Date

SCICEX 2000
1st Announcement

A WORKSHOP TO PLAN FOR SUBMARINE-BASED ARCTIC SCIENCE AFTER THE YEAR 2000, Airlie Conference Center, Warrenton, VA, October 6-8, 1998

Sponsored by: Office of Naval Research and National Science Foundation

Convenors: Drew Rothrock and Wieslaw Maslowski

A workshop entitled "SCICEX 2000" to provide the framework for coordinating an Arctic scientific program that makes unique use of U.S. Navy submarines in the next decade, will be held in Airlie Conference Center near Washington D.C., 6-8 October, 1998. The existing SCICEX (Scientific Ice Expeditions) program is scheduled to end after the last cruise in the spring of 1999. The two main objectives of this meeting are to assess accomplishements of the past SCICEX missions and to form a vision of what could be tackled and accomplished by a more coordinated program with a stable funding, should it be continued into the next decade. With regard to the latter objective white papers are being solicited before the workshop, in which submittors will describe an idea or plan for use of the submarine and the necessary sensor development.

The tentative agenda is as follows:

October 6 - Agency vision talks, four summary science talks,
and a poster session on past SCICEX results
October 7 - Working Groups discuss white papers for future
SCICEX studies, and formulate recommendations,
plenary session hears reports from Working Group
leaders
October 8 - Working Groups review their objectives; plenary
session to formulate cohesive recommendations.
Ajourn at noon.
October 9 - Organizing Committee works on report.

The working group discussions will be organized in five topic areas:

  1. Sea Ice
  2. Upper Ocean Structure and Circulation
  3. Biology and Chemistry
  4. Geology and Geophysics
  5. Operations and Instrument Development

Each working group will be chaired by two representatives of the organizing committee (one present or past SCICEX investigator and one from outside the program). The organizing committee will produce a Workshop Report that will outline long-term scientific goals and describe a coordinated approach to make use of the submarine as a unique observing platform.

A broad participation from the scientific community primarily in the U.S., but also in Canada, Europe, and Japan is invited. It is anticipated that representatives from the Navy (Arctic Submarine Laboratory, Navy operations, Navy engineering, captains of past SCICEX cruises) and from agencies (ONR, NSF, USGS, NOAA, NASA, and the Arctic Research Commission) will participate in this meeting.

More information about the SCICEX 2000 Workshop can be found at http://psc.apl.washington.edu/scicex/scicex2000.html. Please visit this website to register and/or to receive further information about the Workshop.

Signed for the Organizing Committee:

Drew Rothrock (rothrock [at] apl.washington.edu)
Wieslaw Maslowski (maslowsk [at] ucar.edu)