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Notes from the SCAR President, number 46 (23 March 2012)
The ATCM, Portland, and More!
Colleagues,
Time is quickly passing and before long we will be assembling in Portland for the biennial meetings and my last Delegates' Meeting as President. As I have mentioned before, there will be a major change in SCAR leadership in July and I encourage everyone to think about standing for election to various positions – SSG Officers, Vice-President (2), and President. These are critical times and your participation is essential to the organization's success. Coming out of Portland there will be a plan for transitioning to a renewed portfolio of Scientific Research Programs, we will have decided on membership fees for the next few years, and the site of the 2016 meetings will be agreed just to name a few issues to be addressed.
The abstract submissions have closed resulting in one of the largest number of submissions for the Open Science Conference to date – 930 (only surpassed by the SCAR/IASC/IPY Conference in 2008)! Of these, more than 250 abstracts are from students! This illustrates that the conference is of high interest to the community that SCAR serves and continues to be one of, if not the, major Antarctic science gatherings in the world. Registration should be open shortly so keep an eye out for the announcement and make your plans to attend early.
Before Portland, the SCAR SCATS Delegation will be attending the 35th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in June in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. The ATCM will be a busy time for SCAR with your team presenting papers on a wide range of topics including the SCAR annual report, an update on the latest results from climate change science in Antarctica, the impact of acoustics in the marine environment, fresh foods as a vector for introducing non-indigenous species to Antarctica, aliens in Antarctica (also the topic of the SCAR ATCM Science Lecture in partnership with Australia), an update on SOOS, a paper on tsunamis risks (with COMNAP leading the effort), and a strategy for 21st century conservation and protection in Antarctica (a report of the South Africa workshop).
There was a successful meeting in Cambridge this month laying out a 10-year strategic plan for the myriad of meetings that SCAR either holds or is involved in. A report is in progress summarizing these deliberations and a series of recommendations will be made to the Delegates in Portland on how to improve efficiencies, reduce duplication and scheduling conflicts, improve partnerships and increase the overall impacts of meetings.
In the next few Notes from the President, I will bring to your attention important items that will be on the agenda at the Delegates Meeting in Portland. It is crucial that all Delegates come to the meetings prepared to make decisions and to do so everyone needs to be conversant with the issues to be considered and the supporting papers prior to the meeting. In short order we will begin posting papers to Secretariat website. You should visit the site often and review new postings.
As I mentioned above, in July we will be considering a portfolio of new Scientific Research Programs to replace the current programs. There is a process in place to allow for wide review and consideration of the proposed programs before the meeting and the Secretariat will soon be arranging for reviews (external and internal) of the proposals. By the time we gather in Portland all of this material will be assembled and supported by explicit recommendations from the SSGs. The proponents of the new SRPs met in Modena, Italy earlier this year and agreed to present the new SRPs as an integrated set of projects. Assuming that the reviews do not uncover major problems with particular proposed SRPs, the proponents wish to have the new programs considered in toto as a portfolio and that available funds be accordingly distributed rather than picking and choosing among equally meritorious programs. While full proposals will be available shortly, you can begin familiarizing yourself with the programs by reviewing various materials on the SCAR website. There are short summaries and at the bottom of the page there is the report and presentations from the Modena meeting.
I particularly find the summary figures useful is visualizing the relationships and synergies amongst the proposed programs.
There are many more items I could report on, but I will keep this note short. As always, if you have any questions or concerns do not hesitate to contact me or the Secretariat at any time. I am looking forward to seeing everyone in a few months in the U.S.!!!
Chuck K.,
President of SCAR
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