Program Topic:
Our March 17th meeting features Stephen Ackley from UTSA who will describe his work in Antarctica on Ice Station Weddell. His presentation will focus on expedition logistics and difficulties encountered to live and work with modern instrumentation in the polar environment, and will end with a summary of the scientific achievements of Ice Station Weddell.

The Antarctic sea ice station was a cooperative program between the US and Russia. It spanned the same area of the Weddell Sea in which Ernest Shackleton’s 1917 expedition aboard the vessel Endurance had been trapped and crushed in the ice. Modern efforts to access the area by vessel to conduct scientific studies of the ocean, atmosphere, sea ice and ecosystem had not been possible due to the thickness and compactness of the ice, so Ice Station Wedell provided the first measurements of these conditions in the modern era. The significance of the area is its linkages to world problems of climate, ocean circulation, and polar ecosystems, previously unmeasured.

About our Presenter:
Stephen Ackley has been the leader of modern Antarctic sea ice research since its inception in the 1970’s. Currently Associate Professor of Research, Earth and Planetary Sciences at UTSA, he served as sea ice geophysicist at the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) for approximately 30 years, including twelve research cruises into the Antarctic sea ice zone and on the first Antarctic sea ice drifting station, Ice Station Weddell (1992). Since his arrival at UTSA, students and faculty have participated in over 10 expeditions to the Arctic, Antarctic, and a Mexican glacier under his leadership. Prof. Ackley co-authored the monograph “The Growth, Structure, and Properties of Sea Ice” in the text “The Geophysics of Sea Ice”, which is used internationally by students of Polar Marine Sciences.

Prof. Ackley received a B.S. in Engineering Physics from Cornell University. He is a National Science Foundation Antarctic Service Medal awardee, and Ackley Point at Ross Island, Antarctica, was named by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names in honor of his outstanding sea ice research. He was awarded the 2022 Medal for International Coordination by the International Science Council Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, for his major contributions to Antarctic sea ice research. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2023.

For more information:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-5352-0_2
https://www.iahr.org/individual-member/user?member_no=18084