The biennial SCAR meetings are an opportunity for subsidiary groups and partners to meet and conduct their business. For some groups this provides the time to develop and produce reports for the Delegates Meeting which follows. Business can include, but is not limited to, sub-group progress reports (e.g., Action Groups and Expert Groups), creation and termination of sub-groups, reports of affiliated programmes/projects (e.eg., Scientific Research Programmes, partnering programmes), planning for future activities (e.g., Scientific Research Programme Planning groups, workshops, symposia, and conferences), budgeting, and leadership elections, if appropriate.
Business Meetings SCAR 2024
The business meetings will mainly take place in the facilities of the Universidad de La Frontera and in the Gran Hotel Enjoy.
The schedule for the Science Group Business Meetings (Wednesday, 21 August 2024) is available here and listed below. The plenary session plenary will concentrate on the SRPs in the first block (09:00-11:00), followed by a block (11:30-13:00) highlighting the Standing Committees and co-sponsored Groups. The Science Group business meetings will be held in the Gran Hotel Enjoy.
Select event descriptions
Bunger Hills – An oasis for collaborations (24 August)
Organised by: Tobias Stål (University of Tasmania, Australia), Adam Nawrot (Polish Academy of Sciences)
Bunger Hills, situated in East Antarctica adjacent to the Denman Glacier and Shackleton Ice Shelf, stands as a pivotal area for understanding the East Antarctic response to our changing climate. With its unique geography, Bunger Hills itself also offers a fertile ground for research across various disciplines.
Currently, Antarctic programs from Australia, Poland, and Russia maintain infrastructure within Bunger Hills. In addition, recent years have seen an increase in fieldwork activities, attracting participation from a diverse group of nations.
This side meeting aims to bring together minds eager to shape the scientific direction of Bunger Hills for the coming decade. This session is a call to discuss future scientific objectives, explore potential collaborations, and share interests in supporting data collection and logistical efforts.
We invite you to join us in this pivotal discussion, contributing to the formulation of a collaborative scientific agenda.
RINGS Workshop on survey planning in Peninsula (18 August)
Convenor: Kenichi Matsuoka (Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI))
Note: Please register in advance to help the meeting chairs determine the number of people attending the workshop.
The SCAR Action Group Antarctic RINGS aims to conduct circum-Antarctic airborne surveys to fill critical data gaps in bed topography at the ice sheet margin, improving estimates of Antarctica’s contribution to current and future global sea-level change. While the Action Group does not conduct surveys itself, it facilitates cross-border collaborations and coordinates multiple regional surveys to create comprehensive, gap-free datasets as the final product. This workshop focuses on survey planning in the Antarctic Peninsula. We welcome both experienced and new participants in the region to share their knowledge, develop scientific interests, and learn lessons from other areas. This workshop is open to all; both Action Group members and non-members are welcome.
Understanding Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic coastal ecosystems: linkages from genes to processes in times of exacerbated climate change (18 August)
Convenors: Humberto González, UACh-IDEAL, Bernd Krock, AWI-SubCob, Kerstin Jerosch, AWI-CoastCarb, Andrea Piñones, UACh-CoastCarb
Our intention is to foster a multi-disciplinary dialogue that merges genetic research, ecological investigations, and oceanography to decipher the complexity of Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic coastal ecosystems. With this session the IDEAL center, SubCob and CoastCarb community encourage contributions that span a broad scope of observation and modeling studies, encompassing genetic adaptations of organisms to extreme conditions, interactions among species, biogeochemical cycles, and the impact of environmental changes on these vulnerable ecosystems.
The session will include talks that delve into diverse aspects of Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic coastal observations and modeling. This includes studies on genetic diversity, species distributions, trophic dynamics, blue carbon, and the role of climate-driven variations on ecosystem structures. Collaboration will be key, as we plan to use this session as a platform for productive discussions and ideas exchange. By integrating cutting-edge research findings and collaborative insights, we hope to contribute to a more holistic comprehension of high-latitude coastal ecosystems and foster strategies for their preservation.
US-Chile International Collaboration Workshop for Early Career Researchers (18 August)
International collaboration is imperative to the successful exploration of the big scientific questions concerning the Antarctic. However, building these meaningful collaborations requires intentionality in creating a welcoming and inclusive space for partnerships to grow. Yet, formal training in how to establish international relationships and cross-cultural competency does not regularly take place in the polar sciences. This workshop-style side meeting for US and Chilean polar early career researchers focuses on how to build cross-cultural competency, how to build successful international scientific collaborative relationships, and how to apply for funding with international research partners in mind. In the latter part of the workshop, US and Chilean participants will have the opportunity to connect with polar researchers from a country other than their own and start to build the foundations of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary relationships that could lead to collaborations in the future. This workshop will be followed by remote collaboration-encouraging meetings facilitated by the Polar Science Early Career Community Office (PSECCO) and APECS Chile and has the potential to lead to longer-term, collaborative research relationships amongst attendees. Chilean and US-based polar researchers early in their careers are welcome and invited to apply to attend by July 24, 2024 using this link.
Attendees will be welcomed to join other participants for an informally-organized dinner afterwards.
