Past Events

This event provides an opportunity to informally share current and future Arctic-related research and education initiatives. It will be organized into sets of presentations (1-2 slides, 3-min maximum) followed by short discussions to answer questions and identify interdisciplinary collaborations.

Please follow the link above for more information and to register.

The new Biden Administration faces many challenges as it develops an approach to international environmental issues. Join us for a discussion with leaders and experts focusing on key environmental challenges in Antarctica, on land and in the Southern Ocean. As the Antarctic Treaty System marks the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the landmark Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty, the panel will focus on how the United States can contribute to environmental protection in Antarctica in the near term, in particular related to marine protection, such as new marine protected areas.

One Health invites registration for their upcoming seminar, The Winding Path of a Career in Arctic Research. This seminar will be presented by Dr. Henry Huntington, Arctic Science Director of Ocean Conservancy.

Henry P. Huntington lives in Eagle River, Alaska. His research includes documenting Indigenous knowledge of marine mammals, examining Iñupiat and Inuit knowledge and use of sea ice, and assessing the impacts of climate change on Arctic communities. Huntington has been involved in several international research programs and was co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences committee on emerging research questions in the Arctic. He also works for Ocean Conservancy as the Arctic Science Director to promote evidence-based conservation of the Arctic marine environment. Huntington has made long trips in the Arctic by dog team, small boat, and snow machine.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for One Health Research will partner with the U.S. Department of State to host the international conference One Health, One Future virtually from Fairbanks, Alaska.

This is expected to be the largest circumpolar One Health conference held in the United States in 2021, with participation anticipated from across the Arctic region.

The event is part of the United States contribution to One Arctic, One Health¸ an Arctic Council project now in its sixth year of operation. The project aims to develop a circumpolar network of One Health experts that can share knowledge, conduct exercises, and spur collaborative investigations of One Health phenomena.

IARPC has released a draft of the next five-year Arctic Research Plan, which will span from 2022-2026. We are now asking the public to comment on the draft plan by June 11, 2021. To provide additional information about the draft plan contents and development, we are hosting a series of information sessions.

Each information session will provide an overview of IARPC, the timeline for developing the Arctic Research Plan 2022-2026, the contents of the draft plan, and how to submit comments on the draft. In addition to webinar information sessions, we are providing a teleconference session for individuals with low internet bandwidth.

Please follow the link above for more information.

This webinar series is designed to increase transparency of the Arctic Science Ministerial science process and to provide additional opportunities for scientists, Indigenous Peoples and Arctic research stakeholders to further engage with the science and proposed actions leading up to the Third Arctic Science Ministerial in Tokyo, Japan in May 2021. The webinar series is a joint cooperation between the ASM3 Organizers in Iceland and Japan and the European Polar Board.

Each webinar will be shared afterwards on the European Polar Board YouTube page and a written summary will be made available on the ASM3 website.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs (OPP) and the Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate request input from interested parties on the goals, values and approaches for managing the Antarctic Artist and Writers (AAW) Program and possibly expanding that program to include the Arctic.

In addition, OPP and EHR request input into whether the NSF program which selects and sends educators to the Arctic and Antarctic regions should be under a common management structure.

This RFI will help inform NSF as it considers potential avenues for managing and enhancing education and outreach efforts related to polar science.

Organizations representing artists, writers, scientists, educators (both formal and informal) and Arctic residents as well as individuals are encouraged to respond by the deadline, April 7, 2021.

We invite you to attend a joint webinar, "Arctic Marine Operations and Shipping: Green Initiatives and Challenges," organized by the Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge Hub (AE-Bergen), Pacific Environment, University of Bergen, and Arctic Frontiers. The webinar will be held on the Arctic Frontiers digital platform.

Major economies aim to be carbon neutral by 2050. Such an ambition implies an almost full transition away from using fossil fuels to power the transport sector, including maritime transport. How will the maritime Arctic be influenced by global responses to climate change? The webinar addresses maritime transport in the Arctic and will provide insights into a complex set of issues: the Arctic's policy framework for marine safety and environmental protection; indigenous and conservation perspectives; green ship technology; marine infrastructure; and what measures are needed to make Arctic marine operations and shipping more sustainable.

Chair:

• Jim Gamble, Arctic Programme Director, Pacific Environment

Moderator:

• Eystein Jansen, Professor, University of Bergen, the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research and Academic Director, Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge Hub

Keynotes:

• Lawson Brigham, Wilson Fellow, Polar Institute of the Wilson Center
• Morten Mejlænder-Larsen, Director of Arctic Operations and Technology, DNV

Panelists:

• Hege Økland, CEO, Maritime CleanTech
• Arild Moe, Senior Research Fellow, The Fridtjof Nansen Institute
• Mellisa Johnson, Executive Director, Bering Sea Elders Group
• Sian Prior, Lead Advisor, Clean Arctic Alliance

Please follow the link above for more information and to register.

