IBCSO – Discovering Antarctica’s present-day bathymetry

• Main Authors: Arndt, Jan Erik, Bohoyo, Fernando, Dorschel, Boris
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: Antarctic; Southern Ocean; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/38269/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/38269/1/IBCSO_ISAES_web.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.45929; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.45929.d001

The International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO) project aims to create comprehensive and reliable digital bathymetric models (DBM) for the Circum-Antarctic waters. Due to the size, remoteness and inaccessibility of this area, the success of the project is depending on international efforts and collaboration. For this reason, IBCSO is well connected to internationally operating scientific and hydrographic organizations. IBCSO is an expert group of SCAR since 2004. Furthermore, it is a regional mapping project of the General Bathymetric Chart of the Ocean (GEBCO) under the joint auspices of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) (of UNESCO) and the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO). In 2013, the first version of IBCSO has become available to the scientific community, accompanied by a publication in the Journal Geophysical Research Letters (Arndt et al., 2013). For this version, more than 30 institutions from 15 countries contributed data and knowledge. The DBM covers the area south of 60° with a resolution of 500 m. The data can be downloaded in various formats from the project website, as well as a chart and cartographic background data (www.ibcso.org). Even though all available data had been compiled for IBCSO V1.0, approximately 83 % of the area remained not directly constraint by data and had been interpolated or determined by predicted bathymetry from satellite altimetry. Continuous acquisition of bathymetric data from an increasing fleet of research vessels equipped with multibeam sensors has increased the amount of available data and will do so in the future. In addition, due to the increased visibility of the project in the aftermath of the first version new collaborations with additional datasets have been established. Accordingly, the future of the project and a possible version 2.0 has been discussed during an IBCSO meeting at the 2014 SCAR conference in Auckland. We will present the results of IBCSO V1.0 and will give an outlook on the projects future.