ICEPRO: an international collaboration effort for improving paleoclimate research in the Southern Ocean

9th SCAR Open Science Conference and XXXVI SCAR Meetings. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. 31 July - 11 August 2020
The Southern Ocean (SO) is an active regulator of global climate through its influence on the modulation of the global ocean circulation, the phytoplankton productivity as well as nutrient cycles, the transfer of energy and gas between the ocean and the atmosphere, and sea level. Despite its importance, seasonal and sparse distribution of instrumental data across the SO prevent a robust assessment of the physical and biological response and feedback on future climate change. Paleoclimate data are therefore essential to document the natural variability of environmental conditions and identify their drivers from decadal-to-millennial timescales. However, in paleoclimate studies, several questions remain unaddressed due to the lack of robust proxy calibration. While some tools are better constrained than others, the mechanisms controlling them are not fully understood. A critical step to improve their use is to conduct a systematic multi-annual collection of samples and data throughout the SO. ICEPRO has been initiated to strengthen existing collaborations and creating new connections among several partners regularly crossing through different transects the SO and who have the opportunity to sample the water column and marine sediments spanning at least the last 2,000 years. Such collaborative work could therefore cover most of the important regions of the SO, thus allowing a better monitoring of modern environmental and hydrological conditions, and ultimately improve calibration of tools commonly used for paleoreconstructions. Here we aim to present ICEPRO, its first steps and results we obtained from the last Antarctic cruises as well as our future ambitions.