Arctic PASSION: Implementing observations for societal needs
Arctic PASSION, a project funded through the Horizon 2020 European Union programme, is in its last year of activity. The objective of the project is co-creation and implementation of a coherent, integrated Arctic observing system, which attempts to close gaps in the present observing system. Improved polar observing systems is one of PCAPS’ objectives and the work of Arctic PASSON closely aligns with both the ambition and vision of PCAPS.
Meet the PCAPS SG: Reflections from PCAPS SG member Vicki Heinrich
This month’s “Meet the SG” blog post features Vicki Heinrich, who is a psychological scientist working as a Policy Advisor at the Bureau of Meteorology in Hobart, Australia. Vicki’s work contributes to interdisciplinary research examining the communication of weather information, warning messages, risk and uncertainty. Vicki previously worked for several years as a Senior Technical Officer Observer at Australia’s Antarctic and sub-Antarctic research stations and recently completed her psychology PhD, examining weather information use, risk perception and decision-making in Antarctic environments.
PCAPS Comms summer project: Do Norwegian high schoolers learn about polar research?
This Northern Hemisphere summer, our PCAPS Communication Fellows, Linn Bolin Haakenstad and Amanda Skogjordet, will investigate how polar research is taught across high schools in Norway. Norway is an Arctic country and we believe that it is important for students to learn about the consequences of climate change in the polar regions, especially considering 9% of the Norwegian population lives above the Arctic circle. The project will take place over two months, and we will see how polar research is taught in high schools all over the country.
Experiences from the FieldEX Field Safety and Preparedness Course
Field Instrumentation and Measurements in Cold Region Environments (FieldEX) is an exchange program for geoscience MSc and PhD students in Norway, Canada, USA and Japan. The aim of the program is to foster educational partnerships through short-term student exchanges focused on field techniques in cold region environments. This aligns with PCAPS’ Inclusivity Objective. Amanda Skogjordet, one of PCAPS’ Communication Fellows, participated in a recent FieldEX course in Norway.
Dataset release: Observations from the Svalbard Marginal Ice Zone in April - May 2024
A new open-access dataset from the Svalbard Marginal Ice Zone Campaign 2024 (SvalMIZ-24) is now available. The dataset includes observations of air temperature, wave spectra, and sea-ice drift collected during April and May 2024 from a distributed network of buoys deployed on the sea ice north of Svalbard.
Meet the PCAPS SG: Reflections from Jørn Kristiansen on building stronger links between science and services in the polar regions
Jørn Kristiansen leads with a quiet conviction: that better forecasts save lives, protect environments and support sustainable development. As the Director of Development Centre For Weather Forecasting at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and one of the two PCAPS Co-chairs, leading the natural science work of PCAPS, Jørn brings decades of experience at the interface between atmospheric science, operational forecasting and user needs.
Inaugural Ross Sea Research Coordination Network Workshop: developing networks to tackle challenges in the polar regions
The Ross Sea Research Coordination Network (RCN) held its first workshop in Boulder, Colorado, from June 3 to 6, 2025. More than 100 researchers, policymakers, and community partners attended, either in person or online. The goal was to find better ways to coordinate work around the Ross Sea region Marine Protected Area (MPA). As the world’s largest MPA, the Ross Sea MPA is an important example of managing large, international, remote marine ecosystems. The workshop focused on improving data sharing, building collaboration across disciplines, and setting research, policy and community engagement priorities ahead of the first 10-year review of the MPA in 2027.
Forecast interpretation and use in the field: A perspective from the tourism sector
Tom Harris is a mountain guide with experience working for both the United States Antarctic Program and Antarctica New Zealand, in search and rescue and field safety roles. He currently works for Envirolapse, as a strategic advisor for their remote camera and sensing technology in extreme environments for the purpose of safety and research. Tom was a recent attendee of the PCAPS Open Session in Cambridge, UK. Tom believes the topics discussed during the Open Session have great potential to improve forecasting products for the tourism industry in the polar regions, which currently faces challenges.
PCAPS Open Session Report 2025 published
On 15 April 2025, PCAPS held its annual Open Session at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. Arctic and Antarctic researchers, forecasters and stakeholders gathered to discuss forecasting challenges and opportunities for collaboration during the half-day event. Today, the 2025 Open Session report with proceedings and key takeaways was published.
Meet the PCAPS SG: Reflections from PCAPS SG member Hanne Nielsen on representations of Antarctica in the media
This month’s Meet the SG blog post features PCAPS SG member, Hanne Nielsen, a senior lecturer in Antarctic law and governance at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. Her research focusses on representations of Antarctica in popular media, including in advertising material, polar tourism and Antarctica as a workplace. Hanne is a Chief Officer of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic research’s Standing Committee on Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) and a past President of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS).
PCAPS ORCAS at EGU25, 27 April–2 May 2025, Vienna, Austria
Our PCAPS Observational Requirements in the Context of AI prediction Systems (ORCAS) Task Team had the chance to share our work advancing data-driven approaches to sea ice prediction at the EGU General Assembly 2025, which took place from 27 April to 2 May in Vienna, Austria, with more than 18,000 in-person participants in attendance. Task Team Co-Chairs Lorenzo Zampieri (ECMWF) and Clare Eayrs (KOPRI, a member of the PCAPS steering group) presented a poster that highlighted the goals and challenges of the ORCAS initiative.
