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EDI at the SCAR Open Science Conference 2024 

The 11th Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Open Science Conference was held in August 2024 in Pucón, Chile. Around 1,500 international scientists, educators, and policy makers engaged in a week of talks, meetings, and workshops. EDI topics were well represented, including the first ever EDI themed plenary in the history of the OSC, parallel sessions, a workshop, and the newly formed ‘SCAR EDI Action Group’ business meeting. The UK was represented by members of the Diversity in UK Polar Science steering committee, including members of BIOPOLE. 

The theme of the EDI session “Is Antarctic science ready to help tackle urgent global issues? Perspectives on strengthening equitable science communities” included talks on historic discrimination against women in Antarctic science, the values of present day national and international programmes, the perspectives of early career researchers and how to widen participation in polar science. Discussions included the structural problems facing the international community including language barriers and socioeconomic and cultural differences. The workshop “Synergistic approach to addressing DEI issues; learning from different contextual initiatives” gave participants a chance to describe how these issues impact current and emerging polar researchers. A recurrent theme across the conference was how western-centric most EDI (and other) activities are and how this needs addressing. 

The highlight of the entire conference for many was the final plenary talk by Professor Meredith Nash “The reckoning: how #MeTooAntarctica is changing fieldwork”. This lecture, supported by the SCAR EDI Action Group, traced the conditions that gave rise to #MeTooAntarctica and Meredith’s experiences working with women around the world involved in the movement, often at significant personal cost. This powerful talk, delivered for 45 minutes without slides, captivated the entire audience with a thought provoking and often shocking description of a culture of sexual harassment within Australian polar science. Meredith ended with leading practice recommendations for National Antarctic Programs to productively seize the opportunity for robust prevention and response measures that underpin safe and respectful fieldwork environments. The talk received a standing ovation and sparked important and ongoing conversations within the international audience.  

The full talk can be viewed below but please be aware that it contains themes that could be upsetting.

The authors of the article – Huw Griffiths and Pilvi Saarikoski from British Antarctic Survey 

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Meet the Team

Sammie Buzzard 

  • Please introduce yourself 

I’m Sammie Buzzard, I’m an assistant professor at Northumbria University where I’m part of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM). My background is in maths, and I became interested in the polar regions during my undergraduate degree at the University of Exeter. This led to a PhD at the University of Reading’s Department of Meteorology modelling Antarctica’s ice shelves, and I’ve worked in glaciology ever since, including some time spent at Georgia Tech in the US, before I joined Northumbria last year. 

  • What do you do within BIOPOLE?   

I’ll be leading up CPOM’s contribution to BIOPOLE so this will involve working across work packages and proving the contributions each work package needs (mostly Earth Observation data), as well as hopefully identifying some additional ways CPOM can contribute to BIOPOLE. 

  • What have you enjoyed about BIOPOLE so far? 

I’ve only just taken on this role for CPOM, but I’m excited to join the team and work across disciplines and expand my own knowledge of biogeochemistry and ecosystems, both areas I don’t get much chance to work in, but I think are incredibly important and interesting. 

  • Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share? 

The impact of the fashion industry on our planet is pretty scary so I spend a lot of my spare time making and recycling clothes to reduce waste, but I also really appreciate the scenery of the North East and do lots of trail running with my dog, the longer and hillier the better! 

Dr Sammie Buzzard from Northumbria University 

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BIOPOLE Svalbard Field Campaign – Ny-Ålesund II

Kate Hendry (BAS) , Nathan Callaghan (UKCEH) and project partner Katie Howe (Dauphin Island Sea Lab) headed (back) to Ny-Ålesund in mid-July 2024 for the second instalment of the BIOPOLE Svalbard field campaign, joint with fieldwork for Kate’s NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant Silicon Cycling in Glaciated Environments (SiCLING) .

The overall aim of the BIOPOLE Svalbard campaign was to assess the flux of organic and inorganic nutrients into Kongsfjorden, the glaciated fjord near Ny-Ålesund. In 2023, the BIOPOLE Arctic team sampled a range of glacial and non-glacial rivers and fjord waters, and these samples have been analysed for a whole suite of nutrients, organic components and other elements.

