Abstract: Advice from Avian Influenza experts suggests that there is a high risk that Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza will arrive in the Southern Ocean 2022/23-2024/25 austral summers. Since the beginning of 2022, the increasing intensity of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 outbreaks has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere, around the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and southern Africa. The SCAR Antarctic Wildlife Health Working Group (AWHWG) is highly concerned about the likely arrival and subsequent impact HPAI H5N1 might have on Southern Ocean wildlife. Due to the heightened risk of HPAI being introduced to Antarctica during the the 2022/23 Austral summer by migrating seabirds, the AWHWG recommends that: People working with or close to wildlife should assume that HPAI will arrive in the sub-Antarctic and Antarctica and take precautions to protect themselves when working around wildlife (including appropriate PPE) and maintain the highest biosecurity to prevent transmission between wildlife aggregations. All National Programmes (NPs) and tourism operators should monitor colonies for signs of H5N1 before approaching, especially in migratory species such as skuas, gulls and giant petrels. Tourists should not enter colonies and high wildlife density areas with suspected HPAI and NPs should conduct risk analysis as to which activities need to continue. A more detailed protocol on how to assess wildlife aggregations for HPAI prior to a visit and what to do if HPAI is detected should be provided to all stakeholders physically present in Antarctica this season. If you detect signs of HPAI, you should report this to your permit issuer. Videos of affected animals are very helpful for experts to help determine whether or not this is HPAI. Operators should refresh themselves with and review all biosecurity and any response guidelines to unusual/mass mortality events. This document aims to: Outline the likely risk to Southern Ocean taxa (a more technical assessment will follow in a separate document). Suggest which risks can be mitigated in light of human activity, transmission into and out of Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic regions through all operators as well as movements between sites within the Southern Ocean (primarily for science and tourism), Start discussion with National Programmes about ongoing monitoring for disease and consequences.

Abstract: We present an event of simultaneous observations of the northern and southern middle-altitude polar cusps by the Polar spacecraft and Cluster fleet that occurred on 23 September 2004. We examine the possible asymmetries in the fields and plasma parameters, although the proximity of the equinox should limit these asymmetries. Ion sensors reveal two dispersions in both cusps, and data analysis leads to the conclusion that those dispersions are due to pulsed reconnection at a single X-line, which runs along the subsolar magnetopause. While the electromagnetic and particle energy fluxes injected in both cusp are globally very similar, we report significant differences in ion dispersions, width of the low-latitude boundary layer, and peak convection velocities. We ascribe these differences to the dipole tilt that introduces an asymmetry in the magnetosheath flow at the exterior cusps.

Abstract: We construct a new seismic model for central and West Antarctica by jointly inverting Rayleigh wave phase and group velocities along with P wave receiver functions. Ambient noise tomography exploiting data from more than 200 seismic stations deployed over the past 18 years is used to construct Rayleigh wave phase and group velocity dispersion maps. Comparison between the ambient noise phase velocity maps with those constructed using teleseismic earthquakes confirms the accuracy of both results. These maps, together with P receiver function waveforms, are used to construct a new 3-D shear velocity (Vs) model for the crust and uppermost mantle using a Bayesian Monte Carlo algorithm. The new 3-D seismic model shows the dichotomy of the tectonically active West Antarctica (WANT) and the stable and ancient East Antarctica (EANT). In WANT, the model exhibits a slow uppermost mantle along the Transantarctic Mountains (TAMs) front, interpreted as the thermal effect from Cenozoic rifting. Beneath the southern TAMs, the slow uppermost mantle extends horizontally beneath the traditionally recognized EANT, hypothesized to be associated with lithospheric delamination. Thin crust and lithosphere observed along the Amundsen Sea coast and extending into the interior suggest involvement of these areas in Cenozoic rifting. EANT, with its relatively thick and cold crust and lithosphere marked by high Vs, displays a slower Vs anomaly beneath the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains in the uppermost mantle, which we hypothesize may be the signature of a compositionally anomalous body, perhaps remnant from a continental collision.