PCAPS Open Session 2025: Gathering of polar experts to discuss how to strengthen forecasting services
On 15 April 2025, PCAPS held its annual Open Session at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. Arctic and Antarctic researchers, forecasters and stakeholders gathered to discuss forecasting challenges and opportunities for collaboration during the half-day event.
Reflections from the second annual PCAPS Steering Group Meeting in Cambridge, UK – 14 to 17 April 2025
The second annual PCAPS Steering Group (SG) meeting was held at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Headquarters in Cambridge, UK from 14 to 17 April 2025. This meeting provided the SG the opportunity to hold extended discussions on PCAPS’ progress since the previous annual meeting in Hobart, Australia in March 2024. Furthermore, the PCAPS SG used the meeting as an opportunity to further develop and refine plans for PCAPS for the rest of 2025 and for 2026. In addition, an important component of the annual PCAPS SG meetings is the Open Session, which is held with users of polar environmental services from across the host country and region.
World Meteorological Organization’s Global Cryosphere Watch launches revamped website
The World Meteorological Organization’s Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) has launched its redesigned website that enhances both its functionality and user experience. The site serves as a key gateway to the GCW Data Portal, providing users with access to valuable cryosphere metadata. GCW and PCAPS are closely interconnected, with GCW's efforts in advancing cryospheric observation, data standardization and data sharing contributing to PCAPS' objective of providing more accurate and reliable analyses and predictions in polar regions.
Meet the PCAPS SG: Reflections from PCAPS SG member Gita Ljubicic on improving weather and ice services for Inuit communities
This month’s Meet the SG blog post features PCAPS SG member, Gita Ljubicic, who is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment and Society at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Gita is a geographer with training in the natural and social sciences. Her work is driven by a deep commitment to respecting and learning from Indigenous knowledge alongside science to address complex social and ecological challenges. Gita and her StraightUpNorth research team are dedicated to a cooperative, community-engaged approach to research that involves developing and fostering working relationships with Indigenous experts and organizations throughout all stages of the research process. Within PCAPS, Gita contributes her social science experience, and perspectives from working with Indigenous communities, to inform more user-driven design so that polar prediction services can be more relevant, accessible, and useful.
Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) synthesis paper published
In February 2025, the final synthesis paper from the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) was published, showcasing the breakthroughs made possible by the World Weather Research Programme's Polar Prediction Project (PPP). Launched in response to an urgent need for better polar forecasts, PPP/YOPP revolutionized environmental prediction in these remote and sensitive regions, improving forecasting systems used worldwide and changing how we understand polar-mid-latitude interactions. PPP/YOPP laid the strong foundation that PCAPS builds upon, helping to further improved environmental forecasting and well-being in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
PCAPS at the University of Oslo’s Geosciences Career Day 2025
On 12 February 2025, the Department of Geosciences at the University of Oslo (UiO) hosted its annual career day for geoscience students. It provides an opportunity for students to learn about and explore career paths as they near the end of their studies, while also allowing companies and projects to showcase their work. PCAPS Communications Fellows Amanda Skogjordet and Linn Bolin Haakenstad presented about PCAPS during the 2025 UiO Career Day, sharing their experiences with UiO students regarding their own early career engagement work.
Advancing coupled Arctic forecasting: Insights from the Workshop on Coupled Modelling and Observations in the Marginal Ice Zone
The Workshop on Coupled Modelling and Observations in the Arctic Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ) took place from 10–12 February, 2025 in Oslo, Norway, funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. This workshop is part of the WWRP-PCAPS endorsed SvalMIZ project, whose main objective is to enhance observations and modeling in the Arctic. It brought together approximately 45 researchers from various disciplines related to the forecasting of weather, sea ice, and wave dynamics in the Arctic to discuss challenges and advancements in coupled forecasting systems.
Meet the PCAPS SG: Reflections from PCAPS SG member, Paola Rodriguez Imazio, after her recent Antarctica field campaign
This month’s Meet the SG blog post features PCAPS SG member, Paola Rodriguez Imazio, who is a researcher at the National Weather Service in Argentina. Paola is a physicist and her research is centred on turbulent mixing and dynamics in the Antarctic atmosphere. Paola brings knowledge about Antarctic atmospheric dynamics and related research activities in the Antarctic Peninsula to PCAPS. She is also the lead of one of WWRP - PCAPS’ endorsed projects: the Turbulence in Supercool Clouds in Antarctica (T-SCAN) project.
GOAT Workshop brings international experts to KOPRI, Republic of Korea, to address Antarctic climate change
Last week, the GETZ Initiative (GETZ-Ocean Interactions: Sentinel of Antarctic Transition to a Warming Climate - GOAT) held its first in-person workshop at KOPRI, bringing together 34 participants from across the world, both in person and online. The three-day workshop (February 11-13, 2025) marked a milestone in establishing this collaborative research effort that is focused on understanding the rapid changes occurring in West Antarctica's Getz region. PCAPS steering group members Clare Eayrs and Daniela Liggett participated in the discussions to shape future research in the Getz region.