Webinars and Virtual Events
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
2014-04-09
Online 2:00pm to 3:00pm EDT

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

Webinars and Virtual Events
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
2014-04-09
Online 3:00pm to 4:00pm EDT

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

Webinars and Virtual Events
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
2014-04-10
Online 2:00pm to 3:00pm EDT

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

Conferences and Workshops
2014-04-15 - 2014-04-17
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

The 10th annual Polar Technology Conference will be hosted by the Pervasive Technology Institute of Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, on 15-17 April. Conference registration is now available. Abstracts for oral and/or poster presentations may also be submitted. Presentations in all technology fields are invited. Regular oral presentations and a poster session will be scheduled. Abstracts for oral presentations received after 14 March may not be considered. For further information, registration, or abstract submission, please go to the conference website.

The primary purpose of this conference is to bring together Polar Scientists and Technology Developers in a forum to exchange information on research system operational needs and technology solutions that have been successful in polar environments. This exchange of knowledge helps to address issues of design, implementation, and deployment for systems that are to achieve their research goals in the Polar Regions.

Past participants have come from the private sector, state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academia. Presentations generally cover system requirements for proposed research along with descriptions of systems and approaches that have been proven in polar deployments. Typical hardware and software topics have included weather stations, robotics, power systems, telemetry, and remote communications. The scale of systems ranges from the autonomous data collection towers to large scale research stations. Polar venues represented include under, on, and above the ice, tundra, or sea.

Discussions on intra- and inter-national cooperation in site deployment and maintenance are encouraged. Informal breaks allow for opportunities for networking and information exchange. A poster session is also included. We are pleased to have support from the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs as an endorsement of the concept of bringing together providers and consumers of these technologies in hopes of benefiting from that synergy. Previous years' lists of presentations and participants can be found through links on the conference website.

Webinars and Virtual Events
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
2014-04-15
Online 2:00pm to 3:00pm EDT

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

Webinars and Virtual Events
2014-04-17
Online, 1:30-2:30 EST

This webinar will provide an update on the activity within discussion groups on www.arctichub.net and further opportunities to continue discussions relevant to long-term observing management and governance. A recap of recommendations received from the broad observing-minded community will be presented.The webinar will be available through Webex (details available at www.arctichub.net).

Background: On October 31, 2013, a kick-off webinar was held by the National Science Foundation to introduce 35 questions grouped in 8 thematic areas which address best practices for long-term observing management and governance. Over the next 20 weeks, 9 webinars will be held to further delve into each of the 8 themes: (1) Definition, (2) Life cycle and horizons, (3) Review: frequency, criteria, and process, (4) Network relevance, (5) Funding models, (6) Award structure and management, (7) Information sharing and communication, and (8) National and global connectivity. The ninth webinar will be a wrap-up discussion and assessment of current exchanges on these 8 themes. For a list of the 35 questions within these 8 thematic areas, please visit www.arctichub.net and click on the "Long Term Observing Management Discussion Group" link on the home page and then click Discussion on the left-hand side of the group page.

The webinars will introduce the themes and questions in detail, but the discussion continues beyond the webinar timeframe. Interested persons who would like to lead discussions on one or more of the 35 questions are encouraged to apply for discussion funding support through an online application at: http://www.arcus.org/search/aon/discussion-funding-form. Funding details and eligibility are on the form webpage. The discussion content provided through this activity will inform best practices and lessons learned in long-term observing from the viewpoint of the wide range of actors involved in natural and social observing, its management, support, and development.

