From May 18 to 20, the 2nd Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) Science Conference was held in Beijing. The Conference was co-sponsored by RADI, University of Helsinki and Research Institute for Aerospace Monitoring (AEROCOSMOS), and attended by more than 160 experts and scholars from 12 countries including Finland, Russia, China, United States, United Kingdom, and Norway.
PEEX is a multidisciplinary program focused on solving grand challenges in northern Eurasia, and particularly in arctic and boreal regions. It will also help developing service, adaptation and mitigation plans for northern societies to cope with global change. The vision of PEEX is to solve interlinked global challenges influencing human well-being and societies in northern Eurasia and China in an integrative way, recognizing the significant role of boreal and arctic regions in the context of global change. The conference provides a scientific platform to discuss further steps for implementing the PEEX Science Plan.
On the opening ceremony, Prof. GUO Huadong, Chair of the Organizing Committee delivers welcoming remarks. He says, global change and the major environmental issues caused by climate change are challenging the fundamentals of human existence in the 21st century. He points out that the changes in natural environments and climate have a profound influence on economic and social development, accordingly, how to achieve global sustainable development while dealing with climate change is one of the most critical topics we currently face. He thinks that the 2nd PEEX Science Conference, as a next-generation natural sciences and socio-economic research initiative, will provide a scientific platform to explore better scientific approaches to global sustainable development.
Prof. Markku Kulmala, Co-Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee, gives a presentation of the aims of the conference. In his presentation, he introduces the background, organization, infrastructure structure, partner institutions and development of PEEX, and points out that the vision and mission of PEEX covered building world-class infrastructure, conducting excellent scientific education and training, improving innovation environment and extending benefits to the society.
William Paton, Executive Director of IRDR says that the partnership network of PEEX under building, and the foci of PEEX on social issues and risks are similar to IRDR. He hopes that scientists and decision-makers will develop more and better connections to jointly address the challenges posed by global change.
Mr. Pavel Konstantinov from Lomonosov Moscow State University emphasizes the importance of multi-disciplinary research, and commended the outstanding contributions of PEEX.
Prof. Sergej Zilitinkevich from Finnish Meteorological Institute stresses that PEEX is a multidisciplinary, multi-scale research initiative, which contained conventional research fields, such as geography, environment and atmosphere, adopts multi-disciplinary approaches, and introduces humanities and social science. He calls for further steps forward of PEEX Science Plan.
In his academic report, Prof. Guo highlights the role of space observation technology in “Belt and Road Initiative” environment and “Three-Pole Comparison Study” (the South Pole, the North Pole, and the Third Pole). As the only extensive, multi-scale, long-periodic, spatially seamless and time-continuous observation method, Earth observation has achieved some primary progress in researches on ecological environment of countries covered by the “Belt and Road Initiative”, potential influences of global change, maritime environment and natural disasters, preservation of world natural heritage and urbanization. He out that the “Three Poles” is the sensor and indicator of global change, and “Three-Pole Comparison Study” could discover scientific phenomena that single-pole research cannot reach.
Prof. Guo Huadong, Prof. Fu Congbin, Prof. Sergej Zilitinkevich, Prof. Valery Bondur and Prof. Kasimov Nikolai are awarded PEEX Fellow and grants certificates of honor.
The three-day conference covered three plenary sessions and ten regular sessions. Altogether 174 abstracts were submitted of which 65 were selected as oral presentations and 109 as posters. Themes of the conference focuses on "Observations and data management/infrastructure”, “Processing/Modeling”, and “Impacts, adaptation and management”.
A scene of the conference.
Prof. GUO Huadong delivers welcoming remarks.
Prof. Markku Kulmala gives a presentation of the background, organization, infrastructure structure, partner institutions and development of PEEX.
Group photo.
