This Background Paper reports on the various activities conducted by SCAR that are of potential interest to CCAMLR as well as areas where the two organizations are already cooperating.
Annual updates to the Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (ACCE) continue to be made to the Treaty, CCAMLR and others (see accompanying paper). SCAR also now has funds (from Norway, the UK and ASOC) to work on climate change communications, which will be a significant activity over the next year.
The Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) is moving into the implementation phase (see accompanying paper). SCAR looks to CCAMLR as a key partner in this initiative.
Three new potential Scientific Research Programmes (SRPs) of relevance to CCAMLR activities are under development: Antarctic Ecosystems: Adaptations, Thresholds and Resilience (AntETR), State of the Antarctic Ecosystem (AntEco) and Antarctic Climate in the 21st Century (AntClim21). As the SRP of most direct relevance to CCAMLR, AntEco has a CCAMLR representative (Keith Reid) on the planning committee. For further details see www.scar.org.
SCAR has several products of relevance to the work of CCAMLR (seehttp://www.scar.org/researchgroups/productsandservices/). In particular, the SCAR-MarBIN data portal continues to gather information on marine biodiversity in the Antarctic, and the CPR Survey continues to grow with more countries contributing, particularly Brazil.
SCAR hopes to continue to explore with CCAMLR areas where the two organisations can work together in mutually beneficial ways.
For further details see www.scar.org