Chile to host the largest Antarctic science event
The SCAR Open Science Conference and Biennial Meetings will take place in 2024. The most important international Antarctic science meeting, usually attended by over a thousand people, this is where presentations are made of the most recent developments that will go on to shape the future course of polar knowledge.
Chile has been named host of the world’s largest polar science event: the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Open Science Conferences and Biennial Meetings will take place in Pucón in the second half of 2024. This is the most important forum on Antarctic science and usually brings together over a thousand people. Presentations are made of the most recent developments that will go on to shape the future course of polar knowledge. Immediately after the main event, the SCAR Biennial Meetings, including the important Delegates’ Meetings, will take place in Punta Arenas.
SCAR president Dr. Steven L. Chown expressed his thanks to Foreign Affairs Minister Andrés Allamand for Chile’s goodwill in offering to host an event of this magnitude and for committing the necessary resources to realize the dream of the Chilean scientific community. The successful bid to be the host country was unanimously accepted by all SCAR delegates and received warm expressions of support from the National Antarctic Programmes of South America, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, New Zealand and others.
“This is great news, which reveals Chile’s international leadership in terms of protecting Antarctica and our contribution to the global community arising out of the robust research we are carrying out in the Antarctic,” highlighted Minister Allamand. “Among the projects that we are carrying out is the Climate Change Observatory that we recently launched. It will have sensors for monitoring global warming in the Antarctic, which will generate important data in this area.”
The Minister added that in 2018, Chile and Argentina presented a proposal to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to create a Marine Protected Area in the north of the peninsula measuring around 672,000 km2. This initiative reflects Chile’s commitment to achieving the target of protecting the Southern Ocean.
The importance of this SCAR Open Science Conference
Polar science is standing at a crossroads. In 2014, the first SCAR Antarctic and Southern Ocean Science Horizon Scan assembled leading people to identify the most important scientific questions to be addressed by research in and from the Antarctic. Two years later, the Antarctic Roadmap Challenges (ARC) project was launched, along with the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP), to translate the highest priority Antarctic research questions into actionable requirements for supporting technologies, logistics and infrastructure.
We are surrounded by worrying news about how climate change is impacting our planet in general and Chile in particular, and this is creating pressure to understand how climate change is impacting the Antarctic. There have been few occasions in history when the contribution of science has been so important for understanding what direction to go in and what to do. Thus, the theme of this meeting is "Antarctic Science: Crossroads for a New Hope."
“We are standing at a crossroads and we must address it together. This is why the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) led Chile’s bid to host the 11th SCAR Open Science Conference and Biennial Meetings in Pucón in the Araucanía Region in 2024,” explained INACH director Dr. Marcelo Leppe. This is the second time this event has been organized in South America and one of the few times in the southern hemisphere.
Chile plays an important role in polar science
Chile has a National Antarctic Science Program with over eighty research projects currently underway, involving around twenty universities and research centers and more than 300 researchers, with high levels of participation by both young and female researchers.
“This recognizes Chile’s track record over recent years. We will have to live up to the unanimous support we’ve been given and organize one of the best meetings yet,” Dr. Leppe admitted.
The organizing committee comprises the Chilean Antarctic Institute and the National Committee of Antarctic Research and is receiving support and sponsorship from the Government of Chile through the Foreign Affairs Ministry and other public and private organizations.