Following last year’s successes, this year the BIOPOLE team wanted to focus on measuring the water flux from the different catchments. For this, Nathan used a method called ‘salt gauging’ (with Kate and Katie watching out for polar bears). Salt gauging involves placing conductivity loggers downstream, before adding a ‘spike’ of salt solution to a river upstream: the loggers can detect the increase in saltiness and their response can be used to determine the water flow rate. We were able to cover all the rivers that were analysed last year, with the exception of those that had dried up.

For the SiCLING project, the team collected river and fjord waters and marine sediments for geochemical analyses, to investigate the interaction between silicon and other nutrients and trace metals in glaciated environments. The samples will be shipped back to the UK and USA for analysis. In addition to using the UK boat for sampling waters, the team were also able to work on the King’s Bay R/V Teisten on two days to sample sediments from the fjord floor.

The BIOPOLE/SiCLING team would like to thank Paul Samways and Iain Rudkin (station managers at the UK NERC Arctic Station), the captains of the R/V Teisten, James Bradley, Bill Orsi, and Juan-Carlos Trejos for their help, as well as everyone from King’s Bay for all their support.

The authors of the article – Kate Hendry from British Antarctic Survey and Nathan Callaghan from UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

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Meet the Team 

Andrew Yool

  • Please introduce yourself.

I’m a marine biogeochemistry modeller working within the Marine Systems Modelling team at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton.  

  • Tell us about your professional and academic career before becoming part of the BIOPOLE Community. 

Way back in the last century, I originally trained as a real biologist working across the botany and zoology groups at the University of Dundee. However, I’d also always enjoyed mathematics at school, so when I came to pick a doctorate, I chose a marine ecology modelling project at the University of Warwick – well-known for its proximity to the ocean! After completing that, I was lucky enough to get a position at NOC, working with the Great God of Plankton Modelling, Mike Fasham, on large-scale carbon cycle modelling. I’ve been here ever since, gradually moving from work using simpler models (GENIE) through ocean general circulation models (OCCAM, NEMO) to Earth system models (UKESM1). 

  • What do you do within BIOPOLE?   

I’m involved in two parts of WP3 of BIOPOLE. The first is focused on adding the process of diapause to the large zooplankton of MEDUSA, the marine biogeochemistry model that I lead development of at NOC. This process essentially allows zooplankton such as copepods to hibernate in relative safety away from the risky surface ocean. Because of this, it’s implicated in the transfer of carbon to the deep ocean, and we’d like to quantify just how important it is for this. That said, although I’m leading this work, it’s my NOC colleague – Julien Palmieri – who’s actually doing the hard work of coding and testing the diapause model that I’ve designed. Separately, and based in part on my experience with the UK’s Earth system model, UKESM1, I’m assisting with a separate WP3 modelling activity to understand nutrient import/export from the polar regions and the potential effects on productivity at lower latitudes. 

  • What have you enjoyed about BIOPOLE so far? 

It’s a cliché, but it’s mostly been about the people so far for me. Although there’s a lot of sloshing about in UK oceanography, and I have tended to bump into many people down the years, I’m finding myself working with new colleagues in BIOPOLE. Partly it’s down to the greater biological focus of my involvement with the project, but a big dollop of luck has been important too. And I’ve really enjoyed meeting and interacting with my new colleagues. Particularly around designing the diapause model that we’re building for BIOPOLE, we’ve really benefitted from having the team around us that the project has assembled. 

  • Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share? 

Largely for historical reasons, oceanography is a subject that draws people in from across the natural sciences – and, increasingly, from the social sciences too. As a result, there are a lot of unique people in the field in the UK today. All of which makes for a really enjoyably diverse group of people with wide-ranging experiences, skills and perspectives.  

