IMCONet is an international Research Network that follows an interdisciplinary approach to understand the consequences of Climate Change in coastal Western Antarctica. A Network for Staff Exchange and Training, IMCONet is funded by the Marie Curie Action IRSES (International Research Staff Exchange Scheme) of the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union. The activity brings European, South American and US scientists together to advance climate and (eco-) system change research at the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), a region of recent rapid aerial warming.

IMCONet objectives are

  • to develop predictive climate change and ecosystem models for the whole WAP coastal environment based on existing data sets and data exchange policies;
  • transfer of knowledge between partner countries to enhance collaboration with high quality long-term measuring programs at all 3 stations, to fill present measuring gaps.

 

IMCONet is the follow-up of the ESF PolarCLIMATE activity IMCOAST, an international research activity that investigated climate change and glacier melting effects on coastal ecosystems at Potter Cove and in Admiralty Bay on King-George Island (Isla 25 de Mayo) in the northern WAP region. Data were generated for different ecosystem compartments (glaciers, coastal run-off and sediment biogeochemistry, pelagic and benthic coastal systems) by interdisciplinary multi-national teams collaborating mainly on-site.

 

IMCONet Web Viewer

The Potter Cove and Potter Peninsula WebGIS is an interactive map to present the data collected during the IMCOAST/IMCONet Project (2008-2017). This map viewer includes information layers of small-scale datasets, like sites of CTD measurements, biological, sedimentological and geochemical sampling as well as sites where videos have been taken (point data sets). A contour data set symbolizes the retreat of the glacier front and raster data sets show bathymetry data and derivatives, like morphology, slope and more.

The data reference (e.g. investigator, methods, related publication) can be accessed via the ‘metadata and additional information’ tab in the lower left corner of the Viewer Window. A link is leading you directly to the dataset downloadable from PANGAEA database, respectively to the according publications. Apart from being able to inspect the data interactively, we are aiming to enable as soon as possible spatial or attributional queries as well as online facilities to download data in a GIS-compatible format.

The IMCONet Web Viewer is now available here.

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News

Ricardo Sahade and colleagues from the University of Cordoba in Argentina published a first comprehensive data set from repeat surveys of the Potter Cove benthic communities in Science Advances in November 2015.


The Cordoba team performed camera surveys and dives in three stations in different distances from the glacier between 1994 and 2010.  A group of young researchers was involved in analyzing different species groups and taxa. The data were related to sedimentation rates obtained from core analyses in Potter Cove surface sediments by Patrick Monien from the University of Oldenburg (ICBM).  Fernando Momo from UNGS (Buenos Aires) has been involved in the modeling part of the study that relates the shifts in benthic biodiversity to the effect of glacial sediment deposition in Potter Cove. The paper is the first to presents a full analysis of systemic turning points in the context of climate warming driven glacier melting in an Antarctic coastal ecosystem. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500050

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This project is funded by the European Union.