Neutrinos are ethereal particles which are extremely difficult to detect. They have a high abundance in the universe (around a trillion neutrinos pass through the average person every second), but having masses less than a millionth that of an electron and only interacting via the weak force and gravity, their probability of interaction is very small. In fact, neutrinos can pass through the entire diameter of the earth without interaction! So how one can observe and study these ethereal particles at all in terrestrial experiments? The solution is to construct a detector that is made up of as large a volume of material as possible and to produce neutrino beams with incredibly intense flux. Such facilities are operational and exciting new facilities are planned. For example, in the Deep underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) under construction, neutrinos produced at Fermilab will pass 800 miles through the earths mantle to another laboratory in Sanford, where detectors comprise 40 tonnes of liquid Argon! The rare interactions of neutrinos in detectors are obtained by examining the reaction products produced (usually with detection of a knocked-out proton) when a neutrino interacts with an atomic nucleus. The energy of the neutrino that produced the reaction is then inferred by nuclear reaction theoretical models. The problems stem from the fact that the atomic nuclei used for this purpose need to be large in order to get enough neutrino induced events; for example the Argon at Dune has 40 protons and neutrons in it's nucleus. A large nucleus is a very complicated object and the modelling of the reaction processes is very difficult with lots of outstanding questions: Can we suppress events where the knocked out nucleon scattered on it's way out of the nucleus? How well can we suppress contributions where the neutrino is absorbed on more than one nucleon and we only detect one? Producing a pion from a nucleon has a similar probability to knockout, but how well can we suppress these erroneous events in the experimental data? Can we get rid of processes where a pion (or pions) are initially produced in the nucleus and then reabsorbed to knock out nucleons? What about if we excite a nucleon in the reaction mechanism, and how do such excited nucleons behave in the nucleus? These are merely a small set of outstanding questions that directly impact the determination of the incident neutrino energy and flux. In our programme we will use an analogous reaction to the neutrino-nucleus interactions: we will scatter electrons off the nuclei rather than neutrinos. This has the advantage that we get many orders of magnitude more events to test the models and very importantly, in a controlled way! By knowing the incident electron energy, all the assumptions in getting from nuclear fragments to the beam energy for a whole host of reactions and a wide range of nuclei becomes accessible. This data set is urgently needed to reduce errors in the theoretical modelling; these errors typically produce the largest systematic error for the neutrino experiments. By using common theoretical models for the neutrino- and electron-induced reactions we can challenge the models and improve the modelling of various processes at a level of details that was previously impossible. This then reduces significantly any systematic errors in extracting physics from the next generation neutrino facilities. Progress requires a major programme of analysis of existing, as well as planned electron scattering experiments from nuclei with complex detector systems at Jefferson Laboratory (USA). We will construct a new analysis framework, which will be used to analyse and archive data in a form that makes it readily accessible and flexible for use by nuclear and particle communities for decades to come. The work will be carried out as part of a new collaborative network including colleagues at MIT, ODU, Jefferson Lab and Tel Aviv University.

Iron is an essential nutrient for the growth of phytoplankton in the oceans. As such, iron plays key roles in regulating marine primary production and the cycling of carbon. It is thus important that models of ocean biology and chemistry consider iron, in order to explore past, present and future variations in marine productivity and the role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle. In this joint project involving researchers in the U.S. and the U.K., supported by both NSF and the Natural Environment Research Council (U.K.), field data from the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) region will be combined with an established, state-of-the-art ocean biogeochemical model. By leveraging the known seasonal-scale physical, chemical and biological changes in the BATS region, the oceanographic context provided by the BATS core data, and an existing model of the regional physical circulation, the proposed study will yield process-related information that is of general applicability to the open ocean. In particular, the proposed research will focus on understanding the atmospheric input, biological uptake, regeneration and scavenging removal of dissolved iron in the oceanic water column, which have emerged as major uncertainties in the ocean iron cycle. The project will include significant educational and training contributions at the K-12, undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral levels, as well as public outreach efforts that aim to explain the research and its importance. The ability of ocean models to simulate iron remains crude, owing to an insufficient understanding of the mechanisms that drive variability in dissolved iron, particularly the involvement of iron-binding ligands, colloids and particles in the surface input, biological uptake, regeneration and scavenging of dissolved iron in the upper ocean. Basin-scale data produced by the GEOTRACES program provide an important resource for testing and improving models and, by extension, our mechanistic understanding of the ocean iron cycle. However such data provide only quasi-synoptic 'snapshots', which limits their utility in isolating and identifying the processes that control dissolved iron in the upper ocean. The proposed research aims to provide mechanistic insight into these governing processes by combining time-series data from the BATS region with numerical modeling experiments. Specifically, seasonally resolved data on the vertical (upper 2,000 meters) and lateral (tens of kilometers) distributions of particulate, dissolved, colloidal, soluble and ligand-bound iron species will be obtained from the chemical analysis of water column samples collected during five cruises, spanning a full annual cycle, shared with the monthly BATS program cruises. These data, along with ancillary data from the BATS program, will be used to test and inform numerical modeling experiments, and thus derive an improved understanding of the mechanisms that control the distribution and dynamics of dissolved iron in the oceanic water column.

