From October 22 to 24, the 3rd International Symposium on Polar Oceans and Global Change was held in Qingdao. This conference is one of the activities of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Ocean University of China and the Polar Week of Ocean University of China. More than 180 scientists and graduate students from 28 domestic universities and scientific research institutions and 18 foreign universities and research institutes discussed the frontiers of academia through a combination of online and offline methods. Liu Yong, Vice President of Ocean University of China, attended the opening ceremony, and Vice President Lin Xusheng attended the closing ceremony. Alumni Wang Jinhui, Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission of the China Polar Research Center and leader of China's 41st Antarctic Expedition, attended the closing ceremony as a special guest.

Liu Yong welcomed the delegates at home and abroad and reviewed the 100-year history of the school and the 40-year history of polar expedition. It highlights the school's contribution to building a maritime power and promoting global maritime cooperation. He said that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Ocean University of China and the 40th anniversary of China's polar expedition, and hoped that the participating researchers would strengthen cooperation, deeply understand the polar changes and their impacts, contribute wisdom to the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind, and wish the conference a complete success.

The opening ceremony of the conference was presided over by Professor Shi Jiuxin, Director of the Key Laboratory of Polar Ocean Processes and Global Ocean Change. After the opening ceremony, the keynote report of the conference was made. Academician Matthew England of the University of New South Wales in Australia introduced the changes in polar ocean water masses over the past 50 years and predicted future trends. Professor Agus Santoso, Director of the Climate and Ocean – Variability, Predictability and Change (CLIVAR) Research Programme Office, analyzed the effects of El Niño and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability on melting Antarctic sea ice and ocean warming under the ice shelf. Professor Yuri Mazei, Vice President of Moscow State University in Russia, focused on the ecology of Arctic marine benthic ciliates and discussed their response to climate change. Academician Fu Qiang of the University of Washington, Professor Judah Cohen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Young-Oh Kwon, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, shared the latest research results on Arctic ocean warming and Arctic amplification in the form of online reports. These reports provide the latest insights into understanding the role of polar oceans in global climate change and point out the direction for future research.

During the conference, more than 70 scholars from China, Australia, Russia, South Korea, the United States, Japan, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and other countries gave 52 oral academic presentations and shared 21 poster reports on four topics, including ocean cryosphere changes and ice-sea interactions, polar ocean dynamics and thermal processes, polar marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles, and the coupling of the atmosphere and polar oceans and their global effects.

Heads of the International Cooperation and Exchange Office, School of Ocean and Atmosphere, Key Laboratory of Physics and Ocean Education, School of Marine Life, School of Fisheries and other units, as well as representatives of teachers and students attended the meeting.

Ocean University of China has established a multidisciplinary polar scientific research team, covering multiple research fields and technical support fields, with more than 200 people participating in polar expeditions, making important contributions to the study of polar oceans and global change. Since 2022, Ocean University of China has held the International Symposium on Polar Oceans and Global Change (iSPOGOC) every year, providing an international platform for exchanging achievements and strengthening cooperation, which has attracted widespread attention from scholars at home and abroad.

Correspondent: Wang Xiaowei, Shi Jiuxin Photo: Wang Yongjun, Zhang Zhuo