Past Events

Using Sewage Monitoring to Investigate Infectious Disease, Sponsored by US Arctic Research Commission (USARC), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC).

Please join us for a free, virtual workshop featuring guest speakers and panelists from around the world. The two day workshop will cover: An overview of the current state of the science of Wastewater Epidemiology, how this technology is being used during the COVID-19 pandemic, testing goals and potential sampling approaches for Alaska’s unique and varied remote communities and ethical/privacy considerations when conducting these activities in small communities.

The workshop is open to the public, though aimed at health and water/sanitation professionals.

The UAF Geophysical Institute presents the virtual 2021 Science for Alaska Lecture Series. Tune in at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays to learn about exciting science from measuring the aurora, monitoring whale populations with unmanned aircraft, and participating in the largest Arctic expedition in history. RSVP to watch on Zoom or watch live from the UAF or GI Facebook pages.

October 2020 marked the successful completion of MOSAiC, the largest and most extensive Arctic expedition ever undertaken. Researchers from more than 30 nations set off to gain a better understanding of how the Arctic system works: how the interactions between the ocean, sea ice, atmosphere and ecosystem change over the course of an entire year. This spring, the expedition’s success was threatened by the pandemic but it ultimately continued by using preventative measures to safely rotate scientists and crew.

Consequently, what was originally a 2.5 month field deployment for GI scientist Melinda Webster stretched to nearly 5.5 months. The extension of field time was a tremendously positive experience, enriched with opportunities to watch the seasonal evolution of the sea ice cover in the high central Arctic. In this talk, she shares photos and stories to give a behind-the-scenes look at what life was like during the expedition, the science conducted, and the incredible team of people who helped make the mission such a success.

Talks are free and for the public. All ages are encouraged to attend. This is the first in a series of six free, public lectures for the virtual 2021 Science for Alaska Lecture Series.

International Glaciological Society Global Seminar:

Speaking:

• Lavanya Ashokkumar, University of Arizona, "Global Sea-Level Estimates from Glaciers"
• Jakob Steiner, Utrecht University / ICIMOD(Nepal), "Vertical Ice - Ice Cliffs in Greenland, the Alps and the Himalaya"
• Nate Stevens, University of Wisconsin, "Tuning Into the Stick-Slip Channel: Observations of Tight Linkage Between Melt-Season Hydrology and Seismogenic Sliding at Saskatchewan Glacier"

Please register in advance for the seminars. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the seminar.

The seminar will also be available afterwards on the Friends of the International Glaciological Society Facebook page so that you can watch it there if technology fails or you can't make it.

Join IARPC Collaborations, the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS), and UCIrvine for a virtual Arctic research speed networking event. Over the course of 1.5 hours, researchers will be split into a series of small groups to rapidly get to know one another and brainstorm future collaborations. Groups will be organized across disciplines, with a particular emphasis on grouping social scientists and natural scientists together.

The Arctic Research Virtual Speed Networking event is the first activity in a series designed to provide participants with the opportunity to:

• Network with potential project partners
• Workshop interdisciplinary research ideas
• Meet with Arctic research funders

With the uncertainties surrounding COVID-19 and priority to ensure the health and safety of all our attendees, the Alaska Forum on the Environment 2021 will be offered as a virtual event through Alaska Connect, a new online training and events platform in partnership with Knik Tribe. Thanks to this partnership, technical sessions and environmental trainings will now be offered through Alaska Connect all year long. To keep the tradition of AFE, enhanced content, trainings and world-renown keynotes will still take place February 8-11, 2021.

Sign up for an individual or business subscription to Alaska Connect and attend all the trainings you want throughout the year or sign up for a week-long event pass and attend the sessions during the week of AFE.

Topics presented:

• Climate change
• Energy
• Science
• Contaminated sites, cleanup, and remediation
• Emergency preparedness and response
• Federal facilities
• Fish, wildlife, habitat, forests, and invasive species
• Marine debris
• Oil spill prevention and response
• Pollution prevention
• Resource revelopment
• Engineering and technology
• Solid waste and recycling
• Sustainability
• Tribal / rural issues
• Youth

In light of common interests and prospects for cooperation in the Arctic, this international virtual symposium will convene representatives, scholars, and experts from Japan, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of South Korea, and the United States to share their countries’ unique Arctic interests and policies. Hosted by the Asia Program and the Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, with support from the Government of Japan and the Embassy of Japan in the United States, the symposium will take place at 6:00 to 9:00 PM EST on February 8th and 9th, 2021 (early morning of February 9th and 10th in Japan, China and South Korea).

Speakers will be announced in the coming days; please check the event webpage for the most up-to-date agenda.

The UAF Geophysical Institute presents the virtual 2021 Science for Alaska Lecture Series. Tune in at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays to learn about exciting science from measuring the aurora, monitoring whale populations with unmanned aircraft, and participating in the largest Arctic expedition in history. RSVP to watch on Zoom or watch live from the UAF or GI Facebook pages.

