CPCP 2024 - Innovations and Insights in Portuguese Polar Research

​The XVI Portuguese Conference of Polar Sciences (CPCP 2024) was held at Almeida (Portugal), on the 24-25 October 2024, also hosting the XV Workshop APECS Portugal and VII Workshop PEI Portugal.

The University of Beira Interior (UBI) organized the event, with Professor Pedro Almeida from the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture (UBI) playing a pivotal role in the organization of the conference. His efforts created a warm, welcoming atmosphere in this historic Portuguese village, ensuring each aspect of the conference was showcased to its fullest potential.

The APECS Portugal workshop entitled “The Polar Express to Success: Enhancing ECRs’ Writing Skills”, focused on the importance of ECRs acquiring essential skills and techniques to write effective and attractive project and funding proposals. Talks by Catarina Magalhães (CIIMAR, University of Porto, Portugal), Roger Colominas-Ciuró (Institute of Marine Sciences-ICM-CSIC, Spain), Catarina Frazão (MARE, University of Lisbon) and José Xavier (MARE, University of Coimbra) shared experience and provided important practical tips on effective writing of project proposals.

The PEI Portugal workshop, held on the same day, focused on integrating polar science into classroom learning. The session featured talks by Teresa Cabrita (PROPOLAR, IGOT, University of Lisbon) about how PROPOLAR supports Education and Outreach activities, by José Xavier on how the Antarctic Treaty can be useful to education, and by Klemens Weisleitner (Austrian Polar Research Institute) on sparkling science about frozen worlds for students of various ages. Marta Espírito Santo (Polar Educators International) concluded the workshop with hands-on activities designed to equip educators with practical tools for teaching polar science.

The XVI Portuguese Conference on Polar Sciences showcased recent achievements and groundbreaking discoveries in Portuguese polar research, offering an inspiring view of the Portugal's advancements in this field. Teresa Cabrita, António Monteiro Machado (Mayor of Almeida), along with Rui Fernandes and Pedro Almeida from UBI, opened the conference with a warm welcome, highlighting the strong institutional support driving Portugal’s polar science initiatives. Portuguese polar researchers presented their latest findings from the Arctic and Antarctic, with sessions covering diverse fields such as the cryosphere, atmospheric and planetary sciences, social and human sciences, and both terrestrial and marine sciences. The keynote speaker, René Forsberg from the National Space Institute (Technical University of Denmark), enriched the conference with his discussion on ice sheet changes in Antarctica and Greenland, using space, airborne, and GNSS measurements to reveal critical insights.

Like in previous years, this conference was a tremendous success, sparking lively debates, encouraging international collaborations, and driving forward leading-edge research in polar science. Following the closing ceremony, which featured remarks by Gonçalo Vieira (PROPOLAR, IGOT, University of Lisbon), Rui Fernandes, António Monteiro Machado, and Mário Raposo (Rector of UBI), attendees were invited to a public session dedicated to COASTANTAR 2024: the first Portuguese scientific sailboat expedition to Antarctica. The presentation, led by expedition coordinators Gonçalo Vieira and Pedro Guerreiro (CCMAR, University of Algarve), provided an inspiring overview of this pioneering journey.

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