This week, MBARI President and CEO Antje Boetius participated in Mission Neptune’s Polar Oceans Challenge during New York Climate Week, seeking to raise awareness about the urgent need for sustained research in polar regions.

Polar environments are integral to the health of our planet and host unique communities of life, but are experiencing dramatic changes due to the rapid warming of Earth, especially in the Arctic and increasingly in Antarctica. MBARI and our peers in the global scientific community are working to answer fundamental questions about polar ecosystems to inform about the future of the Arctic and Antarctic. International scientific collaboration—including joint missions aboard icebreaker ships, networked deployment of robotic floats through the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) program, buoys, and sailing and drift studies—is essential to observe ice loss, ocean change, and the fate of endemic polar life.

Hosted by Mission Neptune and the Explorers Club, the Polar Oceans Challenge brought together explorers, scientists, diplomats, philanthropists, and public leaders to discuss how scientific exploration can serve global public policy.

Mission Neptune connects global leaders in exploration, science, culture, economy, and governance to support collective action for sustainable governance of the ocean. MBARI is a mission partner in this international initiative, and Boetius serves as co-president of the program’s board of trustees and executive direction.

A world-renowned expert in deep-sea and polar science, Boetius delivered the evening’s keynote address. Afterward, she participated in a dialogue with MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow Guillaume Liniger, one of the inaugural cohort of Neptune Fellows, about supporting the next generation of ocean scientists.

The evening also included remarks from leadership of the Explorers Club—Barbara Doran, Alex More, and Sylvia Earle—and Mission Neptune’s Chief Executive Ashok Adicéam, Ifremer President and CEO François Houiller, as well as a live broadcast from the Tara Polar Station observatory in the Arctic with Tara Ocean Foundation Executive Director Romain Troublé.

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