Reviews and syntheses: A framework to observe, understand and project ecosystem response to environmental change in the East Antarctic Southern Ocean

• Published in: Biogeosciences
• Main Authors: Gutt, Julian, Arndt, Stefanie, Barnes, David K.A., Bornemann, Horst, Brey, Thomas, Eisen, Olaf, Flores, Hauke, Griffiths, Huw J., Haas, Christian, Hain, Stefan, Hattermann, Tore, Held, Christoph, Hoppema, Mario, Isla, Enrique, Janout, Markus, Le Bohec, Céline, Link, Heike, Mark, Felix Christopher, Moreau, Sebastien, Trimborn, Scarlett, Van Opzeeland, Ilse C., Pörtner, Hans-Otto, Schaafsma, Fokje, Teschke, Katharina, Tippenhauer, Sandra, Van de Putte, Anton, Wege, Mia, Zitterbart, Daniel, Piepenburg, Dieter
• Other Authors: German Research Foundation, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (Germany), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: European Geosciences Union 2022
• Subjects: http://metadata.un.org/sdg/13; Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; Weddell Sea; Dronning Maud Land; Weddell; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/287028; https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-5313-2022; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003207; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659

Special issue The Weddell Sea and the ocean off Dronning Maud Land: unique oceanographic conditions shape circumpolar and global processes – a multi-disciplinary study (OS/BG/TC inter-journal SI).-- 30 pages, 5 figures.-- Data availability: The data (sets) used for the illustrations in some figures are referenced in the figure captions: bathymetry (water depth) in Fig. 1 (Dorschel et al., 2022); bathymetry in Figs. 2a and 3 (Arndt et al., 2013); and sea ice, chlorophyll, and temperature in Fig. 4 (Lavergne et al., 2019, and http://oceandata.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/, last access: 23 August 2022). No addition data sets were used in this publication Systematic long-term studies on ecosystem dynamics are largely lacking from the East Antarctic Southern Ocean, although it is well recognized that they are indispensable to identify the ecological impacts and risks of environmental change. Here, we present a framework for establishing a long-term cross-disciplinary study on decadal timescales. We argue that the eastern Weddell Sea and the adjacent sea to the east, off Dronning Maud Land, is a particularly well suited area for such a study, since it is based on findings from previous expeditions to this region. Moreover, since climate and environmental change have so far been comparatively muted in this area, as in the eastern Antarctic in general, a systematic long-term study of its environmental and ecological state can provide a baseline of the current situation, which will be important for an assessment of future changes from their very onset, with consistent and comparable time series data underpinning and testing models and their projections. By establishing an Integrated East Antarctic Marine Research (IEAMaR) observatory, long-term changes in ocean dynamics, geochemistry, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions and services will be systematically explored and mapped through regular autonomous and ship-based synoptic surveys. An associated long-term ecological research (LTER) programme, including experimental and ...