What can geophysics tell us about the aurora borealis, and how do scientists measure its activity? In this talk, we’ll show how an advanced array of geophysical equipment installed across the state of Alaska is shedding new light on one of the Arctic’s oldest wonders. Scientists are redefining how we see the aurora, using everything from Alaska’s six all-sky cameras to devices that measure space weather. Join us as we take you on a tour of these changing views, from the 1716 discovery that the aurora is magnetic, to the new discovery that magnetic sensors in some 200 seismometers installed across Alaska — normally used to measure earthquakes — can be tuned to measure the aurora’s fluctuations.

Talks are free and for the public. All ages are encouraged to attend. This is the second in a series of six free, public lectures for the virtual 2021 Science for Alaska Lecture Series.

We invite you to attend a 3-day online conference with the theme: “Disturbance and recovery of terrestrial arctic and boreal ecosystems” hosted by Scott Polar Research Institute, British Antarctic Survey, M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University, Institute of Space Research and Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences.

The conference will be from Wednesday 10th to Friday 12th February, 09:00-15:00 GMT / 12:00-18:00 MSK and will be held via Zoom with accompanied simultaneous translation in Russian and English (details to be circulated to registered participants in due course).

Registration Deadline: 1 February 2021.

Please follow the link above for more information.

International Glaciological Society Global Seminar:

Speaking: Mike Wood, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "Melt From Below - Ocean Warming and the Demise of Greenland's Glaciers"

Please register in advance for the seminars. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the seminar.

The seminar will also be available afterwards on the Friends of the International Glaciological Society Facebook page so that you can watch it there if technology fails or you can't make it.

Join Polar Impact for an overview of this inclusive network of racial & ethnic minorities and allies in the polar research community.

Founder Prem Gill and co-organizer Asmara Lehrmann will discuss Polar Impact's mission to support, connect, and highlight the stories of Black, Asian, Indigenous, people of color, and minority ethnic professionals in the polar research community, as well as resources offered by the network.

For more information about the speakers and how to join the webinar, please follow the link above.

February 11th is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, join in and celebrate with a virtual 3-day festival featuring women in science, exploration and conservation from across the globe, brought right into your living rooms!

This virtual weekend has a simple goal, celebrating incredible women, doing incredible things around the world, day in and day out. From the 12th – 14th of February, we'll meet scientists, explorers, conservationists, filmmakers, photographers and more, showcasing their work, challenges, adventures, research and expeditions.

This festival is 100% free to join in. Our goal is to raise funds for Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants to deliver a full month of live virtual guest speaker and field trip events for classrooms across North America. All we ask is that if you can, please make a donation and support our important education outreach. Since 2015, Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants has hosted over 2,000 live events connecting a half million students with scientists and explorers from over 80 countries. What we do is and always will be free for classrooms everywhere!

To learn more about the speakers and schedule please follow the link above.

Lawyers and legal academics are often perceived to spend endless hours in front of a screen or in the library, conducting desk and internet research. Much of legal research, if not all, can be done far away from the issues under research. Have you ever wondered what "going in the field" looks like for legal research?

Join the University of Toronto Polar Law Group in learning more experienced researchers about what field research and primary research in the legal discipline looks like in the polar context.

Our guests are Professor Antje Neumann (Department of Law at the University of Akureyri, Iceland), Professor Betsy Baker (Vermont Law School, United States) and Dr. Sarah Mackie (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, United States).

The Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) invites registration for their next SIOS Webinar Series webinar, titled An Anchor Point to a Drifting World!

This webinar will present projects in the frame of the SIOS access programme.

Despite the significant challenges of 2020, three of the planned 14 projects in the access programme were completed on schedule. Hear from two of these projects and find out how they did.

Presenters will also discuss three of the nine projects they are planning to carry out in 2021. Find out more about their projects and their plans to travel to Svalbard for fieldwork.

Antarctic and Polar research colleagues, the kick-off workshop for the SCAR INSTANT Programme - INStabilities & Thresholds in ANTarctica: The Antarctic contribution to global sea-level will be held in mid-February. 'INSTANT' is a new SCAR scientific programme recently approved. INSTANT will officially start in January. Here you can download the science and implementation plan.

The INSTANT kick-off workshop will take place online. The aim of the establishment workshop is to develop the detailed work plan for the Programme, Themes and sub-committees as well as identify committee members and leaders.

Registration is open and there is no fee. Register via the online registration form.

To facilitate the workshop discussions, we would like to welcome your ideas for INSTANT sub-committees under the main themes of INSTANT, or across those themes. Submit your ideas no later than January 15th via the sub-committee ideas form.

To continue discussions initiated at our 2020 Annual Meeting, ARCUS announces a call for nominations for members to serve on a new ad hoc committee that will focus on building the Arctic research community’s capacity for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. Committee members will serve a 1-year term and will play an important role in developing the initial goals and direction of this new group’s efforts, and provide input to ARCUS’ activities around this topic. Committee members will be expected to join virtual meetings approximately 4-6 times through the year, and will have additional opportunities to work on specific activities. Self-nominations from all disciplines, career levels, and research backgrounds are welcome. Stipends may be available for committee members, depending on the scope of time and involvement of the committee member.

