On Sept 30th to Oct 1st, 2024, it was time for the Polar Symposium hosted by KOPRI in Songdo, Incheon. This is the 29th time the Polar Symposium is held, and the theme for the meeting was 'Scientific advances based on Antarctic Jang Bogo Station over the last 10 years' - chosen to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the building of Jang Bogo station at the Ross Sea coast. The symposium was a great success, with 150 participants from all over the world.
The sessions were diverse and included space weather, Ice sheet-ocean interaction, Antarctic climate change, and evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet all connected to the Jang Bogo research station. In particular the space weather session was very fascinating to hear about for an oceanographer! Jang Bogo station is an excellent site to conduct method tests and pilot experiments, for example targeting the very accessible Drygalski ice tongue. During the symposium three posters were awarded with the prestiguous ACR Poster Price from the KOPRI president Hyoung Chul Shin.
OCEAN:ICE attended this meeting and gave a seminar in session S3 ' Changes in the Antarctic Ocean and its interaction with ice sheets'. We also attended and contributed to the 'Lioness' workshop held back-to-back with the symposium. While large discussions often centre around major field work campaigns, the workshop also provided time to have smaller side meetings to advance work with recently collected data. It was also an opportunity to develop research collaborations and discuss science ideas and methods with young researchers. The Lioness project is focused on the Thwaites glacier, and will lead several icebreaker expeditions to the region the coming decade.
During the spare time it was very enjoyable to explore the sights of the Incheon-Seoul area. Photo: Anna Wåhlin
The author of the article - Anna Wåhlin | University of Gothenburg