Jane Higgins

PhD Student, Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, Australia

As a result of suffering the ‘empty nest syndrome’, Jane decided to fill her life up by going back to University. In 1996 she commenced a part-time Bachelor of Information Systems completing it in 2001. She followed that with a Bachelor of Antarctic Studies (Hons) in 2002. Jane commenced her PhD in 2003 and is supervised by Kelvin Michael of IASOS and Rob Massom of ACE CRC. Jane’s PhD project is titled Mapping UV Radiation in the East Antarctic Sea Ice Zone.

Stratospheric ozone concentrations over Antarctica have declined to as little as 26% of pre-hole values during austral spring and depletion persists over summer. Depletion of stratospheric ozone increases incident short wavelength, high energy, biologically damaging, UVB (280-320 nm) that reaches the Earth’s surface. The ratios of UVB to both UVA (320-400 nm) and PAR (400-750 nm) also increase.

This enhancement of UVB coincides with the period of greatest biological production in Antarctic waters and the evidence that UVB radiation can damage plankton is overwhelming. These organisms form the base of the Antarctic food web and are principal determinants of carbon dynamics in marine planktonic systems.
The aim of this project is to create satellite-derived maps of levels of UVB radiation in the East Antarctic Sea Ice Zone (55-70o S, 60-170o E) and from those maps to derive estimates of the potential damage to the marine biota of the region.

Satellite data from various sources will be used to model UVB radiation at the surface. Field radiation measurements will allow the model to be extended to the upper layers of the ice-covered waters and at the base of the sea ice itself.

The final component of the modelling is to interpret the levels of UV radiation in the various water and sea ice environments in terms of biologically effective doses.