30 June 2016, Volume 27 Issue 2

    

• Select all
  |

Contents
• Select
  Contents of No.2 Vol.27 2016

  Editorial Office of Advances in Polar Science

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 0-0.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save
Foreword
• Select
  Foreword: A decade of exploration and scientific research at Dome A

  Yang Huigen, Ian Allison, Li Yuansheng, Xiao Cunde

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 0-0.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  Foreword: A decade of exploration and scientific research at Dome A
  It is now more than a decade since the twenty-first Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (21st CHINARE) reached the highest point of the Antarctic Ice Sheet on 18 January 2005, around the 20th anniversary of China’s involvement in polar scientific research. This marked the ongoing evolution of the CHINARE program in the Antarctic to one with a greater research focus, and with an increased involvement in international scientific collaboration. In this and subsequent issues of Advances in Polar Science, that decade of scientific achievement will be recognized by a number of thematic papers reviewing the outcomes from research at Dome A and along the traverse route between there and the coast.
Articles
• Select
  Science and exploration in the high interior of East Antarctica in the twentieth century

  Irina Gan, David Drewry, Ian Allison, Vladimir Kotlyakov

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 65-77. https://doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2016.2.00065

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  The highest part of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, more than 4000 m above sea level, has been an area that has seen a considerable scientific research effort undertaken by the Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition, and its international collaborators, since January 2005. That includes the establishment of the most remote of the Chinese Antarctic stations, Kunlun, at Dome A in 2009. However, the exploration and mapping of this region had been commenced many decades earlier, most notably by inland traverses of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year (IGY) and later; and the extensive surveys of Antarctic surface and sub-ice topography by airborne radio-echo sounding made by the US National Science Foundation–Scott Polar Research Institute–Technical University of Denmark (NSF-SPRI-TUD) in the late-1960s and the 1970s. Here we provide a history of the activities and achievements of these earlier programs. Recent topographic maps of the ice sheet surface in the Dome A region, produced using Chinese GPS data and satellite altimetry, have shown the maps compiled from the earlier data were remarkably accurate.
• Select
  A frozen collision belt beneath ice: an overview of seismic studies around the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, East Antarctica

  AN Meijian, Douglas A. Wiens, ZHAO Yue

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 78-89. https://doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2016.2.00078

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  The Gamburtsev Antarctic Mountains Seismic Experiment (GAMSEIS, 2007–2010) was jointly conducted by the United States, China, and Japan during and after the International Polar Year 2007–2008. Broadband seismic stations were deployed across the ice-covered Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains (GSM) and other previously unexplored areas in the interior of East Antarctica. Using GAMSEIS data, published results not only have revealed the deep structure of Antarctica, but also improved our understanding of the tectonic evolution of Antarctica and the supercontinent Gondwana, and of the relationship between geothermal heat flux and glaciers. This contribution draws together the major findings from recent studies, and also offers further investigation into the relationship between tectonic history and the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The elevation of the GSM is largely supported by thickened crust, with Moho depths of ~60 km near the crest of the range. The GSM are underlain by thick(>200 km) and cold continental lithosphere that likely formed after collision of two ancient crustal blocks during the pan-African orogeny. Heat flux results obtained from seismic inversion support a model of ice sheet basal melting that depends more strongly on bedrock topography than on geothermal heat flux, while ice surface and ice thickness are inversely correlated with heat flux.
  
  
• Select
  Climate and meteorological processes of the East Antarctic ice sheet between Zhongshan and Dome-A

  BIAN Lingen , Ian Allison , XIAO Cunde , MA Yongfeng , FU Liang , DING Minghu

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 90-101. https://doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2016.2.00090

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  The 1228 km over-snow traverse route between the Chinese Zhongshan Station, on the coast of Prydz Bay, and Dome-A, at 4091 m elevation the highest point of the East Antarctic ice sheet, has been the focus of CHINARE surface meteorological and climate studies since 2002. A network of seven Automatic Weather Stations has been deployed along this section, including at Dome-A itself, and some of these have now provided nearly-hourly data for over a decade. Atmospheric boundary layer turbulence and radiation observations have been made over the near-coastal ice sheet inland of Zhongshan and surface turbulence measurements using an ultrasonic anemometer system have also been made in the deep interior of the ice sheet. Summer GPS radiosonde soundings of the atmospheric boundary layer have been made at Kunlun Station, near Dome-A. In this paper these observations are combined to provide a comprehensive overview of the meteorological regime of this region of the ice sheet, its climate variability, and as a reference for future study of climate change. This includes investigation of the variation of surface climate features with elevation and distance from the coast, the height and structure of the boundary layer over the ice sheet, and seasonal and regional changes in ice/snow–air interactions, including turbulent and radiative energy fluxes. The air temperature and snow temperature between the coastal Zhongshan and Dome-A on the inland plateau have not changed significantly in the past decade compared with the inter-annual variability.
  
