Graduate Education in Polar Environmental Change
About
Witness the Arctic provides information on current arctic research efforts and findings, significant research initiatives, national policy affecting arctic research, international activities, and profiles of institutions with major arctic research efforts. Witness serves an audience of arctic scientists, educators, agency personnel, and policy makers. Witness was published biannually in hardcopy from 1995-2008 (archives are available below) and is currently published online 3-4 times annually, depending on newsworthy events.
Archives
With the Spring 2009 issue, ARCUS changed the format of Witness the Arctic. To provide more frequent updates and reduce printing and mailing costs and associated environmental impacts, the newsletter is now distributed online in three or four shorter issues per year, depending on newsworthy events.
Contact
If you have a question or an idea for a Witness article, contact Betsy Turner-Bogren at betsy [at] arcus [dot] org.
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In 2008, Dartmouth's Dickey Center for International Understanding was awarded a five-year NSF Interdisciplinary Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant to develop a Ph.D. program in polar environmental change (www.dartmouth.edu/~igert/). The U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) is a collaborator on the project. The program integrates departmental graduate requirements in earth sciences, ecology and evolutionary biology, and engineering with an interdisciplinary framework for studying polar environmental change. While science-based, the program also considers the human dimensions of climate change and ways scientists can more effectively communicate with policymakers and the public about the consequences of rapid climate change.
An important part of the Dartmouth program is a field seminar in Greenland, a country currently experiencing the consequences of melting sea ice and receding glaciers. Students study and research terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems near Kangerlussuaq, snow and ice cryosphere processes on the Greenland Ice Sheet at Summit Camp, and environmental policy and science communication in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.