Untangling the influence of Antarctic and Southern Ocean life on clouds

18 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2022.00130

Polar environments are among the fastest changing regions on the planet. It is a crucial time to make significant improvements in our understanding of how ocean and ice biogeochemical processes are linked with the atmosphere. This is especially true over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean where observations are severely limited and the environment is far from anthropogenic influences. In this commentary, we outline major gaps in our knowledge, emerging research priorities, and upcoming opportunities and needs. We then give an overview of the large-scale measurement campaigns planned across Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the next 5 years that will address the key issues. Until we do this, climate models will likely continue to exhibit biases in the simulated energy balance over this delicate region. Addressing these issues will require an international and interdisciplinary approach which we hope to foster and facilitate with ongoing community activities and collaborations

This project received grant funding from the Australian Government as part of the Antarctic Science Collaboration Initiative program, under the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, ASCI000002. HA received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 200021_188478). JS holds the Ingvar Kamprad Chair for Extreme Environments Research funded by Ferring Pharmaceuticals. KS received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 771369). VHLW was supported by a Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship administered by the Royal Society Te Apārangi (contract: RFT-VUW1801-PD

With the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S)

Peer reviewed