National Capability is long-term, strategic science spanning decades, which enables the development of exciting step changes in techniques and technologies. The ongoing development and maintenance of these capabilities makes a much wider portfolio of environmental science possible.
The UK Polar Research Expertise for Science and Society (PRESCIENT), a British Antarctic Survey (BAS)/CPOM partnership, provides the UK and wider scientific community with the necessary infrastructure and data to support research into the polar regions. Through PRESCIENT, scientists provide essential advice to Government to inform policy and help prepare for the effects of climate-related changes.
In this first annual meeting of PRESCIENT, introduced by Professor Dominic Hodgson, interim Director of Science at BAS, and Professor Andrew Shepherd, CPOM Director, we heard from scientists across the programme on exciting advances and achievements in polar climate data records, long-term observations of ecosystems in regions of the Southern Ocean, sea-level Rise science and the Space Weather Observatory.
We also heard from Sophie Hodgson (Associate Director for National Capability, NERC) about the importance of National Capability to UK science and research: “you can’t understand trends and what is happening in the world if they’re not being observed over long periods of time.”
This broad programme of work supports and underpins research into how environmental change is affecting the polar regions, how this in turn leads to global sea-level rise, and space weather impacts measured from Antarctica.
The PRESCIENT programme is funded by NERC’s National Capability Single Centre Science and National Public Good initiatives.