Webinars and Virtual Events
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
2014-04-17
Online 1:00pm to 2:00pm EDT

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

Webinars and Virtual Events
2014-04-18
Online: 3:00-4:30pm EDT

Black carbon is "the second most important human emission in terms of its climate-forcing in the present-day atmosphere; only carbon dioxide is estimated to have a greater forcing." When BC is deposited on snow and ice, it darkens an otherwise bright surface. The darker surface may enhance the absorption of solar radiation resulting in an acceleration of snow and ice melting. In addition, BC particles suspended in the atmosphere absorb solar radiation and heat the surrounding air. Atmospheric BC can also alter cloud properties leading to changes in cloud amount and precipitation. Black carbon has multiple sources including domestic combustion for heating and cooking, diesel combustion related to transportation, fossil fuel and biofuel combustion for power generation, agricultural burning, and wildfires. Identification of the sources and types of black carbon (both the geographical region of the source and the combustion process) is necessary for effectively mitigating its climate impacts. In addition, measurements of black carbon are required to verify whether implemented mitigation strategies that target BC emissions from certain sources are actually leading to reductions in BC concentrations in the Arctic atmosphere and surface. In 2013, NOAA's Arctic Report Card added a black carbon assessment to the Atmosphere Section; the primary conclusions of the assessment are that (1) the average equivalent black carbon concentrations in 2012 at locations Alert (Nunavut, Canada), Barrow (Alaska, USA) and Ny-Alesund (Svalbard, Norway) were similar to average EBC concentrations during the last decade and (2) equivalent black carbon has declined by as much as 55% during the 23 year record at Alert and Barrow (Sharma et al. 2013).

Several issues are currently challenging the Arctic black carbon research community:

  • In-situ measurements are the most reliable measure of black carbon; however, the most prevalent techniques which involve filter samplers only make proxy black carbon measurements.
  • Retrievals of aerosols optical depth (AOD) over snow and ice-covered surfaces with passive remote sensing from vis-NIR imagers from space are problematic. Some success over incomplete snow-covered surfaces has been achieved, e.g., with MISR. TOMS, OMI, and probably now OMPS UV passive imaging has some qualitative sensitivity (the Aerosol Index), though with limited sensitivity to near-surface aerosol, and CALIPSO lidar is by far the most sensitive, but with limited coverage.
  • Standardized ground-based networks such as AeroNET, MPLNet, and BSRN have sparse and sporadic Arctic coverage, and are uncoordinated with the necessary black carbon-in-snow measurements, and some long-standing surface stations have actually been decommissioned in the past few years.
  • A promising approach to assessing high-latitude aerosol effects is to constrain aerosol transport models with satellite observations taken at lower latitudes, near the aerosol sources (mainly Boreal fires and pollution sites) where and when the surface is not snow-covered.

Speakers include:

  • In-situ ground sensing: Patricia Quinn (NOAA)
  • Satellite remote sensing: Ralph Kahn (NASA)
  • Transport modeling: Mark Jacobson (Stanford)

For more information on how to join the webinar, please visit the website link above.

Webinars and Virtual Events
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
2014-04-18
Online 1:00pm to 2:00pm EDT

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

Webinars and Virtual Events
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
2014-04-21
Online 1:00pm to 2:30pm EDT

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

Webinars and Virtual Events
2014-04-22
Online: 10AM AKDT

Speaker: David Herring, Director of Communications & Education, NOAA Climate Program Office

Americans’ health, security, and economic well-being are closely linked to climate and weather. People want and need information to help them make decisions on how to manage climate-related risks and opportunities they face. How can we balance our interests in tailoring our online communications to particular audiences with our needs to collaborate and integrate our climate data and information into a cohesive, contextualized presentation? Climate.gov is NOAA's primary online source of science and information for a climate-smart nation. The site is a source of public-friendly, timely, and authoritative scientific data and information about climate. It is designed to promote public understanding of climate science and climate-related events, to make our data products and services easy to access and use, to provide climate-related support to the private sector and the Nation’s economy, and to help people manage climate-related risks and opportunities. This presentation will feature a high-level overview of the site, lessons learned, and plans for its future evolution.Climate.gov is NOAA's primary online source of science and information for a climate-smart nation.

