Filchner Ronne Ice Shelf Programme Report No 12 (1998)

• Main Author: Unknown
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research 1998
• Subjects: Earth Science; Earth sciences and geology; Antarctic; Weddell Sea; Weddell; Ronne Ice Shelf; Kohnen; Berkner Island; Filchner-Ronne-Schelfeis; Alfred Wegener Institute; Antarc*; British Antarctic Survey; Filchner Ronne Ice Shelf; Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves; Iceberg*; Schelfeis*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.2312/frisp_12; https://www.tib.eu/suchen/id/awi:57e94ed68ea440870b3c0210d25aa5ca3d7b3bf6

The 13th International Workshop of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf Programme (FRISP) was held in Germany at Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar und Marine Research (AWI) at Bremerhaven on 22nd-23rd June 1998. We are grateful to Prof. Miller and his colleagues for hosting the workshop and organising it in an excellent manner. In total 30 participants from Chile, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the USA came together. One highlight of the 1997/98 Antarctic season was the ROPEX98 cruise with HMS Endurance. Indeed, during this season sea ice conditions had been very favourable in the Southern Weddell Sea for this experiment. The FRISP Report No. 12 combines 12 extended summaries of in total 15 talks and 4 posters which were presented at the workshop. The papers collected in this volume present a good overview of the latest state of FRISP and the co-operation between the participating groups. Oceanography and the ice-shelf ocean interaction is still one of the major topics. Radar and GPS measurements were done in various areas, especially in grounding zone areas of ice shelves to describe the flow regime of ice streams. The work on the Berkner Island ice cores showed more interesting results yielding in a 80- year tritium record. While this report was edited, a large calving event happened on Ronne ice shelf. On October 13th BAS detected at first the calving of iceberg A38, as it was named later by the US National lee Center. At the beginning the ice berg had an overall length of approximately 140 km and a width of 40 km. On October 22nd, 1998 the large iceberg broke into pieces. The western half was then named A-38B, the eastern part A-38A. A-38B hosts the German Filchner summer station, which drifts further to the North. The loss of the Filchner station will change the German plans for field work on the Filchner-Ronne-Schelfeis for the 1998/99 field season and will also influence the German research plans in this area in the future. Disintegration of ice shelves certainly will become a major topic for ice shelf research British Antarctic Survey offered to hast the 14th FRISP workshop in mid June 1998 at Cambridge. Due to some technical problems we had to make a new front cover. I chose a picture similar to the old picture once taken by Heinz Kohnen. The edge of an ice shelf looks very much like the edge of a tabular iceberg. So both stability and break up of ice shelves are symbolised in this picture. How to continue with the FRISP workshops? Shall we continue in the old tradition, or has the time come to make larger changes? We should discuss this during the next FRISP workshop at Cambridge and within the SCAR Working Group of Glaciology. It is gratefully acknowledged that once more Alfred-Wegener-Institute covers the expenses for printing this report.