Ice scientists set priority

Press, 28 September 1988, Page 50

Ice scientists set priority

NZPA-AAP Hobart The International scientific community will formally adopt a programme focusing Antarctic research on the global impact of the greenhouse effect and the Earth’s diminishing ozone layer. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (S.C.A.R.), which is meeting in Hobart, said scientists had agreed in principle to the International Geosphere and Biosphere Programme and were expected to adopt it at the S.C.A.R. meeting. Professor Gunther Weller, chairman of S.C.A.R.’s steering committee on the programme, told a news conference the programme would make the study of global change at the Antarctic one of S.C.A.R.’s main objectives over the next 10 years. The programme would emphasise research into such causes of climate change as the greenhouse

effect — the warming of Earth’s atmosphere by accumulation of mostly man-made gases in the atmosphere — and changes in the ozone layer. "The Antarctic is actively involved in the shaping of global climate,” Professor Weller said. For example, he said, the world’s climate was affected by the extent or “disappearance” of sea ice in the Antarctic and by. the melting of the frozen continent’s sheet ice. The programme also would focus research on reconstructing the Antarctic’s climatic history and assessing the effect • of climate change on plants and animals in the region. “If you want to detect change you go to the polar regions,” Professor Weller said. If the entire Antarctic ice sheet melted, he said, seas would rise by 60m. .