The Women and Water Lecture Series will showcase research, support young professionals and provide a space for dialogue and networking. Additionally, the series will explore water-related challenges, roles of women in water, gendered water-related impacts, women researchers in water, and challenges and opportunities facing female water researchers.

Biographies

Stephanie Pow
Stephanie is a graduate of the Water Resource Engineering Technology program at Saskatchewan Polytechnic Palliser Campus. She has worked at Environment Canada and Climate Change with Water Survey of Canada for 15 years. She graduated from the departments’ apprenticeship program as Hydrometric Technologist. She has held several supervisory roles within the department. She was promoted to Head of Operations of Saskatchewan in March 2020.

Lorelei Ford
Lorelei Ford, M.E.S., is a Water Quality Ecologist with the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency. She has worked in the fields of fisheries, limnology, and unregulated drinking water over her 17 years in government. Her primary responsibility is to ensure the monitoring and reporting of water quality for streams, rivers, and lakes in Saskatchewan.

Lindsey Langs
Lindsey is a Research Officer and Technician working at the Centre for Hydrology’s Coldwater Lab in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, based in Canmore, AB. She completed her M.Sc degree in forest hydrology at the University of Waterloo, and continues to apply her field and research experience within the Mountain Water Futures project, pulling from 5 years of field-based experience.

For public safety and health reasons, the 88th Annual Meeting of the Western Snow Conference will be held in a virtual format. The virtual format this year provides a unique opportunity to increase participation, particularly among those who would otherwise be unable to attend due to financial, geographic, or time constraints. You are invited to submit an abstract of 150 – 300 words for either oral or poster presentation by January 31, 2021. Those who submitted successful abstracts last year will be given preference as we prepare the 2021 conference agenda.

The theme for the 2021 Western Snow Conference is "Bridging the Gap between Research and Operations", however, all snow-related research in the context of measurements, modeling, and water supply are welcome. Keeping in line with the conference theme, papers involving connections between research and operations will be given priority. Papers accepted for presentation at the canceled 2020 Western Snow Conference will also be given priority. In addition to poster and paper presentations, a Monday short course is being planned entitled "A Round Table to Bridge the Research-Operations Divide", led by Dr. Sean Fleming (USDA-NRCS NWCC).

Please share this Call for Papers and Conference Announcement with colleagues, students and friends who may be interested. The virtual format this year provides a unique opportunity to increase participation, particularly among those who would otherwise be unable to attend due to financial, geographic, or time constraints.

Speakers:

• Massimo Caccia, Research Director at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR, National Research Council of Italy)
• Angelo Odetti, Researcher at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR, National Research Council of Italy)
• Raffaella Beroldo, Administrative Assistant at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR, National Research Council of Italy)

Course summary:

This course offers a historical overview of polar marine robotics, considerations and experiences for robot design in cold environments, operational and logistic aspects and experiences from the activities of the National Research Council of Italy (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR). Participants will apply the knowledge gained in the course to plan a hypothetical campaign for a semi-submersible vehicle to acquire data and samples at the ice-water-air interface.

The Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), the Interagency Arctic Research and Policy Committee (IARPC) Arctic STEM collaboration team, and the Arctic STEM Workshop Steering Committee, would like to announce an upcoming National Science Foundation funded workshop: Engaging Rural and Alaska Native Undergraduates and Youth in Arctic STEM.

The Arctic is changing at an unprecedented rate, with consequences for Arctic residents—particularly Indigenous Peoples. Along with these changes are new challenges and a growing need to engage and train the next generation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields that are specifically focused on the Arctic.

The goal of this workshop is to bring together rural and Alaska Native undergraduates and youth, federal agency representatives, researchers on Arctic STEM projects, Indigenous faculty, and community members to discuss the gaps, challenges, opportunities, and successful practices to increase and support the representation of rural and Alaska Native undergraduates and youth in STEM education and career pathways. To ensure this process of learning doesn't replicate the top-down, outside-in model that can be extractive, our virtual workshop will include a collaborative process with all participants and interested organizations. This effort will produce recommendations for systemic change focused on increasing rural and Alaska Native and undergraduates and youth to consider entering STEM fields in Arctic Alaska.

The workshop will discuss the following topics:

• Broadening the understanding of key barriers, challenges, and opportunities in engaging rural and Alaska Native undergraduates and youth in Arctic STEM fields
• Communicating specific strategies and best practices that are successful in engaging rural and Alaska Native undergraduates and youth in Arctic STEM programs and in workforce development
• Share perspectives on what is working and what needs to change
• Discuss ways in which workshop participants can advance individual and collective efforts towards increasing rural Alaskan and - - Alaska Native undergraduates and youth in Arctic STEM education and career pathways

Submit your interest form no later than Monday, March 8, 2021, by 5 PM AKST, if you'd like to participate in this online workshop.

Interested applicants will be notified (via email) of the final decision by Monday, March 15, 2021, of their participation status.

Please follow the link above for more information.

