Events

Abstract

The polar oceans, including the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean, are key players in global ocean circulation, climate change, as well as marine ecosystems. The year of 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of Chinese National Antarctica and Arctic Research Expedition (CHINARE), which has completed 41 Antarctic and 14 Arctic Ocean expeditions so far, with oceanographic surveys mainly focused on the Prydz Bay, Ross Sea and Amundsen Sea around the Antarctica, and also on the western and central Arctic Ocean. CHINARE has made significant progress in capacity building, ocean observation and scientific research to understand the polar oceans and their global impact, contributing considerably to international programs such as SOOS, PPP, MOSAiC, DAMOCLES and DBO. Here we review some of these progress and contributions, mostly from the perspective of physical oceanography, and briefly outline our future plans and research priorities in the years to come. China is surely in the process of largely enhancing its polar research activities, which will provide support and new opportunities for international collaboration in this important research area, especially with our European colleagues.

Speaker information

Dake Chen is a physical oceanographer and a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He worked at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Second Institute of Oceanography for many years, and is presently the director of the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai). His academic career has been devoted to oceanographic research, with significant achievements in the areas of coastal ocean dynamics, large-scale ocean circulation. as well as climate variability. His current research interest includes smart ocean observing technology, tropical ocean-atmosphere interaction, as well as polar environment and climate change. He is also serving in many scientific organizations and editorial boards, and is playing an instrumental role in promoting programs of oceanic and polar research.

Abstract

With the modern availability of data and computing resources, machine learning is becoming an important tool in solving problems in many domains, from robotics and medicine to weather and climate. In this talk I will attempt to give an accessible introduction to core machine learning concepts, aimed at beginners in the topic. I’ll walk through ideas like supervised, unsupervised and representation learning and share some examples from my own research. I will end by looking at recent developments in large general-purpose foundation models, such as AURORA, and how they’re being applied in climate forecasting and beyond.

Speaker information

Linus Ericsson is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in representation learning, neural architectures, and domain adaptation. His current research explores efficient ways of finding the right neural network structure for the right task and how to make existing networks cheaper to run. Linus has published in top venues such as NeurIPS, CVPR, and the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. His interests span a wide array of topics, including multimodal learning and responsible AI applications in climate and healthcare.

Abstract

The rapid warming of the Arctic where permafrost is prevalent is threatening to release carbon which would accelerate global warming if it reaches the atmosphere. There are many unknowns regarding carbon cycling and budgets in Arctic watersheds. This presentation shows that active layer soil above permafrost functions as a thin but extensive unconfined aquifer made up of mostly of peat. The supra-permafrost aquifer has relatively high porosity and permeability, creating efficient subsurface flow paths above otherwise impermeable permafrost. Observations and modeling reveal that much of the water and carbon going through Imnavait Creek, a headwater river in the North Slope of Alaska, has passed through the supra-permafrost aquifer. Remote sensing showed that supra-permafrost groundwater is prevalent during summer while extensive sampling showed that there is substantial carbon within the supra-permafrost aquifers, as much as those estimated for permafrost. The crucial task of predicting the fate of carbon in Arctic watersheds depends on knowing the subsurface flow properties and processes.

Speaker information

2025 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer on a worldwide lecture tour M. Bayani Cardenas is a hydrology professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences of the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. His research seeks to understand flow and transport processes across different hydrologic settings, water quality and quantity problems, and scales, using a combination of theoretical, computational, and observational methods. He received his education from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

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Speaker: Eurico Noleto-Filho from UiB, GFI

Name of speaker: Simon Lee, University of St. Andrews

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Forskning og friluftsliv - for deg med hjarte for breen

Breane smeltar verda over. 
Bli med på ei rundreise til verdas brear, forsking på breane og til debatt om korleis friluftsliv og turisme går i hop med bevaring av breane våre. 
 

Programmet er under utarbeiding - merk deg dagen!
Programmet blir hovudsakleg på norsk

2025 er av FN utnemnt som Det internasjonale breåret, for å skaffe merksemd om bevaring av breane i alle verdsdeler. 

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More info to come! Save the date!