The Southern Ocean is a critical component of the global climate system.  The Southern Ocean controls to a large extent the uptake of human generated heat and carbon into the ocean. Yet, we are currently observing critical changes in the Southern Ocean that are seen in the record low levels of sea-ice extent, record high temperatures and dramatic shifts in penguin populations, among other striking changes. The chronic lack of observations for the Southern Ocean challenges our ability to detect and assess the consequences of change. As such, it is more pressing than ever to have a sustained and coordinated Southern Ocean observing system to provide an understanding of current conditions, inform predictions of future states, and support policies and regulations for the benefit of society. 

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JCIOI held its first workshop in October 2022, aiming to: 

(1) identify critical knowledge gaps surrounding processes that govern ocean-driven melt of ice sheets across a range of spatio-temporal scales; 

(2) identify options to address these knowledge gaps through observing, parameterizing, and modeling ice-ocean interactions, and their impacts on ice mass loss and ocean dynamics; and 

(3) bring together the community interested in ice-ocean interactions.

We have now published a report, summarising the solicited talks, and defining key future research directions in ice-ocean interactions research based on the talks and the following discussions. The report can be downloaded here, and cited as:

McCormack, F., Cook, S., Phillips, S., Adusumilli, S., Hattermann, T., Nakayama, Y., Nias, I., Seroussi, H., Slater, D., Begeman, C., Goldberg, D., Jackson, R., Jenkins, A., Jourdain, N., Rosevear, M., Vaňková, I., & Wåhlin, A. (2023). Ice-Ocean Melt: Future Research Directions. Report on the 1st JCIOI workshop on ice-ocean interaction, 17-19t. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7960675