2019 Sea Ice Outlook Interim Post-Season Report Report
The 2019 Sea Ice Outlook Interim Post-Season Report is now available. The September monthly averaged sea ice extent at the end of the 2019 summer melt season was 4.32 million square kilometers. This is the third lowest in the satellite record that began in 1979.
This interim report is intended as a quick postseason update that summarizes how the outlooks did in comparison to the observed September monthly mean extent. A full post-season report, to be published in February 2020, will include an in-depth analysis of factors impacting sea ice this past summer, further discussion about the outlooks, comments on regional observation, predicted spatial fields, Antarctic contributions, and a summary from the Sea Ice Drift Forecast Experiment (SIDFEx).
ARCUS Welcomes New Staff Member Announcement
We are happy to welcome Kuba Grzeda to the ARCUS staff team! Kuba joins ARCUS in the Fairbanks, AK office as a project assistant. Prior to joining ARCUS, Kuba worked on connecting commercial fishers and other small businesses in Alaska with federal grant funding, was part of the facilitation team of the Fairbanks Air Quality Stakeholders group, and helped plan a number of conferences throughout Alaska. Kuba will be working on a variety of projects and events, and we hope you will join us in welcoming Kuba to the Arctic research community!
Now Accepting Applications to PolarTREC Opportunity
The application period for 2020-2021 applications from U.S. educators wishing to participate in the program and for researchers wanting to host an educator in the polar regions is now open!
Educator Application Deadline: Monday, 7 October 2019 by 5:00 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time
Researcher Application Deadline: Monday, 14 October 2019 by 5:00 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time
MOSAiC Expedition: Sign Up for Weekly Expedition Engagement Activities! Education
On September 20, 2019 one of the largest research expeditions in the Central Arctic ever conducted will begin when the Polarstern icebreaker sets out to freeze itself in Arctic sea ice for a year. Keep track of the expedition and what’s going on in the Arctic through MOSAiC's weekly news – MOSAiC Monday – great for K-12, undergraduate, and graduate classroom use. Engage your students with real-time updates, behind the scenes access to the MOSAiC expedition, and short, simple activities. Sign up to receive MOSAiC Monday in your inbox every Monday during the expedition. PolarTREC educator, Katie Gavenus and researcher Anne Gold will be on the first leg of this expedition. You can follow their journey through the expedition page on PolarTREC and subscribe to their journals.
PolarTREC Informational Webinar Events
An informational webinar for the 2020-21 PolarTREC seasons will be held on Wednesday, 11 September 2019 at 1:00pm AKDT (2pm PDT, 3pm MDT, 4pm CDT, 5pm EDT) for teachers, informal science educators and researchers.
If you are unable to attend the webinar, we will post an archive online soon after the event. Anyone who has registered for the event in advance will receive instructions on how to view the archive. You can also download a PDF of the presentation at the same location.
If you want more information before this year's event, you can watch the archived webinar from last year. The video and pdf archives are posted here.
Once you have watched last year's archive or attended this year's informational webinar and still have questions, feel free to contact PolarTREC staff at info [at] polartrec.org.
2019 August Sea Ice Outlook Report Available Report
The 2019 August Sea Ice Outlook (SIO) report is now available online. The Sea Ice Outlook, an effort managed by the Sea Ice Prediction Network–Phase 2 (SIPN2), provides an open process for those interested in Arctic sea ice to share ideas. The monthly reports contain a variety of perspectives—from advanced numerical models to qualitative perspectives from citizen scientists. The Sea Ice Outlook provides an open process for those interested in Arctic sea ice to share predictions and ideas; the Outlook is not an operational forecast.
A record number of 42 Pan-Arctic outlook contributions were received for the August report. Of those contributions 7 also included pan-Antarctic predictions, 11 included regional predictions for Alaskan waters, and 5 were for the Hudson Bay region.
For the August report the pan-Arctic median value for September 2019 sea-ice extent is 4.22 million square kilometers and with quartile values of 4.0 and 4.4 million square kilometers.Although pan-Arctic sea-ice extent was tracking very close to the record minimum of 2012 from mid-June through mid-August, the rate of melt slowed down in late August. A record minimum extent is not expected for 2019, unless late summer storm activity consolidates ice extent.
SIPN2 Webinar Registration: An Overview of European Union-Funded Project APPLICATE Webinar
The Sea Ice Prediction Network – Phase 2 (SIPN2) invites registration for an open webinar entitled "An Overview of European Union-Funded Project APPLICATE" featuring Pablo Ortega, Earth Science Department, Barcelona Supercomputing Center. This webinar will provide an overview on the EU-Funded H2020 project APPLICATE, whose main goal is to advance our capability to predict the weather and climate in the Arctic and beyond. It will present a few examples on the seasonal prediction activities carried out within the project. These include an analysis on how the different forecast errors are developed in the EC-Earth system, a multi-model comparison of predictive skill in all the seasonal forecast systems participating to the Consortium, results from empirical statistical models used for benchmarking, and experiments exploring the added-value of increasing both the atmospheric and oceanic resolution on seasonal prediction. This event will be held on Tuesday, 17 September 2019 from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. AKDT.
Witness Community Highlights Publication
The July 2019 issue of Witness Community Highlights is now available online. This issue includes two articles: “Working for Food Security in Interior Alaska,” which summarizes a case study of how stake-holders in northern cities ensure a high level of food security; and “Tracking Ticks in Alaska: Understanding how an Invasive Species may Impact the Health of Humans and Animals in the Arctic” discusses recent work to understand if invasive ticks are being imported, and surviving, in the Arctic.
Call for Sea Ice Outlook Contributions Call for Input
The Sea Ice Prediction Network–Phase 2 (SIPN2) announces the call for contributions for the 2019 Sea Ice Outlook August report (based on May, June, and July data). The Sea Ice Outlook (SIO) provides an open process for those interested in Arctic sea ice to share ideas.
Pan-Arctic and Regional Sea Ice Extent Outlooks and any additional figures and gridded fields will be accepted for the 2019 August Outlook. We particularly encourage submissions for the Alaska region (i.e., Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas). For those interested, submissions for Hudson Bay are also accepted. Submissions that include spatial forecast maps are encouraged.
The 2019 SIO will also accept pan-Antarctic sea ice extent of the September monthly mean. Informal sea ice observations and other parameters not included in the regular monthly reports are also invited. All participants whose methods provide information at the local scale to are encouraged to provide full spatial fields via the SIPN Data Portal.
Submission deadline: 6:00 p.m. (AKDT) Wednesday, 14 August 2019 (firm).
Call for Sea Ice Outlook Contributions Call for Input
The Sea Ice Prediction Network–Phase 2 (SIPN2) announces the call for contributions for the 2019 Sea Ice Outlook July report (based on May and June data). The Sea Ice Outlook (SIO) provides an open process for those interested in Arctic sea ice to share ideas.
Pan-Arctic and Regional Sea Ice Extent Outlooks and any additional figures and gridded fields will be accepted for the 2019 July Outlook. We particularly encourage submissions for the Alaska region (i.e., Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas). For those interested, submissions for Hudson Bay are also accepted. Submissions that include spatial forecast maps are encouraged.
The 2019 SIO will also accept pan-Antarctic sea ice extent of the September monthly mean. Informal sea ice observations and other parameters not included in the regular monthly reports are also invited. All participants whose methods provide information at the local scale to are encouraged to provide full spatial fields via the SIPN Data Portal.
Submission deadline: 6:00 p.m. (AKDT) Friday, 12 July 2019 (firm).
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