Past Events

This three-day conference aims to bring together UK Arctic scientists of all natural science disciplines: atmosphere, biology, ecology, geology, marine and terrestrial cryosphere, modern climate and palaeo-climate, oceans; their various interactions; observations and modelling; and relevant engineering research and development.

The conference will run from the afternoon of Wednesday 14th September, all through Thursday 15th September and close at lunch on Friday 16th September. There will be an icebreaker reception on the Wednesday evening, posters with drinks on the Thursday afternoon and a conference dinner Thursday evening. There will be a prize for the best student poster. There is no fee either for registration or for the conference dinner.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.ukarcticscience.org/

The 27th Lowell Wakefield International Fisheries Symposium, entitled "Fishing People of the North: Cultures, Economies, and Management Responding to Change," will be held in Anchorage, Alaska. This international symposium will provide a forum for scholars, fishery managers, fishing families, and others to explore the human dimensions of fishery systems and growing need to include social science research in policy processes. The conference is part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Sea Grant program.

For more information, please visit:
http://seagrant.uaf.edu/conferences/2011/wakefield-people/index.php

A technical workshop, organized by Dr. Peter Wadhams, on the physical problems associated with oil spills and blowouts in sea ice will be held at the Istituto Geografico Polare "Silvio Zavatti," Fermo, Italy, on September 20-23, 2011. Scientists, engineers and policy makers are invited to address the questions of how oil is emitted from a blowout or spill, how the oil and gas are incorporated in the under-ice surface, how the oil layer evolves, how the oil is transported by the ice, and how and where eventual release occur. The aim is to incorporate the experience of those scientists who worked in this field in the 1970s-1990s, when large-scale field experiments involving oil release were possible, and to relate this to the needs of present researchers who are seeking solutions to the problem of a sustainable Arctic oil spill management system. Notably, the workshop will be attended by the oil spill work package of the EU ACCESS project (Arctic Climate Change and its Effect on Economic Systems).

For more information, please visit:
http://www.oilspillsinseaice.net/

The Arctic AAAS Division promotes science activities and communication among researchers, graduate students, wildlife managers, business leaders, rural residents, Alaska natives, high school teachers, students and others.

The Arctic Division of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) is open to all scientific scholars who are working on Arctic, Alaskan, Canadian, northern or Antarctic issues, and seeks to help them communicate their interests and discoveries to others.

For more information, please visit:
http://arctic.aaas.org/

The symposium will address all aspects of polar science, with a focus on the functioning of the earth system in the Arctic and Antarctic, the major drivers of pervasive change, and the as yet unaddressed research issues in these regions. These issues will be considered within the context of the ICSU Grand Challenges in Global Sustainability framework and the research priorities of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS), and other ICSU unions and interdisciplinary scientific bodies with interests in polar sciences.

Invited speakers will outline the major current global challenges and changes in terrestrial and oceanic domains in the polar regions and highlight how these are linked to the ICSU research priorities. A panel
session, involving representatives from a range of ICSU bodies, will discuss the relevance of these issues to their organizations' research priorities and to the overall ICSU research strategy.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.mna.it/english/News/ICSU_symposium

Watersheds face resource impacts driven by accelerated change related to land use, population, and climate. The Fourth Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds will view watershed science with a
continental perspective including pressing issues of watershed science and management in Alaska. The purpose of the conference is to better understand the processes driving change and help managers incorporate
societal needs and scientific uncertainty in the management of natural resources.

Attendees are invited to present their personal and professional experience with watershed research, management, and user perspectives during the conference. Abstracts for presentations or posters are
invited on the following topics, or other topics that attendees may wish to suggest, related to pristine or altered watersheds:

- Observing Watersheds: Instrumentation, remote sensing, data management, observed trends.
- Studying Watersheds: Research, analysis, and interpretation of data; causes and effects; experimental approaches; cumulative effects; relationships; predictions; models. Drivers of change can include climate, land use, growth in population and water demand, wildfire, disease, insects, agriculture, mining, and energy development. Impacted goods and services include quantity and quality of water, biota, and habitats; controls on carbon, nutrient, and sediment fluxes; aesthetics; and opportunities for education and recreation.
- Managing Watersheds for Change: Approaches to adaptive management, incorporation of uncertainty in decision-making, prioritization of management actions. Collaborative approaches. Ecosystem restoration and strategies for adaptation, mitigation, and enhancement of resiliency.