  
• Select
  Chinese Antarctic Magnetometer Chain at the Cusp Latitude

  LIU Yonghua, HU Hongqiao , YANG Huigen , ZHANG Beichen , SUN Bo , WEI Fuhai , LIU Yang , LIU Jianjun , WANG Rui , CHEN Zhuotian , HU Zejun , HAN Desheng , SHI Guitao , HU Zhengyi , WANG Tao , AN Chunlei & Mike Rose

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 102-106. https://doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2016.2.00102

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  A Chinese Antarctic Magnetometer (CAM) chain from Zhongshan Station (ZHS) to Dome-A (DMA) has been established since February 2009. A regular magnetometer is operated at ZHS, and four low power magnetometers are operated along the interior route from ZHS to DMA in the cusp latitude, extending over a distance of 1260 km. These stations fill an important void in the Antarctic magnetometer network. Furthermore, the CAM chain is magnetically conjugated with the Arctic region reaching from the Svalbard archipelago to Daneborg, on the east coast of Greenland. Conjugate measurements using the Arctic and Antarctic magnetometers provide excellent opportunities to investigate phenomena related to the coupling of the solar wind to the magnetosphere and ionosphere, such as magnetic impulse events, flux transfer events, traveling convection vortices and ultra-low frequency waves.
  
  
• Select
  PIV experimental study on the interactions between ice ridges and stratified fluids

  TIE Wen, LU Peng , LI Zhijun, LI Bo & WU Yan

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 107-116. https://doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2016.2.00107

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  With the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice, the freshwater produced by melting of summer sea ice makes the depth of the halocline under ice become shallower. This has an impact on the drift of sea ice because internal waves may be generated at the interface of the halocline by disturbance from the draft of an ice floe or ridge keel. A laboratory experimental study was carried out to investigate the interactions between an ice ridge and stratifed fluid using the method of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The drift velocity of an ice ridge (U) and the draft of the ridge keel (D) were altered in different experimental cases, and the velocity field in the stratifed fluid was then measured by PIV. The results reveal that an obvious vortex exists in the wake field of the ridge keel, and the center of the vortex moves away from the ice ridge with increasing D. Internal waves at the interface of the stratifed fluid were observed during the drift of the ice ridge, and the wave height shows a positive correlation with U and D. This study demonstrates that ice ridges could introduce internal waves at the interface of a stratifed fluid and thus affect the oceanic drag coeffcient and ice drift. It supports improved parameterization of the ice drag coeffcients.
  
  
• Select
  Considerable increase in bowhead, blue, humpback and fin whales numbers in the Greenland Sea and Fram Strait between 1979 and 2014

  Claude R. Joiris,

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 117-125. https://doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2016.2.00117

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  In the frame of our long-term study of cetacean abundance and distribution in polar marine ecosystems begun in 1979, a drastic increase in the bowhead Balaena mysticetus North Atlantic “stock” was observed from 2005 on, by a factor 30 and more: from 0.0002 per count between 1979 and 2003 (one individual, n=5430 counts) to 0.06 per count from 2005 to 2014 (34 individuals, n=6000 counts); the most significant part of the increase occurred from 2007 on. Other large whale species (Mysticeti) showed a similar pattern, mainly blue Balaenoptera musculus, humpback Megaptera novaeangliae and fin whales Balaenoptera physalus. This large and abrupt increase cannot logically be due to population growth, nor to survival of a hidden “relic” population, nor to a changing geographical distribution within the European Arctic, taking into account the importance of the coverage during this study. Our interpretation is that individuals passed through the Northwest and/ or Northeast Passages from the larger Pacific stock into the almost depleted North Atlantic populations coinciding with a period of very low ice coverage —at the time the lowest ever recorded. In contrast, no clear evolution was detected neither for sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus nor for Minke whale Balaenoptera acusrostrata.

  
  

  
  
• Select
  Some aspects of Chinese-Australian cooperation in Antarctic Research over the past forty years

  ZHAO Chen , Ian Allison

  Advances in Polar Science. 2016, 27(2): 126-137. https://doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2016.2.00126

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  China and Australia have been collaborating in Antarctic activities since the early 1980s and that collaboration has grown and become more formalized as China's Antarctic program has expanded. This collaboration has involved personnel exchange, logistic support, environmental protection and particularly scientific research. China and Australia have signed a series of memorandums and treaties of friendship and cooperation on Antarctic activities in the past few years. Relevant mechanisms of cooperation between expedition plans and programs have been established, and the exchange and cooperation in people, science and technology, services, and supplies are undertaken across a range of organizations. Here we overview the history of the bilateral collaboration and provide a few examples of the many areas of cooperation. These examples are focused on activities in Hobart, the key centre of the Australian Antarctic program.