Resumen de The Polar Challenge: Pushing the Boundaries of Observations for Climate Research and Services

• The cryosphere is a major indicator of global climate change and plays a fundamental role in the climate system. Despite advances in numerical modelling, the reliability of long-term climate change predictions in the Arctic and Antarctic are severely limited by the lack of systematic in situ observations of and beneath the sea ice. For this reason, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)1 and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation are sponsoring a Polar Challenge2 that will reward the first team to complete a 2 000 km mission with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) under the Arctic or Antarctic sea ice. Bonus awards will go to the team that has taken regular measurements of sea ice thickness and to those who successfully transmit their under-ice position and environmental data to operational networks.