Conferences and Workshops
"What will Antarctica and the Southern Ocean look like in 2065?"
2014-04-22
Queenstown, New Zealand

Organizers announce the first Martha T. Muse Fellows Colloquium, entitled "Beyond the Horizon - Antarctica and the Southern Ocean 2065." The colloquium will be held 22 April 2014 in Queenstown, New Zealand.

This colloquium, which is part of the First SCAR Antarctic and Southern Ocean Horizon Scan, will convene a panel of Martha Muse Prize awardees and guests to address the ramifications of dramatic population and climate changes forecasted for the next two decades.

The colloquium panel will include Martha T. Muse Prize Fellows:
- Steven Chown, terrestrial ecologist and policy adviser, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia;
- Helen Fricker, glaciologist and satellite observational specialist, University of California, San Diego, U.S.;
- Jose Xavier, marine biologist ecologist and marine mammals expert, University of Coimbra and the British Antarctic Survey, Portugal/United Kingdom;
- Steve Rintoul, physical oceanographic modeler and observationalist, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia; and
- Martin Siegert, glaciologist and geologist, University of Bristol University, United Kingdom.

The Muse Fellows will be joined on the panel by Neil Gilbert, policy adviser and Antarctic governance expert, Antarctica New Zealand and Gary Wilson, marine geologist and geophysicist and paleoclimate expert, Director of the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute.

Conferences and Workshops
The Face of the Earth – Process and Form
2014-04-27 - 2014-05-02
Vienna, Austria

The EGU General Assembly 2014 will bring together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The EGU aims to provide a forum where scientists, especially early career researchers, can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of geosciences. For the first time, in 2014, the EGU General Assembly will have a theme!

Important Information:

  • Call-for-Abstracts (deadline: 16 January 2014, 13:00 CET)
  • Financial Support (deadline: 29 November 2013, 13:00 CET)
  • Registration (Early Registration rate deadline: 31 March 2014, 13:00 CET)

The Face of the Earth theme intends to celebrate the diversity of geoscience processes and the great variety of associated forms, across all scales and from the core of the Earth to interplanetary space. This diversity is reflected in the five subtopics of the 2014 meeting:

  • Rocks of the Earth
  • Waters of the Earth
  • Life of the Earth
  • Atmosphere of the Earth
  • Space and the Earth

The theme does not constrain the topics to be presented at the Assembly. Rather, it will add to the conference experience. We look forward to welcoming you in Vienna!

Conferences and Workshops
2014-04-28 - 2014-04-30
Anchorage, Alaska

The EarthScope National Office is excited to invite all who are interested to attend the EarthScope Alaska-Yukon Regional Workshop for Interpretive Professionals. This workshop will be the 10th in a series of EarthScope workshops that attempt to connect informal educators with place-based Earth science in North America. The upcoming workshop will have a focus on the geology of Alaska and Eastern Canada. It will also have a focus on the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964, including a field trip to view evidence of this quake. This workshop will be free to all who attend. Food and accommodation will be provided for by the EarthScope National Office.

EarthScope is an NSF-funded Earth science project that attempts to image Earth's interior with a focus on North American plate tectonics. This workshop will allow for all attendees to hear from and interact with scientific professionals from universities, interpretive environments, and scientific institutions from across the continent. The workshop will prepare interpretive professionals to gain a better understanding of the landscape, tectonics, and geologic history of the region.

The workshop will be hosted by the Alaska Science Center in Anchorage, Alaska on April 28-30, 2014. We are especially encouraging all city, state and national park staff and museum personnel to apply.

For more information and registration visit http://www.earthscope.org/workshops/spring2014interpretive . Feel free to contact Sarah Robinson (serobins [at] asu.edu) or Patrick Schwab (pschwab [at] asu.edu) if you have any further questions.

