler like me. The scientists, professors and experts were very friendly, interactive, energetic and made themselves available at most of the time to respond to our queries. The post lecture session of each instructor was good. I take this opportunity to appreciate Regine Hock, the organiser of the summer school for or-‐ganising such a great school. I would like to thank IACS and both of you for the financial sup-‐port without which I would have suffered in short of fund although I got financial aid from my institute. With regards /Sathiya”.

Sathiya obviously enjoying the 2014 McCarthy Summer School in Glaciology, Alaska.

Two members of the Bureau, Hiroyuki Enomoto and Ian Allison, our mentor on site, were involved in the organisation of this IGS International Symposium on Sea Ice in a changing Environment, 10-‐14 March 2014 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. IACS sponsored an ECS award, copies of Willy Weeks' com-‐prehensive textbook "On Sea Ice" that was presented by the author.



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IACS provided support for ECS to attend the International Workshop on Calving, 1&2 June 2014 in Gre-‐noble, France.

The organizers of the Joint Model-‐data workshop for the Late Pleistocene evolution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, 22-‐24 May 2014 in Grenoble, France, provided a written report that ends, “The success of the workshop was due in good part to a diverse mix of 22 junior and 32 mid to late career scientists. This in turn was only possible due to the generous sponsorship provided by: IACS (International Association of Cryospheric Sciences), IUGG (International Union of Ge-‐odesy and Geophysics), LGGE (Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l’Environnement), PAIS (Past Antarctic Ice Sheet Dynamics), and SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Re-‐search). Pippa Whitehouse and Lev Tarasov, on behalf of the organizing committee.”

Finally, IACS sponsored two ECS awards at the Special Session on Cryosphere Science, XIX Geological Congress of Argentina, 2-‐6 June 2014 in Cordoba, Argentina. Dario Trombotto, the Argentinian IACS Correspondent presented the two prizes.

IACS partnerships and collaborations (Bureau activities) The Bureau of IACS invested quite some time in visiting or attending events organized by partners throughout this period. I visited the Executive Director Jenny Baeseman of CliC January 2014 in Tromsø, Norway. Throughout

2014 IACS had contacts with the CliC office regarding possible collaborations: CliC will join IACS and IGS in organising a conference in New Zealand 2017. At the CliC 2015 SSG meeting in Boulder, CO, USA, we established liaisons to two targeted activities of CliC, namely ESM-‐SnowMIP (IACS liaison is Richard Es-‐sery) and GlacierMIP (IACS liaison is Regine Hock).

Meeting the APECS Executive Committee at Jenny Baeseman’s (left) home in Kvaløysletta, near Trom-‐sø.



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By chance the Executive Committee 2014 of APECS also convened January 2014 in Tromsø. The meet-‐ing with these very active young cryospheric scientists gave rise to a lively discussion about our part-‐nership and APECS is an important partner at the IUGG 2015 GA. The meeting also allowed me to meet the new APECS Executive Director Gerlis Fugmann.

18 June 2014 I attended the Council meeting of the International Permafrost Association (IPA) in Evora, Portugal. I was given a warm welcome, and IPA and IACS will consider drafting a MoU to consolidate our good relationship. We are particularly happy that IPA President Toni Lewcowicz will attend IUGG 2015 in person.

Our partnership with IASC was also kept alive: Hiroyuki Enomoto attended meetings related to the ICARP III conference held in conjunction with the Arctic Science Summit Week, 23-‐30 April 2015, in To-‐yama, Japan. IACS representatives attended Workshops related to ICARP III, one on Albedo in Bristol, UK, and one on ‘Arctic Snow’ in Copenhagen, Denmark etc.

Ian Allison attended the XXXIII SCAR Delegates' Meeting as both IUGG and IACS representative and An-‐drew Mackintosh attended the ICSU General Assembly as part of the IUGG delegation. Both these events were held in August-‐September 2014 in Auckland, New Zealand.

IACS SG Andrew Mackintosh meeting the Rt Hon John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, along with IUGG SG Alik Ismail-‐Zadeh (centre), and Dr Yuan T. Lee, Nobel Laureate and ICSU Immediate Past Pres-‐ident (right).

