Davos, Switzerland – the highest town in Europe, sitting at an altitude of ~1800m, saw the meeting of researchers with a focus on all things arctic, antarctic and the high altitude at Polar2018. The #polarglider team had a busy week, which kicked off with a trail run to 2700m: setting the scene for clear minds and new perspectives on polar science.

A successful SOFLUX (Southern Ocean Fluxes) meeting was facilitated by Dr. Sebastiaan Swart, show-casing the Southern Ocean Observing System tools available of their website,  which encourages collaboration, and highlighting the absolute sparsity of observations in the Southern Ocean – especially during winter.

Dr. Sebastiaan Swart presents on the Southern Ocean Observing System as the COMNAP session during Polar2018

Amidst the 25 000 croissants that were served throughout the week at Polar2018, Dr. Louise Biddle updated the scientific community on the ability of satellite-tagged seals to measure submesoscale processes and Marcel du Plessis presented a poster of his recent work on the role of wind driven submesoscale processes in delaying the onset of restratification after winter in the Sub-Antarctic Zone.

Dr. Louise Biddle presenting progress in the analysis of submesoscales in the Marginal Ice Zone using seal tag data

I attended the Polar2018 meeting as a PhD student at the beginning of my journey in the field of physical polar oceanography. It was inspiring to get first hand exposure to the latest progress, discoveries and plans of the global polar oceanography community. Some exciting technology was presented. Particularly

With new advances in technology, previously inaccessible polar regions are getting closer to the reach of the human mind and our scientific understanding is accelerating as demonstrated during the Polar2018 meeting – ever more important in an era of uncertain climate change.