Annual report 2005-06.indd - Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems ...

executive summaryResearch by the ACE CRC and its partners in2005-06 continued to produce some surprisingand exciting results that are altering ourunderstanding of global climate systems andthe mechanisms by which they are likely tochange. Oceanographic surveys of the SouthernOcean revealed widespread and rapid changes inbottom water properties to the south of Australiaand in the Indian Ocean. These changesare larger and have occurred more quicklythan expected and indicate that global oceancirculation can change more rapidly than thoughtpreviously.Researchers in the ACE CRC Sea-level RiseProgram discovered two particularly importantfeatures of sea-level dynamics that are changingthe way we consider the implications of climatechange for sea levels and coastal impacts. First,our researchers found that the rate at which sealevel has been rising over the last 150 years orso, after a long period of stasis, is accelerating.This discovery will significantly changeprojections of future sea level. Second, we wereable to demonstrate that volcanic eruptions havesignificant ‘damping’ effects on sea-level riseand we need to take those effects into accountwhen estimating sea-level rise to avoid underestimatingthe likely changes over medium tolong term timescales.The global carbon cycle is central to thediscussion of climate change because muchof the anthropogenic impact on climate isvia carbon emissions and their inputs to theatmospheric component of the global carbonbudget. The Southern Ocean plays a particularlyimportant role in buffering the accumulationof carbon in the atmosphere through uptakeof carbon dioxide into the global oceans. Workin our Ocean Control of Carbon DioxideProgram in the last year made significantinroads into resolving some of the key limitationson that buffering capacity and understandinghow natural variations in some limiting factors,such as the availability of dissolved iron tooceanic plants, alter the ocean draw-down ofcarbon from the atmosphere.Linking physical environmental research andbiological or ecological research explicitly oftenproves difficult because of significant disciplinarydifferences in the methods of research. One ofour important internal achievements in 2005was the realisation of explicit links among ourbiological, physical and chemical research fromfield operations right through to analyses andpublication. In particular, we completed one ofour major research voyages in which we relateda range of biological observations, coveringplants and animals from microscopic plankton tokrill and right up to seabirds and whales, to dataon physical oceanography over more than 50degrees of longitude from around the Antarcticmargin and up in to the Southern Ocean. Thiswork will provide major insights into the factorsthat regulate krill populations and the animalsthat depend on them off East Antarctica, aswell as providing important oceanographicinformation from a part of the world that is keyto the world’s ocean circulation.The ACE CRC Policy Program hosted anothersuccessful forum in Canberra that broughttogether researchers from our science programsand staff from 17 government departmentsand agencies to discuss the latest results of ourresearch and how to make best use of them inthe formulation of national policies on a widerange of climate and ocean related issues. Thisforum was focused on linking the work we do inand around Antarctica and the Southern Oceanwith our understanding of modern climatechange and its impacts around the Australiancoast and in the tropical Pacific. Many peopledon’t realise that our knowledge of climatechange and its impacts is built on researchdone in the far South. Part of our purpose in theACE CRC research and policy fora is to clarifythose links and improve understanding of theirimportance to Australia and globally.Delivering national benefit from research isa key platform of the CRC Programme. TheACE CRC’s Commercialisation & Utilisation Plan(C&UP), that detailed just how this CRC woulddo so, received formal approval from DEST atAntarctic Climate & Ecosystems CRC - Annual Report 2005-06 5