Dr Andrew Yool from National Oceanography Centre 

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Flying the Polar Flag at the UN Ocean Decade Conference 2024

Amongst 1500 other delegates from around the world, Jen Freer (BIOPOLE Project Member, BAS), Amy Swiggs (BIOPOLE Project Member, CPOM) and Nadine Johnston (BIOPOLE Project Member, BAS), were lucky enough to be selected to attend and present at the first UN Ocean Decade Conference held in April 2024 in sunny Barcelona.  The vision of the UN Ocean Decade is to generate “the science we need for the ocean we want”. The aims of this conference were to bring the global Ocean Decade community together, to celebrate and take stock of progress, and set joint priorities for the future. As an official Decade Action, we were there to showcase BIOPOLE’s research efforts and highlight how our science aligns with many of the Decade’s priorities and recommendations.

We were set to work from day 1 – as soon as we passed security, found our way around the 4-floor venue and located the coffee, Amy set up her fantastic BIOPOLE poster which attracted plenty of attention throughout the week. Nadine then presented work on ICED (a BIOPOLE Strategic Partner) and participated in a panel discussion in an on-site Satellite Event ‘A decade of international action in the polar oceans. Others on this esteemed panel included Anton Van de Putte (BIOPOLE Strategic Partner, ULB), as well as Antje Boetius (director, AWI), Alfredo Giron (World Economic Forum), and Salome Mormentyn (Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Polar Initiative), chaired by Stephanie Arndt (AWI) and Renuka Badhe (BIOPOLE Strategic Partner, European Polar Board). This set of talks led to a fascinating discussion around the future of polar research, the ongoing need for standardised high-quality data, and even greater collaboration between nations and disciplines such as arts and humanities, where the work of BIOPOLE was also highlighted as an excellent example.

A newly drafted set of white papers detailing how to succeed in achieving each of the Decade’s 10 challenges were key talking points of the conference. To round off day 1, Jen presented a quick-fire talk as part of a parallel session dedicated to Challenge 2: protect and restore marine ecosystems and biodiversity. It was fantastic to remind the audience of the importance of the polar regions and to ensure their representation in the Challenge 2 ambitions alongside the coastal and coral reef environments.

There were more interesting talks and policy discussions on day 2 of the conference, including on developing a sustainable and resilient ocean economy, and solutions for coastal resilience. There was also time later in the afternoon to see more of sunny Barcelona and enjoy some delicious Catalan cuisine.

On the final day of the conference, we all helped to represent JETZON (the Decade Programme which BIOPOLE sits within) at the “Deepening the Decade” booth – one of many stalls within the wonderful banquet hall. This stall was organised by the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI) and arguably had the most beautiful artwork to attract passers-by! Our job was to engage with delegates about the deep ocean, particularly talking about how projects such as BIOPOLE and JETZON are tackling issues in deep sea science and are leading in developments to overcome them (e.g. observing and modelling nutrients, zooplankton and carbon transport to deep waters). We had many interesting and insightful discussions with other conference members about the importance of these key climate processes. We also test ran the BIOPOLE animation led by Clara Manno (BIOPOLE Project Member, BAS).

The plenary talks from each day (including those from various Heads of State and UN special envoy for the Oceans Ambassador Peter Thomson) can be viewed again here and a short highlights video here. The main outcome of this event was the Barcelona Statement which identifies priority areas for action for the Ocean Decade in the coming years. The conference was hugely successful and a wonderful way of showcasing the fantastic work of BIOPOLE to the wider scientific community and policymakers. We enjoyed the opportunity to experience the interaction of science and policy and discuss the importance of science and communication in achieving these outcomes. Thank you to BIOPOLE for encouraging and giving ECRs the opportunity to attend such an important event.

The authors of the article – Amy Swiggs (Northumbria University), Nadine Johnston and Jen Freer (British Antarctic Survey)

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Joint BIOPOLE – ACEAS Workshop

BIOPOLE Science Partner, Philip Boyd (Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Studies, ACEAS, and the Institute for Antarctic Marine Studies, IMAS), and BIOPOLE Project Members, Nadine Johnston and Geraint Tarling, co-convened a two-day workshop ‘East meets West – A joint BIOPOLE-ACEAS Workshop to strengthen international circumpolar collaborations’ 14-15 March 2024 at the Institute for Antarctic Marine Studies, IMAS, and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

The workshop was kindly hosted by Philip and held under the auspices of the BIOPOLE East-West Antarctic Forum, which fosters greater international collaboration across the Southern Ocean with partners, institutes, and initiatives with similar research objectives.