Abstract submission deadline: Friday, 18 February 2011.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.hydrologicscience.org/icrw/index.html

The Alaska Rural Energy Conference brings energy experts together to provide practical information and energy projects, ideas, and solutions for Alaska's Communities.

This event is open to the public, utilities, educators, consultants, communities, and all resource professionals.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.uaf.edu/acep/rec

Hosted by the Russian Geographic Society and the regional government of Arkhangelsk, the forum will host discussion on Arctic navigation, development of the Northern Sea Route, railway extensions, and construction of a deep-water port in Arkhangelsk.

The official website is in Russian:
http://www.arcticforum.ru/?lang=ru&cat=forum2011&sub=Forum%202011

We invite scientists, managers, students as well as representatives of governments, media and funding organizations, who have researched or are interested in cryospheric sciences, climate change, hydrology, ecology, and sociology to share research results and to discuss about the sustainable development in Central Asia. The official language of the symposium will be English.

This international symposium aims to:
-establish a baseline for the condition and trend of Central Asia's cryosphere;
-quantify the influences of cryospheric changes on water resources, environment, and sustainable development;
-outline measure to adaptive to cryospheric changes;
-provide a platform to discuss methodological approaches;
-define research needs and priorities; and to
-strengthen cooperation especially amongst experts working in the Central Asian countries;

For more information, please go to:
http://www.geo.uzh.ch/~tbolch/symposium/ChangingCryosphereCentralAsia_F…

Details will be forthcoming

This symposium is for early-career climate change researchers. The symposium is hosted by Dissertations Initiative for the Advancement of Climate Change Research (DISCCRS).

This symposium will provide 30 invited DISCCRS Scholars the opportunity to present research, hone interdisciplinary communication and teambuilding skills, discuss emerging research and trends, and talk
about societal and professional challenges involved in climate change research with established researchers invited to serve as mentors. Participation is limited to 30 early-career PhD scholars. Airfare and
on-site expenses are supported through grants from NSF and NASA.

For more information, please visit:
http://disccrs.org/application_instructions

The WCRP Open Science Conference (OSC) will represent a unique opportunity to assemble the large international scientific community to focus on key challenges and opportunities in advance understanding and prediction of variability and change of Earth?s climate system on all space and time scales. The OSC will assist WCRP and its partners to identify and develop the climate information required to address climate-related challenges facing all citizens of the planet.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.wcrp-climate.org/conference2011/

Canada will discuss polar bear conservation with governments and scientists from four other Arctic nations at a meeting this fall in Iqaluit. The meeting, slated to take place Oct. 24 to 26, will mark the first time the five signatories to the 1973 Agreement on Conservation of Polar Bears will meet in Canada's North, where two-thirds of the world's polar bears are based.

More information coming soon.

The 10th Ny-Alesund Seminar will be held 25-26 October 2011 at the Lillestrom Centre of Expertise in Kjeller, Norway. The meeting is organized by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU).

The seminar intends to bring together scientists who have Ny-Alesund as a base for their research. The aim of the two-day meeting is to exchange experiences and share advancements from research and monitoring activities in the Arctic. The meeting wants to encourage collaborations between researchers related to the following flagship programs:

- Kongsfjord System Flagship
- Atmospheric Research Flagship
- Terrestrial System Flagship
- Glaciology Flagship

The conference is now accepting abstracts. Presentations from recent and ongoing 2011 campaigns are welcome. All submissions will be considered
for oral presentations and posters, but authors are welcome to indicate a preference upon submittal.

Abstract deadline: 1 September 2011.

For further information, please visit:
http://nyalesund-seminar.nilu.no/

The course is for those interested in using groundwater models to solve practical or theoretical hydrology problems involving freeze/thaw. Participants may be consultants, hydrologists, hydrogeologists, engineers, faculty and students, staff from governments, consultancies, and universities are welcome. Some experience in the application of numerical models to study groundwater problems is recommended.

