From September 25 to 27, 2024, the " International Symposium on Geomatics, Remote Sensing and Climate Change in the Arctic, Antarctica and High Mountain Asia" was held at Tongji University. The event attracted over 100 experts and scholars from 13 countries and regions, including China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Italy, Australia, and India. Professor Huadong Guo from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Xiaohua Tong from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Professor Rongxing Li from Tongji University served as co-chairs of the academic committee.
The symposium, hosted by Tongji University and organized by the College of Surveying and Geo-Informatics, aimed to create a platform for understanding the latest developments in polar and high Asia research while exploring new theories, methods, and results in the fields of surveying, remote sensing, and climate change. Professor Gang Qiao from the College of Surveying and Geo-Informatics, Tongji University, chaired the opening ceremony. Professor Guangming Wu, Deputy President of Tongji University, delivered a welcome speech, highlighting the long history of the surveying discipline at Tongji University and significant advancements in key strategic areas, including "Global Change and Disaster Monitoring." Professor Huadong Guo addressed the attendees on behalf of the supporting academic organizations, emphasizing that under the backdrop of climate warming, the polar regions and high Asia are among the most sensitive areas of global environmental change, playing a crucial role in the interactions of Earth’s systems, with significant implications for human life. Liang Zhang, Director of Division 4, Department of Earth Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), attended the meeting and provided insights on marine science and polar science funding applications.
During the symposium, domestic and international experts engaged in discussions across seven themes, including remote sensing technology for monitoring changes in the climate and environment of the Arctic, Antarctica and High Mountain Asia, mass balance in the Arctic, Antarctica and global sea level change, "ice-ocean-air" interactions of the Arctic and Antarctica, sea ice change monitoring, modelling, and assessment, inversion of "ice-snow-water" parameters for the Arctic, Antarctica and High Mountain Asia, monitoring and modelling of permafrost, snow and vegetation interactions in the Arctic and High Mountain Asia, data assimilation and modelling, climate disaster and mitigation on High Mountain Asia. A total of 56 oral presentations (including five keynote speeches) and 20 poster presentations were conducted, facilitating in-depth academic exchanges.
Additionally, during the symposium, Director Liang Zhang from the NSFC's Earth Science Division provided a detailed introduction regarding the 2024 application and funding situation for marine and polar sciences. He expressed the NSFC’s support for the symposium, shared insights on overall application and funding conditions for marine science in 2024, highlighted specific areas needing attention for applications, answered enthusiastic questions from attendees, and encouraged researchers to achieve further successes.
The symposium fostered vibrant academic exchanges within the Tongji campus, deepening the understanding of the progress in surveying, remote sensing, and climate change research in the polar regions and high Asia, while enhancing collaborative relationships among scholars.
(For more photo highlights of the symposium, please see the symposium website: https://tripolar-rs.tongji.edu.cn/).
