SCAR is an interdisciplinary body of the International Council for Science (ICSU), and currently includes 43 member countries and nine ICSU unions. SCAR encourages new members with an interest in Antarctic science.
SCAR’s Mission is to advance Antarctic research, including observations from Antarctica, and to promote scientific knowledge, understanding and education on any aspect of the Antarctic region and its role in the Earth System. SCAR also provides independent and objective scientific advice and information to the Antarctic Treaty System and other bodies and facilitates the international exchange of Antarctic information within the scientific community.
SCAR and CCAMLR have a history of cooperation, and have recently met on several occasions to strengthen the relationship by identifying current questions of mutual interest. The importance of mutually beneficial interactions and information exchange was re-affirmed at meetings of the two groups at the joint CEP/SC-CAMLR Workshop on Climate Change in Punta Arenas (See SC-CAMLR-XXXV/07), and less formally at the recent SCAR Open Science Conference held in Malaysia.
While there is a diverse range of SCAR research currently underway that is relevant to SC-CAMLR, here we restrict our focus to a few key areas, with an emphasis on those that have been identified as priorities or key areas of interest. Some of the more relevant outputs and/or activities include:
- The development of priority variables for observing dynamics and change in the Southern Ocean;
- A broad scale analyses of Antarctic animal tracking data;
- A research voyage around the South Orkney Plateau,;
- Southern Ocean ecosystem dynamics and environmental change;
- Changes in macrozooplankton populations in the West Antarctic Peninsula; and
- Analyses of past and future melting Antarctic ice sheets 6.