Many of the workshop participants from BIOPOLE and ACEAS in the gardens of CSIRO
Participants enjoying the workshop dinner and drinks – a fantastic BBQ enjoyed in the bar and on the terrace of IMAS where we recruited our youngest BIOPOLE ECR to date!

The workshop gathered BIOPOLE Community members (including Aidan Hunter, and contributions from Angus Atkinson, Programme Advisory Board member) and around 30 ACEAS researchers to consider similarities and differences between the Scotia-Weddell Sea and East Antarctic regions (zones and provinces, processes) and different approaches to understanding their ecology, biogeochemistry and nutrient cycling, and progressing modelling and observations in the regions.

The workshop also explored future opportunities for collaborations including the UN Decade of the Ocean, IPY etc.) and outputs are in preparation. A huge thanks to Philip, Nicole Hill, Elizabeth Shadwick, and the rest of the ACEAS participants for their incredible hospitality and contributions. Aside from the impressive presentations and volume of science discussions we managed to get through in two days, an additional highlight was the amazing workshop dinner served on the balcony of IMAS overlooking Sullivans Cove and Kunanyi/Mt Wellington on a gloriously sunny evening!

The authors of the article – Nadine Johnston, Geraint Tarling and Aidan Hunter (British Antarctic Survey)

7th ICES/PICES Zooplankton production symposium attendees
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BIOPOLE at the 7th Zooplankton Production Symposium 

Aidan Hunter, Nadine Johnston, Dan Mayor, Kathryn Cook and Geraint Tarling attended the 7th ICES/PICES Zooplankton Production Symposium in Hobart, Tasmania (17-21 March 2024). The conference was packed with sessions of direct relevance to BIOPOLE research, particularly on understanding the ecology of calanoid copepods and the contribution of zooplankton to the biological carbon pump.

The BIOPOLE researchers each gave well received oral presentations. Aidan talked about his data mining, parameterisations and modelling of the copepod Calanoides acutus at a session on the dynamics and role of diapausing copepods in marine ecosystems. Nadine spoke on knowledge gaps and research priorities in zooplankton research at a session on zooplankton in a changing Southern Ocean. In other sessions, Dan talked about stoichiometry modelling and Kathryn, some associated work with the COMICS programme on carbon budgets. Geraint gave a keynote talk considering biogeographic shifts in copepod species in the Arctic and potential impacts on the lipid pump there.

Geraint Tarling, Vicky Fowler (BAS Post-doc), Aidan Hunter and Nadine Johnston at a reception

The BIOPOLE researchers also took part in a number of satellite workshops covering zooplankton trait data and time-series. Also notable was a zooplankton art session that commenced with the reading of a poem on zooplankton vertical migration by BIOPOLE WP2 co-lead, Jen Freer, entitled “A tale of Light and Fear”.

The symposium proved useful in assessing the latest methods and findings in zooplankton research and in establishing further collaborative links for the BIOPOLE programme. 

The symposium attendees

The author of the article –  Geraint Tarling (British Antarctic Survey)

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Meet the Team

Adrian Martin

  • Please introduce yourself.  

I am Dr Adrian Martin and I’m based in the Marine Systems Modelling group at National Oceanography Centre (NOC). 

  • Tell us about your professional and academic career before becoming part of the BIOPOLE Community. 

Like many in oceanography I have been environmentally recycled from another field. One of the great things about marine science is that it attracts so many different backgrounds. My background is more in physics and I benefitted from the open-mindedness of marine scientists who gave me a chance to apply my numerical skills to ocean ecology problems after my PhD and I’ve been at NOC ever since – longer than I choose to remember. Despite being originally being employed as a modeller and sitting in a modelling group, oceanography encourages multidisciplinarity and I was on my first cruise within the first year at NOC and have even been chief scientist on a cruise a couple of times now. 