Finally I attended two Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) Steering Group meetings in Reykjavik (2014) and Copenhagen (2015) as well as GCW Cryonet meetings in Reykjavik (2014), Davos (2014), Santiago de Chile (2014), and Copenhagen (2015). In particular, the Latin American workshop allowed me to discuss IACS with a group of Latin American cryospheric scientists. Note that GCW should become progressively more important within WMO and my goal is to provide the cryospheric community with a possibility to fund monitoring tasks with the help of WMO. I encourage you to visit the GCW website to get a better view of their ongoing activities.



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IACS business One of my first official IUGG duty was to attend the IUGG Executive Committee meeting, September

2013 in Prague, Czech Republic. Secretary General Andrew Mackintosh accompanied me. There the most important issue was the first session of the Scientific Programme Committee for the IUGG GA 2015 where we put in place the basic structure of the GA and its scientific programme.

IACS held its 2014 Bureau meeting at the National Institute for Polar Research (NIPR) 10-‐11 July 2014 in Tokyo, Japan, followed by a retreat near Tokyo. I’d like to particularly thank our host Hiroyuki Enomoto for organising a perfect meeting, and Miki Yoshioka for her help during the retreat.

After their retreat, IACS Bureau members enjoy a rest at Amazake Chaya, near Hakone.

The Bureau members present and those joining by telecon, in particular Andrew Mackintosh, made it a very productive meeting, the minutes of which will soon be available on our website. Here I would like to highlight only two items:

o The Bureau established the IACS Early Career Scientist Prize (best Publication of the past year) that will be awarded for the first time at the XXVI IUGG GA this coming summer in Prague.

o We had long and lively discussions about both IUGG Membership and IUGG Strategy as seen from an IACS point of view. The outcome of our deliberations was sent to the IUGG Bureau for consideration. Meanwhile IUGG President Harsh Gupta called for an extraordinary IUGG Execu-‐tive Committee meeting 18 April 2015 in Vienna, Austria. The above issues are due to be dis-‐cussed in preparation of the XXVI IUGG GA.

To run the ‘daily’ business, the IACS Bureau established 2013 an Executive Committee (EC) consisting of President, Secretary General and Immediate Past President or President Elect. These three officers hold regularly telecons, in which all Bureau members are welcome to join. Preparations for the forthcoming IUGG and IACS GA in Prague presently keep us quite busy.



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Awards 2011 in Melbourne, IUGG established three awards: the IUGG Gold Medal, the IUGG Early Career Scien-‐

tist award, and the IUGG Honorary Fellows award. IACS is proud to report that two of the Early Career Scientist awards went to cryospheric scientists (Matthias Huss and Ben Marzeion) and that one elected honorary fellow belongs to the cryospheric community (H. Gerald Jones).

The IACS Bureau nominated Georg Kaser and Atsumu Ohmura to become IACS Honorary Members at the IACS Plenary Administrative Session 26 June 2015 in Prague. The citations will be published on the website after the election at the Prague GA.

XXVI IUGG General Assembly IACS is looking ahead to the 26th IUGG General Assembly in Prague. Senior and Early Career conveners put together an attractive scientific programme of 16 symposia that will run from 23-‐28 June 2015. IACS will lead Union Symposium U10 Sea Level Change and Variability: Past, Present and Future (Ian Allison) as well as the two Joint Symposia JC1 Sea Ice in the Arctic and Southern Oceans (Hiroyuki Enomoto) and JC2 Cold Regions Cryosphere and Hydrosphere (Martin Hoelzle) and IACS co-‐conveners are involved in a number of other Union and Joint symposia. In addition to the scientific activities, important bureau activities will be carried out in Prague. For an overview of both scientific and business IACS activities during the GA, I refer to our website and in particular to the event page and event calendar. For a more complete picture, see the conference website (http://www.iugg2015prague.com/).

Charles Fierz and the IACS Executive Committee.

22 March, 2015

news from iacs (issue 4, march 2015) · microsnow intercomparison march 2014: field experiment in...

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