On August 1st, 2026, the EU-funded SYNCHRONY project officially launched. Bringing together 27 international partners—including the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS)—this four-year, €8.5 million initiative aims to significantly improve our capacity to observe, understand, and predict the complex changes occurring in the Antarctic environment and its unique ecosystems.
Bridging the Data Gap in a Changing Environment The Southern Ocean and Antarctic shelf seas are currently experiencing unprecedented environmental shifts. Dramatic declines in sea ice cover, the rapid loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and shifting oceanographic currents pose critical threats to local and global biodiversity.
However, projecting the ecological consequences of these physical transformations remains challenging. “The full implications of these abrupt changes for the local and global climate and the ecosystems remain unclear. We are currently unable to predict these changes,” explains SYNCHRONY principal investigator Prof. Dr. Alexander Haumann (AWI/LMU). This critical knowledge gap stems largely from a lack of integrated biological and physical observational data, as well as the need for more accurate representations of the ocean-ice-atmosphere-biosphere system in current models.
Harmonising Data for the Scientific Community A core mission of SYNCHRONY is the consolidation and standardisation of multidisciplinary datasets—a fundamental priority shared by the Antarctic Biodiversity Portal. By establishing a synchronised observing system across the Southern Ocean, the project will not only deploy new observation networks for ecological, atmospheric, and ocean research, but also harmonise existing data streams to ensure they are fully accessible to the global research community.
As Prof. Dr. Stefanie Arndt, co-principal investigator for the project, notes: “SYNCHRONY will expand and improve Antarctic observing networks, consolidate existing datasets, collect new ones and make them more accessible… The resulting knowledge will help us to better understand the rapid changes in the region and make them more predictable.”
Supporting Global Conservation and Open Science SYNCHRONY serves as a foundational building block for major upcoming international initiatives. It acts as a key contributor to the UN Ocean Decade programme Antarctica InSync(2027–2030) and paves the way for the 5th International Polar Year (2032/2033). Building on the existing frameworks of SCAR and the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS), SYNCHRONY aims to deliver the robust, actionable data necessary to support international conservation policies, protect marine biodiversity, and inform frameworks like the European Green Deal.
Led by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), the project will heavily leverage infrastructure during the main Antarctica InSync observation period, including autonomous instruments and multidisciplinary observatories.
The SCAR Antarctic Biodiversity Portal will contribute to the development of biodiversity and ecological essential variables and the implementation of indicators from data and data products.
SYNCHRONY is funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement ID 101295248. For more information, and updates, visit the official website: https://synchrony-project.eu/