The Southern Ocean has a unique and iconic ecosystem. It includes vast reserves of krill which could potentially replace dwindling fish catches elsewhere. It helps stabilise the global climate by absorbing greenhouse gases and it supplies some of the key nutrients which sustain life in other oceans. These functions emphasize the crucial role of the Southern Ocean ecosystem in the workings of the Earth as a whole. There is strong evidence that risk posed by climate change is more severe and imminent for the Southern Ocean ecosystem than almost any other marine ecosystem. This threatens the ecosystem's ability to deliver the benefits described above. Assessment of the Southern Ocean ecosystem's likely responses to change is required to support the management and protection of the benefits it provides. This requires an international effort to bring together scientists with expertise on ecosystems, climate and biogeochemistry (i.e. how nutrients and other chemicals move through the oceans, atmosphere and living things). Knowledge about individual regions must be integrated to explain processes operating at the "circumpolar" scale of the entire ocean. BAS scientists have played a major role in developing the Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics in the Southern Ocean (ICED) programme which has begun to coordinate and focus this expertise. We are requesting funding to capitalise on the current progress and lead the implementation phase of ICED, under two main objectives: (1) To lead, coordinate and support key ICED community activities identified in the ICED Science Plan and Implementation Strategy (2) To develop the scientific basis for projecting the likely response of Southern Ocean ecosystems to plausible scenarios of environmental change and so generate high impact outputs to feed into global assessments. Addressing the first objective will involve: coordination and communication between different science strands and national programmes; coordination of scientific activities; expanding the network of researchers; pursuing funding opportunities; programme support and liaison with the International Programme Office of IMBER (Integrating Marine Biogeochemical and Ecosystems Research), the global programme which ICED is a part of; and developing closer coordination with other key international bodies. Activities addressing the second objective will be based around two scientific workshops. The first will mainly be coordinated and funded through international partners on behalf of ICED. It will assess the state of knowledge on environmental change and biological responses, and produce initial projections of the biological response to climate change. The second workshop, for which we are requesting part funding, will evaluate the results of ongoing efforts to predict how the structure of food webs responds to change and produce projections of how food webs might change in future. These workshops should lead to high impact academic outputs. Together with associated activities within ICED they will help to ensure that the Southern Ocean ecosystem's response to change is given due consideration by the IPCC, in the policy outputs of the International Polar Year and in developing sustainable fisheries management. We are at a critical point in the development of ICED, where we need to maintain momentum. The requested funding will allow NERC to take a lead role in implementing the ICED programme and coordinating international contributions. The activities outlined here will strengthen and facilitate the international collaboration necessary to fully address the significant challenge of integrating Southern Ocean ecosystem, climate and biogeochemical research. This will ensure progress towards an integrated, understanding of the structure and function of the Southern Ocean, its response to change and its importance to the Earth as a whole and to mankind.