  • What do you do within BIOPOLE?  

Within BIOPOLE I jointly lead WP3 with Andrew Meijers. This WP is focussed on the global impacts of changes at the poles.  I am also lead for the NOC involvement in BIOPOLE. As a result my role is largely managing – I don’t get to do the really exciting stuff – but it does give me a great vantage point to see how the many components of BIOPOLE are slotting together to produce something truly impressive. 

  • What have you enjoyed about BIOPOLE so far? 

A highlight so far has been the Arctic work. When writing the proposal for BIOPOLE we recognised the huge amount of activity and infrastructure already present in the Arctic and approached a number of groups to suggest collaborations. They were incredibly welcoming and helpful, providing access to cruises and facilities way beyond anything we could have afforded ourselves and welcoming us to the wider Arctic scientific community. In return I hope we are adding some great complementary science to their activities. Watching this generous and inclusive example of scientific collaboration across nations develop has been wonderful. 

Dr Adrian Martin from National Oceanography Centre 

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BIOPOLE at the Netherlands Polar Day

Kate Hendry attended the Netherlands Polar Day on April 23rd in the Museon-Omniversum in The Hague. The NL Polar Day, arranged by the Dutch Research Council (NWO)’s Netherlands Polar Programme team, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), every year brings together researchers from around the Netherlands from universities, research institutes, tourism and industry who are interested in all things Arctic and Antarctic. The Netherlands have a strong history of polar research, and rely on international collaborations for infrastructure access: in the Arctic this is largely through their links with the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany, and in the Antarctic through their Memorandum of Understanding with BAS. For example, Rothera hosts the Dirk Gerritz lab, which was built in 2012.

This year’s NL Polar Day was ably hosted by Sietze Norder from the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, and featured a plenary talk by René van Hell, the Netherlands Ambassador for the Arctic. Kate gave a presentation in the first of the parallel sessions, updating a packed room on the new BAS Science Strategy and giving some recent highlights from Rothera including the glider operations, the atmospheric aerosols lab, and the Windracer autonomous aerial vehicle (thanks to BIOPOLE’s Hugh Venables, as well as Tom Lachlan-Cope and Tom Jordan for their input!).

The poster session featured APECS members as well as more established scientists. Kate also gave a poster on the broader aims of BIOPOLE, and was able to engage with a number of existing colleagues and new contacts on the project objectives and successes so far.

Photo: NL Polar Day 2024 by Tom Doms

The day finished with a fully immersive IMAX Arctic experience in the Omniverson, including a “close encounter” with a polar bear (thankfully virtually!), and a drinks reception in the museum.

Photo: NL Polar Day 2024 by Tom Doms

The author of the article – Kate Hendry from British Antarctic Survey

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Meet the Team 

Laura Taylor

  • Please introduce yourself.

I’m Laura Taylor, a PhD student at BAS working on Southern Ocean biogeochemistry. My work involves exploring the interactions between the carbon and silica cycles across Southern Ocean environments, particularly in relation to different sources of nutrient input to the ocean from ice. Before starting my PhD and joining BIOPOLE, I completed my undergraduate and masters degrees at UEA. 

  • What do you do within BIOPOLE?  

Within BIOPOLE, I am in work packages 1 and 2, with the majority of my PhD work being included in these areas. My main contribution to the project so far has been organising the biogeochemical cycling on the Southern Ocean BIOPOLE I cruise, where I coordinated a group of PhD students to collect samples across 12 parameters as we completed a transect from the open ocean into the sea ice. 

  • What have you enjoyed about BIOPOLE so far? 

So far, the cruise has been a massive highlight, but I have also really enjoyed being a part of the BIOPOLE community, especially the ECR Network which is a brilliant space for getting to know researchers in other areas. 

  • Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share? 

I’m not sure I have any particularly unique traits, but when I’m not doing science I love to go scuba diving as much as I can (although less in landlocked Cambridge), finding good local coffee, and gardening. 

Laura Taylor from British Antarctic Survey