Speaker:

Hanne Sagen, Senior Researcher, Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Norway

Course summary:

Fixed ocean moorings are the main platforms to provide long-term observations of marine environment, covering different time scales from shorter than hourly to monthly, seasonal and multi-annual measurements. Moored instruments can measure different ocean variables, including physical, biogeochemical and biological parameters (and also collect samples and visual images) in the entire water column, also under the sea ice. However, mooring operations in the demanding, ice-covered polar areas are linked to unique challenges, related both to the platform design (instrumentation and mooring hardware) and to the manner of deployment and recovery from an icebreaker in conditions of partial or even sea ice cover. During this short course, we will introduce the main issues about how to plan, design, equip and operate a mooring for measurements in the polar region and discuss planning the campaign and specific ship operations for deployment and recovery of moorings in ice-covered waters. The details of such work will be explored using a case study with the deep ocean acoustic multidisciplinary moorings deployed under the CAATEX project for 2019-2020 in the Arctic Ocean from the Norwegian Coast Guard icebreaker KV Svalbard.

Course summary:

Long-term continuous ground-based atmospheric observations are strongly constrained by land distribution and are still very limited over the sea, particularly in polar regions where fixed installations (buoys) are limited by sea ice. Ship-based atmospheric measurements can potentially close an important knowledge gap, particularly with the aim of validating satellite observations and atmospheric models. This course explores the challenges of taking atmospheric measurements on research ships. A team of experts will introduce and moderate a discussion of relevant topics, the opportunities arising from new technologies and concrete examples of best practices. The overall aim is to communicate the possibility of organizing research ships expeditions as multi-domain observing platforms, which is necessary if we want to elucidate the most important mechanisms and processes that drive the climatic system in the Arctic.

The APECS International Online Conference 2021 will take place on Wednesday, 12th May 2021.

Who this conference is for: We invite polar and alpine researchers from around the world and from various academic levels to present stories related to the polar and alpine regions that happened in 2020. We hope to hear both success stories and stories of learning from failure. The ultimate goal of the project is to unite the ECR community in a collegial and learning experience organized under the 7th annual APECS Online Conference.

This conference has been organised with the support of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS).

Summary:

The theme is designed to encourage contributions from those whose research has been impacted by Covid-19 and had to develop new directions with their research. It also acknowledges that some were able to carry out fieldwork, and so also gives a space for them to showcase their research. The conference will be an opportunity for new research to be presented and connections to be made across polar research. After what has been a difficult year for everyone around the world, we would like to celebrate and learn from your stories related to the polar and alpine regions that happened in 2020. We hope to hear both success stories and stories of learning from failure. The ultimate goal of the project is to unite the ECR community in a collegial and learning experience organized under the 7th annual APECS Online Conference.

Submissions:

The form for submitting an abstract for a talk or a poster is available via the APECS website on the link below. Abstracts must be < 300 words and the submission deadline has been extended to Wednesday, 14th April 2021.

Attendance:

We welcome anyone, of any academic or professional background, interested in Polar science to attend the conference.

Conference registration form to follow up soon!

International Glaciological Society Global Seminar:

Speaking: Joseph Graly, Northumbria University, "What Do We Know about Subglacial Geochemistry?"

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.

The Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) announces an upcoming webinar, Introduction to the U.S. Arctic Observing Network (US AON).

The US AON brings federal agencies, academic researchers, and community partners to better coordinate U.S. observing system efforts. This webinar will include information about the US AON's work, recent accomplishments, and how to get involved.

Note: The 50th Arctic Workshop was scheduled for 29 August – 1 September 2020 but was postponed to 15 – 17 April 2021.

Read the full statement here.

Founder of the Arctic Workshop, John T. Andrews has been a pioneer in advancing our understanding of Pleistocene ice sheets, their interaction with adjacent oceans, and their profound influence on the Earth system.

The workshop grew out of a series of informal annual meetings started in 1970 by John. The purpose of the early meetings was to give graduate students an opportunity to present their ongoing research, gain experience in public speaking, and obtain feedback from more senior researchers. Subsequent meetings retained this emphasis while simultaneously expanding the contributions of professional researchers.

Please follow the link above for more information.

In the first half of the workshop, participants will hear from a panel of experienced inter-/transdisciplinary researchers as they share examples of successful collaborative research projects and reflect on the processes that support project conceptualization, disciplinary integration, and effective engagements with local communities. In the second half of the workshop, participants will break into small groups for a hands-on “collaboration sprint” exercise designed to help project teams identify and define specific research problems that might be used to stimulate ongoing research collaboration.

Both individuals and teams are invited to apply to participate in the workshop by Wednesday, 17 March 2021. Space is limited, however, so we do encourage interested parties to only submit an application if they are confident they would be able to attend. There is no cost to participate.

The tools and techniques for making monthly and season scale climate forecasts are rapidly changing, with the potential to provide useful forecasts at the month and longer range. We will review recent climate conditions around Alaska, review some forecast tools and finish up the Climate Prediction Center’s forecast for May and the early summer season. Join the gathering online to learn more about Alaska climate and weather.

Please follow the link above to register.