Synthesis Report on the Environmental Impacts of Research and Logistics in the Polar Regions

Polar sciences are crucial to understand the effects of climate change. 6 out of 9 eco-tipping points identified by the IPCC are situated in the polar regions. Potential rising sea levels, altered weather patterns and changes in sea-currents are all connected to environmental change in the polar regions

Southern Ocean Action Plan (2021-2030) in support of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development

In 2017, the United Nations proclaimed a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (hereafter referred to as the UN Ocean Decade) from 2021 until 2030 to support efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health. To achieve this ambitious goal, this initiative aims to gather ocean stakeholders worldwide behind a common framework that will ensure ocean science can fully support countries in creating improved conditions for sustainable development of the world’s oceans. The initiative strives to strengthen the international cooperation needed to develop the scientific research and innovative technologies that can connect ocean science with the needs of society at the global scale. Based on the recommendations in the Implementation Plan of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (Version 2.0, July 2021), the Southern Ocean community engaged in a stakeholder - oriented process to develop the Southern Ocean Action Plan. The Southern Ocean process engaged a broad community, which includes the scientific research community, the business and industry sector, and governance and management bodies. As part of this global effort, the Southern Ocean Task Force identified the needs of the Southern Ocean community to address the challenges related to the unique environmental characteristics and governance structure of the Southern Ocean. Through this community-driven process, we identified synergies within the Southern Ocean community and beyond in order to elaborate an Action Plan that provides a framework for Southern Ocean stakeholders to formulate and develop tangible actions and deliverables that support the UN Ocean Decade vision. Through the publication of this Action Plan, the Southern Ocean Task Force aims to mobilise the Southern Ocean community and inspire all stakeholders to seek engagement and leverage opportunities to deliver innovative solutions that maintain and foster the unique conditions of the Southern Ocean. This framework provides an initial roadmap to strengthen links between science, industry and policy, as well as to encourage internationally collaborative activities in order to address existing gaps in our knowledge and data coverage

Polar Data Forum IV – An Ocean of Opportunities

This paper reports on the Hackathon Sessions organised at the Polar Data Forum IV (PDF IV) (20–24 September 2021), during which 351 participants from 50 different countries discussed collaboratively about the latest developments in polar data management. The 4th edition of the PDF hosted lively discussions on (i) best practices for polar data management, (ii) data policy, (ii) documenting data flows into aggregators, (iv) data interoperability, (v) polar federated search, (vi) semantics and vocabularies, (vii) Virtual Research Environments (VREs), and (viii) new polar technologies. This paper provides an overview of the organisational aspects of PDF IV and summarises the polar data objectives and outcomes by describing the conclusions drawn from the Hackathon Sessions

D6.4 Minutes of a workshop with coordinators of European Polar observing systems

<p>The EU-PolarNet 2 Workshop, arranged on 7th June 2022, aimed to collate, in a co-design process, actionable policy-level recommendations to accelerate the development of Integrated Polar Observing System (IPOS).<br> This deliverable (D6.4 Minutes of a Workshop with Coordinators of European Polar Observing System) presents the minutes of the meeting, including a detailed analysis of the workshop outcomes and the resulting recommendations. The recommendations will feed into a white paper to accelerate the development of a sustained and fully integrated Polar observing system (D6.7), published in 2024.<br> The workshop discussions were analysed with content analysis to extract the recommendations for the future development of IPOS. The overall vision of the future IPOS is an open, transparent, and poly-centric system adopting a tier or layered approach both regarding the engagement of its contributors and the observations conducted. Essential variables based on provision of societal benefits should be defined and should constitute the core of the system, allowing smaller operations on the side while also ensuring scientific excellence.<br> The recommended immediate actions to be taken into account in the development of IPOS include efforts on e.g. the identification of sustainable funding sources, and establishment of platforms and action groups for the joint development of different areas of IPOS such as infrastructure and data, governing, funding, and stakeholders. Long-term recommendations spanning over the years focus on e.g. the governing structure, technology advancement and funding instruments and agreements for IPOS. Overall, it was recommended to proceed step by step, starting immediately and adjusting the course of action during the development.</p&gt