Workshop participants will learn to set up, run, and interpret a highly-configurable variable-density groundwater flow and solute/energy transport simulator (U.S. Geological Survey's SUTRA code) in a new version that incorporates the dynamic freeze-thaw process.

The course brochure is here:
http://eps.mcgill.ca/~mckenzie/SUTRA-Workshop-Nov7-11-2011.pdf.

For additional information about the workshop, or to register, please contact Jeff McKenzie (jeffrey.mckenzie [at] mcgill.ca) or Cliff Voss (cvoss [at] usgs.gov).

The purpose of this conference is to gather researchers from the material science community around the following subjects that have been studied with ice:

• Intermittency and scale invariance, from dislocations to polycrystal
• Strain heterogeneities and recrystallization mechanisms
• Multi-scale characterization and modeling
• Brittle deformation, from the material to the large scale environment (sea ice, mantle crust, etc.)
• Ice and engineering materials
• Polar ice deformation
• Extraterrestrial ice deformation

Deadline for abstract submission is July 1st.

For more information, please visit:
http://microdice.eu/activities/ice-deformation-from-the-model-material-…

Join the Institute of the North for this quarter's Arctic Policy Forum. This presentation and networking event will focus on science and collaboration in the Arctic and will feature Michael Macrander, Lead Scientist for Shell and Fran Ulmer, Chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.

The Institute of the North's Arctic Policy Forums are a new way of engaging in Arctic issues. These quarterly networking events serve to underline and elevate Alaska’s role in the Arctic. Informal policy presentations followed by networking events invite policy makers and administrators, researchers, community leaders and interested citizens together for an informal sharing opportunity. Participants will hear from expert presentations on key policy findings and positions; emerging Arctic technologies; and challenges facing infrastructure development in the Arctic. Participants will also have the opportunity to spend time getting to know key stakeholders in Alaska’s Arctic.

At the community, state, regional, national or global level, Alaskans must understand their role in decisions affecting the state while maintaining strong relationships with one another and key partners. The Arctic Policy Forum will provide a space for accomplishing this.

For more information, please visit:
https://www.institutenorth.org/calendar/events/APF-Nov

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuk climate change advocate and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, will give a public lecture on the human dimensions of climate change Tuesday, 29 November 2011 at 7:00 p.m. EST. The lecture will be held in Convocation Hall at Mount Allison University (Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada) but will also be broadcast online.

Entitled 'Not the Time to COP Out,' the lecture will mark the second day of the international United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP-17) climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa.

In addition to the local event in New Brunswick, the lecture will be broadcast live over the internet on IsumaTV, an indigenous-focused multi-media website. Communities across Canada and the world are encouraged to organize screenings. These satellite events can tune in (at http://www.isuma.tv or via Skype address isumatvwebcaster) live to Mount Allison University to ask questions.

For more information, please contact:
Patrick Forestell
Email: plforestell [at] mta.ca
Phone: 506-227-3632

Arctic Oil & Gas 2011 will focus on market trends, commercial drivers and the technical challenges of offshore oil and gas production in Arctic and cold regions.

In addition, there will be two intensive one-day seminars:

1. Arctic Pipelines seminar will provide a platform for industry professionals to discuss and address the challenges of designing, engineering and operating pipelines in ice-covered waters.

2. FPSOs for Arctic Operation - The Arctic offers a unique set of considerations for the design and safe operation of an FPSO. This seminar will highlight some of the challenges and issues which need to be addressed including impact of ice loads, technology qualification, winterization, offloading, suitable hull shape and system designs.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.informaglobalevents.com/event/Arctic

On Friday, December 2, 2011, President Obama will host the White House Tribal Nations Conference at the Department of the Interior. As part of President Obama’s ongoing outreach to the American people, this conference will provide leaders from the 565 federally recognized tribes the opportunity to interact directly with the President and representatives from the highest levels of his Administration. Each federally recognized tribe will be invited to send one representative to the conference. This will be the third White House Tribal Nations Conference for the Obama Administration, and continues to build upon the President’s commitment to strengthen the nation to nation relationship with Indian Country. Additional details about the conference will be released at a later date.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/24/president-obama-a…