Self-nominations should be sent to Brit Myers at brit at arcus.org by Monday, 15 February and include:

• Name, Affiliation, & Contact Information
• Resume, CV, or link to a professional webpage
• A brief statement explaining why you would like to be part of the committee and what you would like to contribute.

Welcome to the Mathematics on Ice Forum! We are proposing to meet once a month to discuss mathematical aspects of ice dynamics and bring together the community in an informal atmosphere.

The first meeting planned will take place on 15th February with the following talks:

• Alex Robel (GeorgiaTech) on "Grounding lines transition to instability at sharp peaks through a crossing-sliding bifurcation"
• Kasia Warburton (Cambridge) on "Tides below glaciers: subglacial hydrology of the grounding line"

Starting at 4:00pm GMT, with optional continuation of discussions (feel free to come and go as you like). In each meeting there will be two short 20 minute presentations (in Zoom) and time for discussions and ice-breaking in small groups.

In general, the presentations are hoped to provide introductions to topics and cover a broad range of areas, focusing on foundations, physical phenomena and model implementations of ice sheet and glacier dynamics (e.g. shear margin evolution, melt production and softening), fracture mechanics and damage (e.g. crevassing, rifting, hydrofracture, calving), subglacial environments (e.g. hydrology, till dynamics and lubrication), surface mass balance processes (e.g. supraglacial lakes and rivers, snow dynamics), microstructure (fabric, anisotropy, recrystallisation processes), and ice-ocean interactions,... and anything else you are fascinated about.

Please follow the link above for more information.

Rick Thoman, Alaska climate specialist, who will review past climate information focusing on unusual dry times and will provide a statewide overview, including tools typically used to access drought/precipitation deficit.

Please follow the link above to register.

The Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) invites registration for the next Arctic Research Seminar featuring Kent Moore, Professor of Physics and Vice-Principal Research at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Dr. Moore’s presentation, is titled Anomalous Collapses of Nares Strait Ice Arches Leads to Enhanced Export of Arctic Sea Ice.

Seminar Abstract:

The ice arches that usually develop at the northern and southern ends of Nares Strait play an important role in modulating the export of multi-year sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean. As a result of global warming, the Arctic Ocean is evolving towards an ice pack that is younger, thinner, and more mobile and the fate of its multi-year ice is becoming of increasing interest to both the scientific and policy communities. Here, we use sea ice motion retrievals derived from Sentinel-1 imagery to report on recent behavior of these ice arches and the associated ice flux. In addition to the previously identified early collapse of the northern ice arch in May 2017, we report that this arch failed to develop during the winters of 2018 and 2019. In contrast, we report that the southern ice arch was only present for a short period of time during the winter of 2018 as well as for a more extended period during the winter of 2020. We also show that the duration of arch formation has decreased over the past 20 years as ice in the region has thinned, while the ice area and volume fluxes have both increased. These results suggest that a transition is underway towards a state where the formation of these arches will become atypical with a concomitant increase in the export of multi-year ice accelerating the transition towards a younger and thinner Arctic ice pack.

Registration is required for this event. Instructions for accessing the webinar will be sent to registrants prior to the event.

The Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center at IARC invites proposals for projects that support “actionable science” or knowledge that can inform or be applied to high-priority natural and cultural resource management issues, either locally or broadly across Alaska. AK CASC expects to initiate 3-4 new projects with Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 funds. For more details on this opportunity, please refer to the full Request For Proposals document at the link above.

The National Climate Adaptation Science Center will host an informational webinar and question and answer session pertaining to this solicitation. You can find the Zoom information at the link above.

Dates:

• Deadline for Statements of Interest: Friday, March 19, 2021, 5:00 PM EDT
• Full Proposals Invited (Planned): April 22, 2021
• Deadline for Invited Full Proposals: Friday, July 23, 2021, 5:00 PM EDT
• Notification of Intent to Award (Planned): September 8, 2021

All Statements of Interest should be submitted to the CASC RFPManager Portal.

The UAF Geophysical Institute presents the virtual 2021 Science for Alaska Lecture Series. Tune in at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays to learn about exciting science from measuring the aurora, monitoring whale populations with unmanned aircraft, and participating in the largest Arctic expedition in history. RSVP to watch on Zoom or watch live from the UAF or GI Facebook pages.

This Science for Alaska lecture will be a compilation of short, eight-minute flash-talks from UAF graduate students researchers with time for questions after individual presentations.Topics include exploring Venus, measuring gases from Alaska volcanoes, using satellite imagery to understand fire behavior, and oceanography research in Kachemak Bay. Bring your questions for these dedicated student researchers!

UAF graduate student researchers presenting:

• Joshua Knicely, Ph.D. student, UAF GI
• Skye Kushner, Ph.D. student, Alaska Volcano Observatory, UAF GI
• Valerie Wasser, Ph.D. student, Alaska Volcano Observatory, UAF GI
• Chris Smith, M.Sc. student, UAF GI
• Josianne Haag, M.Sc. student, UAF CFOS

Talks are free and for the public. All ages are encouraged to attend. This is the third in a series of six free, public lectures for the virtual 2021 Science for Alaska Lecture Series.