Seventeenth Annual WAIS Workshop
September 22 - 25, 2010
Lake Raystown Resort in Raystown, PA
The 2010 WAIS Workshop (WAIS '10) will take place in central Pennsylvania area, at the Lake Raystown Resort near State College, PA. This continuing series of workshops is the primary means for exchanging information and ideas pertinent to WAIS. They bring together the unique multidisciplinary community of Antarctic scientists that are pursuing the WAIS goals of understanding how rapid global climate changes occur and how the potentially unstable West Antarctic ice sheet may affect future sea level. You are cordially invited to attend.
The formal agenda will begin Thursday morning (September 23), and include oral talks and panel-led discussions of topics selected by the WAIS Working Group from the WAIS Science and Implementation Plan. There is a liberal amount of time for discussion and poster viewing - a characteristic that has made these workshops very effective for information exchange across disciplinary boundaries. More agenda details are provided below.
With the help of a supporting grant from NSF (National Science Foundation) and NASA, there will be a few additional distinguished scientists in attendance who are not actively involved in WAIS research, but are central figures in related activities. Their presence will help us put WAIS into a global context and will help WAIS become better known throughout the broader scientific community.
About Lake Raystown Resort
This is a private resort and conference center about 1 hour from State College, PA (airport code SCE; United to Washington Dulles, Northwest to Detroit, and USAir to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh). Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Baltimore-Washington International are 2-3 hours by car. For those of you arriving into State College airport on Wed, Sep 22nd, we will organize vans to transport you to the venue and to return you to the airport on Saturday. Others should reserve rental cars as there is no public transport.
Agenda
The agenda will be organized to alternate between oral presentations and posters. Oral presentations are limited to contributions on the following topics.
- "Waterworld" - How are the oceans affecting the ice sheets?
- "Matrix" – Are recent initiatives and advances in modeling sufficient to the task?
- "What Lies Beneath" – Do we know the base of the ice sheet well enough (or at all)?
- "Total Recall" – Do we know enough about the past to constrain the future?
- "Through a Glass, Darkly" – Are we making the right observations? What is the current state of the Cryosphere?
These topics will be addressed during the workshop. Following each set of oral presentations, a panel will lead the audience in a discussion to probe more deeply our current understanding of the specific topic. This format has proven very effective in past workshops.
Poster presentations can be on any WAIS topic and will be the focus during the many extended breaks. Posters will be on display throughout the workshop in a room near the main meeting room.
Concluding the meeting will be a discussion of our progress toward, and understanding of, our goals. We will also hear from our distinguished guests and discuss whether and how WAIS should proceed over the next year. The workshop is scheduled to end by Saturday's lunch.
Abstracts are due and registration closes August 16, 2010. This will give the organizers time to make rooming assignments and establish the agenda. Both will be viewable on-line at this web site along with the full text of each abstract. A printed copy of the abstracts will be distributed to each attendee at the workshop.
More information about the 2010 meeting was available from the Penn State Earth and Environmental Systems Web site.