The Early Career Scientists Symposium was held alongside the 2016 CLIVAR Open Science Conference in Qingdao, hosted by the First Institute of Oceanography. The Symposium aimed to capture the ideas of early career researchers on pressing science priorities, immediate challenges, and emerging opportunities to help guide the future evolution of CLIVAR. 135 early career scientist (ECS) from 34 countries traveled to Qingdao and discussed their vision for the future of CLIVAR.

A paper reporting the ideas generated at the Symposium was published recently in the first edition of Climate and Atmospheric Science [Swart et al., 2018]. In the paper the authors emphasized the need for open science and reduced barriers to international collaboration. Science priorities include improving process-based understanding and predictability of regional climate variability and change, moving toward seamless predictions, and improving and expanding global observations have been identified by the ECS participating in wring to the paper. In summary, the next generation of climate scientists are dedicated to taking on these challenges and to advancing CLIVAR’s mission.
For the full report see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-018-0015-y
Swart et al., 2018, Reflections on the CLIVAR Early Career Scientists Symposium

Fig.1 Country affiliation of participants from the Early Career Scientists Symposium. Circle location and size indicate the number of participants currently affiliated with each country.