This week, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic
Research (SCAR) marks six decades of successful international collaboration and
of drawing world’s attention to the importance of Antarctic research. Since its
first meeting in The Hague on 3-5 February 1958, SCAR has grown an
international network of thousands of scientists who share a common ambition to
carry out Antarctic science for the benefit of society.
Antarctica
and the Southern Ocean have a fundamental role in regulating processes such as
climate and carbon uptake, and research in the Antarctic is crucial to
understanding processes of global significance and to advancing science.
Additionally, rapid changes are occurring in parts of Antarctica that could
open the continent to a new level of activities in the coming decades.
Antarctic governance, administration and environmental protection must be based
on scientific data.
Understanding the wide-ranging
regional and global effects of change in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean is
the task of Science. Antarctic scientists have been providing information about
the state of the continent and its surrounding seas since polar exploration
began. That work was in particular in the focus during the International
Geophysical Year of 1957-58. Realizing the importance of
continuing international Antarctic collaboration at the end of the International
Geophysical Year, SCAR was established to facilitate and coordinate it.
With a
membership representing the scientific communities of 43 countries, SCAR is
instrumental in initiating, developing and coordinating high quality
international scientific research in the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean. As
an inter-disciplinary committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU)
SCAR provides objective and independent advice to international bodies such as
the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings, the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Belgium is full member of SCAR and Belgian scientists are well represented in
various working groups.
