Dear OCB Colleagues,
We encourage you to submit an abstract to our session (#115) at the Ocean Sciences 2012 meeting titled "Western Antarctic Ocean Ecosystems: Chemical, Physical, and Biological Connections".  The abstract submission deadline is 23:59 pm Central Daylight Time on 7 October 2011.  Abstract submission and registration deadlines can be found at: http://www.sgmeet.com/osm2012/.

Thank you for your consideration, 

Matt Mills, Ken Mankoff, Ted Maksym

115: Western Antarctic Ocean Ecosystems: Chemical, Physical, and Biological Connections
Organizers: Matthew M. Mills, Stanford University, mmmills@stanford.edu; Ken Mankoff, University of California at Santa Cruz, kdmankof@ucsc.edu; Ted Maksym, British Antarctic Survey, emak@bas.ac.uk

The rapidly changing environment along the western Antarctic continental shelf has generated a plethora of recent research activity. The Amundsen Sea sector has some of Antarctica's most rapidly thinning and accelerating glaciers, such as the Pine Island and Thwaites, which dynamically interact with coastal polynyas. The Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing some of the largest temperature changes on the planet. Additionally, the western Antarctic shelf is an area of high biological productivity. For example, the Amundsen and Pine Island polynyas regularly attain the highest chlorophyll concentrations and integrated rates of primary productivity of all Antarctic polynyas. However, we still have little understanding of the physical and chemical mechanisms that drive the high biological production here and our understanding of the spatial and temporal variability of these mechanisms and processes is limited. The proposed session invites presentations on the current state of knowledge concerning the physical and chemical environment within the Western Antarctic Seas and their coupling to the biological productivity of the region. Contributions addressing the circulation of circumpolar deepwater on the continental shelf, glacial ice and meltwater impacts on polynya chemistry, physics and biology, sea ice dynamics, or that make specific reference to multiple timescales and/or cross disciplinary boundaries (e.g. observations vs. modeling), are particularly encouraged.

Matthew Mills
Department of Environmental Earth System Science
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
mmmills@stanford.edu
Tel: (650) 736 0688
Fax: (650) 725 7344

Mailing address:
Geophysics, Mitchell Bldg.
397 Panama Mall, Room 360
Stanford, CA 94305-2215