The CLIVAR/CliC/SCAR Southern Ocean Region Panel (SORP) has been very active, with panel meetings in September 2016 alongside the CLIVAR Open Science Conference in Qingdao, China (access the meeting report here) and jointly with the Year of Polar Prediction Southern Hemisphere workshop in June 2017 (report pending). Extensive participation in international research coordination and collaboration has occurred with several relevant programmes, including the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS), the Ocean Observations Panel for Climate (OOCP), the Year of Polar Prediction Southern Hemisphere (YOPP-SH) and the CLIVAR/CliC Northern Oceans Region Panel (currently under formation). The panel has two new members (Robin Robertson and David Bromwich).
The SORP has organized or proposed sessions at several international conferences including the CLIVAR Open Science Conference (Qingdao, China; September 2016) and Polar 2018. SORP co-sponsored a Townhall meeting on “Ocean-Cryosphere Interactions” at the CLIVAR Open Science Conference. The panel helped to organize a Polar Prediction Workshop in Bremerhaven, Germany (March 2017) co-sponsored by the Polar Climate Predictability Initiative (WCRP-PCPI), the Polar Prediction Project (WWRP-PPP), and the Sea Ice Prediction Network (ARCUS-SIPN). Over the past six months the panel was represented at several international conferences/workshops, including the SCAR Open Science Conference (Malaysia, August 2016), the IGS/CliC/IACS International Symposium on The Cryosphere (Wellington, New Zealand, February 2017), the SOOS SSC meeting, and the SOOS/POGO Observing and Understanding the Ocean below Antarctic Sea Ice and Ice Shelves workshop (Bremerhaven, Germany, June 2017). The SORP has developed a template to maximize input from national reports, has solicited and posted to the website a series of national reports, and has strengthen coordination of national representatives between SOOS and SORP (Inga Smith).
The SORP has reported to several sponsoring and related organizations such as SOOS (Inga Smith and Jiuxin Shi ; Bremerhaven, Germany, June 2017), the Ocean Observations Panel for Climate (OOCP; Katsuro Katsumata; WoodsHole, USA, March, 2017), the Polar Prediction Project (PPP) Steering Group (François Massonnet), the CLIVAR Scientific Steering Group (John Fyfe and Inga Smith, Qingdao, China, September 2016, and the CliC Scientific Steering Group (Inga Smith, Wellington, New Zealand, February 2017).