Carbon is one of the essential elements required for life to exist, alongside energy and liquid water. In contrast to other parts of the Earth's biosphere, cycling of carbon compounds beneath glaciers and ice sheets is poorly understood, since these environments were believed to be devoid of life until recently. Significant populations of micro-organisms have recently been found beneath ice masses (Sharp et al., 1999; Skidmore et al., 2000; Foght et al., 2004). Evidence shows that, as in other watery environments on Earth, these sub-ice microbes are able to process a variety of carbon forms over a range of conditions, producing greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and CH4 (Skidmore et al., 2000). Almost nothing is known about 1) the range of carbon compounds available to microbes beneath ice, 2) the degree to which they can be used as food by microbes and 3) the rates of utilisation and the full spectrum of products (e.g. gases). This information is important for understanding the global carbon cycle on Earth. The fate of large amounts of organic carbon during the advance of the glaciers over the boreal forest during the last ice age (Van Campo et al., 1993), for example, is unknown and is likely to depend fundamentally on microbial processes in sub-ice environments. Current models of Earth's global carbon cycle assume this carbon is 'lost' from the Earth's system (Adarns et al., 1990; Van Campo et al., 1993; Francois et al., 1999). The possibility that it is used by subglacial microbes and converted to CO2 and CH4 has not been considered. This may have potential for explaining variations in Earth's atmospheric greenhouse gas composition over the last 2 million years. Sub-glacial environments lacking a modern carbon supply (e.g. trees, microbial cells) may represent ideal model systems for icy habitats on other terrestrial planets (e.g. Mars and Jupiter moons; Clifford, 1987; Pathare et al. 1998; Kivelson et al. 2000), and may be used to help determine whether life is possible in these more extreme systems.

Imagine that the ocean is like a large gin and tonic. When you add ice to the drink, the level in the glass goes up. When the lump of ice melts, the level in the glass doesn't change, because the ice is floating. When ice that is currently resting on land in Antarctica goes into the sea, either as an iceberg or as meltwater, the sea level all over the world goes up. It used to be thought that the same amount of water went back to the Antarctic as snowfall, to compensate for the icebergs and meltwater, so the whole system was in balance. But some glaciers in the Antarctic (and Greenland) seem to be melting at a faster rate than they are being replaced. So the total amount of ice is getting smaller, because more of that water is in the ocean, adding to sea level rise. This is worrying, because we don't really know why this is happening, and if we can't understand why, it's difficult to predict whether future sea level will carry on increasing at a faster and faster rate, or whether it will slow down or go back to equilibrium. Governments planning sea level defences in low-lying areas for the next decades need to have a more certain prediction of likely levels. That means that the big computer models that they use to forecast future climates need to have even better and more complex physics than they do already. So, what can scientists do to find out why the ice is melting? When the glaciers finally reach the sea, they float on the seawater, as an ice shelf. One suggestion is that the ocean is providing more heat to melt the ice than it used to do. Even though the ocean isn't that warm in the Antarctic, it is a few degrees above freezing, and if it washes underneath the ice shelves it can give up a lot of heat. What we plan to do in this project is to go to one of the fastest melting glaciers, the Pine Island Glacier in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica. This is one of the most remote parts of our planet - imagine going to the Pacific Ocean and then heading south until you meet Antarctica. We will put some instruments in the water near the ice shelf, to see how and why the warm ocean water gets close to the ice. Is it the wind that forces the water there? Is it waves going round the Antarctic continent? Does the water get channelled up troughs in the sea floor gouged by glaciers thousands of years ago? We plan to use some novel equipment in the Antarctic, such as gluing tiny sensors onto elephant seals' fur. The seals will remain in the area over winter, long after we've gone back home. Their sensors will send back information about the seals' habitat - for example the temperature and the saltiness. This is useful for us because we can't get observations in the wintertime any other way because the area is covered in sea ice. And it's good for the seals because it will help our biologist colleagues to better understand how vulnerable the elephant seals might be to climate change. We'll also put in the water a mechanical version of a seal, called a Seaglider. This goes up and down in the water making measurements as it goes, and much like the seal sensors, it will communicate when it's at the surface using mobile phone. While we're there with the ship, we'll make lots of measurements of the temperature and saltiness of the water, how fast it's going, and how mixed up it is. Looking at all these data sets together should give us a better understanding of how the heat is getting to the glacier. One of the important tools will be a variety of computer models. These will range from all-singing, all-dancing climate models, that try to include ice, ocean and atmosphere all interacting, to much simpler models that test our understanding of the physics at play. The final result of the work we plan to do should be better climate models to predict future sea levels.