Meeting Summary from Representatives

At the Expert Group of Birds and Marine Mammals Meeting held on July 13th, in Portland, Oregon, several topics were brought up and discussed by the core members including changes to the current EGBAMM website and updates on the Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility (ANTABIF), the southern ocean predator tracking database, and the Antarctic predator reference list. EGBAMM's interactions with SCAR were discussed and the group was pleased that they had two full days of sessions devoted to Birds and Marine Mammals at the Open Science Conference this year. These sessions are a great way to showcase the work that members of EGBAMM are doing throughout Antarctica. The group also expressed interest in being more visible (particularly within SCAR) and having more aspects of outreach. They will be creating a list-serve within APECS soon to involve to the up-and-coming Antarctic predator experts in the work of the group and had several ideas of ways to get APCES members involved (more below). Details on this list-serve will be coming soon.

APECS representative participated in Designing an Integrated Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversitycbmp-logo Monitoring Plan Workshop, 15-17 May 2012, Anchorage, Alaska, USA. Main organizers of the workshop are Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), Terrestrial Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Group (CBMP), Terrestrial Expert Monitoring Group and Partner organisation is International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (INTERACT), www.eu-interact.org

The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Executive Council Panel of Experts on Polar Observations, Research and Services (EC-PORS) third session was held in Sodankylä, Finland, 6-8 February, 2012. In this meeting, the experts discussed the future of the polar meteorological research and services. EC-PORS is making an effort to bring the scientific projects and communities closer together to meet the needs of end-users of weather and climate data. From the point of view of an early career scientist the meeting was interesting, and confirmed that there is plenty of work for us, early career scientists, to do in the future. APECS sent a list of questions and recommendations for EC-PORS to consider. These questions covered two main themes: networking and funding. 

APECS was happy to have Corinne Pomerleau from the University of Victoria attend the latest AMAP meeting in Victoria Canada on February 28 to March 2, 2012.

You can read Corinne's full report here.

Melbourne (Australia) meeting, 5-7 July 20011

The AGCS is a research programme of the SCAR - Standing Scientific Group (SSG) – Physical Science (PS). The main objective of this programme is to investigate the interaction of the Antarctic atmospheric and oceanic climate and the rest of the earth system on a decadal time scale. The group started its work on 2004, when it was approved by the SCAR executive committee with a 4 year work plan and later extended for 4 years more.

In June 2010 the 62nd Session of the WMO Executive Council (EC) recommended to its EC Panel on Polar Observations, Research and Services (EC-PORS) to consult with other relevant organizations to assess interest and scope out an International Polar Decade (IPD) Initiative. To support this recommendation, Roshydromet hosted a Workshop at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) of Roshydromet in St. Petersburg 14 and 15 April 2011, cosponsored by WMO.

EBA is one of the five Science Research Programs of SCAR. It began in 2005 and is due to end in 2013. Many of its research goals have been accomplished, and its current goals are 1) to organize conferences/workshops for each of the five work packages; 2) to propose an EBA session at the 2012 SCAR meeting; 3) and to work on proposals for future SCAR biological programs.

AGCS is a cross-disciplinary science programme that focuses on the atmospheric, oceanic and cryospheric linkages between the Antarctic and the rest of the Earth system. It uses a very wide range of observations from the Antarctic continent and the Southern Ocean to investigate natural climate variability and possible anthropogenic signatures of change.