Webinars and Virtual Events
IARPC Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
2014-04-28
Online 1:00pm to 2:00pm EDT

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

Lectures/Panels/Discussions
2014-04-29
Halifax, NS, Canada

The aim of this seminar is to investigate the progress of development in the Canadian Arctic and the needs to support an expanded shipping season for cruise ships, resource extraction and the potential traffic using the North-west Passage as a shorter shipping route. The Seminar will consider the resources in place for Search and Rescue, Oil Pollution Response, Ice-breaking, Ice-navigator services, re-fuelling, ship repair and places of refuge. Discussions will consider requirements for investments in infrastructure and regulatory regimes to protect seafarers, the fishery and the sensitive environment, resources and communities.

Webinars and Virtual Events
2014-04-29
Online: 2:00pm EDT

The Polar Research Board is pleased to announce that the Committee on Emerging Research Questions in the Arctic (http://dels.nas.edu/Study-In-Progress/Emerging-Research-Questions-Arcti… DELS-PRB-12-01?bname=prb) will release their report "The Arctic in the Anthropocene: Emerging Research Questions" on Tuesday, April 29. The PDF report will be available for download at that time.

We hope you will join us for a webinar presentation and discussion of the report at 2:00 pm EDT on the 29th. The Co-Chairs of the authoring Committee, Stephanie Pfirman and Henry Huntington, will give a presentation followed by a question and answer period.

If you would like to join the webinar, please register at the link above.

Conferences and Workshops
2014-05-01 - 2014-05-02
Washington, D.C.

The annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy is the conference for people interested in public policy issues facing the science, engineering, and higher education communities. Since 1976, it has been the place where insiders go to learn what is happening and what is likely to happen in the coming year on the federal budget and the growing number of policy issues that affect researchers and their institutions. Come to the Forum, learn about the future of S&T policy, and meet the people who will shape it.

Session Topics include:

  • Budgetary and Policy Context for R&D in FY 2015
  • A Conversation with the President’s Science Advisor
  • AAAS Overview of R&D in the FY 2015 Proposed Budget
  • Measuring the Impacts of Science
  • Synergy in STEM + Arts: Catalyzing US Innovation and Competitiveness
  • Making Science Matter: Strengthening Engagement of Scientists & Engineers in the Policy Process
  • US Leadership in the Artic Council: International Science Cooperation
  • William D. Carey Lecture
  • Reproducibility in Science
  • Emerging Technologies & National Security
2014-05-02
Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, Alaska

On view May 2 through Sept. 7.

Undulating Golden Sand Dunes as far as the eye can see. One hundred-degree days and 25-degree nights. And caribou. Welcome to Kobuk Valley National Park, where Alaska meets Lawrence of Arabia.

Nearly half a million caribou migrate yearly across the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, their tracks crisscrossing dunes rising up to 100 feet high. But few people make the trek. No roads lead to the park: It’s consistently one of the 10 least-visited national parks.

Arctic Desert, featuring images taken by the National Park Service, is a photographic exploration of this rarely seen phenomenon, located above the Arctic Circle in northwestern Alaska.

Deserts are defined by precipitation, not temperature. Technically speaking, Antarctica is a desert. Alaska’s Great Kobuk Sand Dunes are arid, experiencing about 10 inches of precipitation annually.

The dunes were created when retreating glaciers left pulverized rock in their wake and no vegetation to hold it down. Strong easterly winds blew this loose sand and rock into crescent-shaped dunes.

At first blush, the dunes may appear almost lifeless. But just as the Sahara Desert supports everything from camels to cobras, the Kobuk is home to wildlife including grizzly bears, loons and wood frogs. For at least 8,000 years people have hunted caribou during their annual migration along the Kobuk River.

Today the park is becoming known for hunting of a different sort: Scientists are hunting Kobuk for evidence of life on other planets. Even though Alaska is 34 million miles away from Mars, their sand dunes are similar. Scientific research being conducted in Kobuk Valley National Park suggests although there is no visible water on Mars, there may be water below Mars’ surface.

By telling this park’s story, this exhibition demonstrates the many ways Alaska’s desert is truly fertile ground.

This exhibition is part of the Anchorage Museum’s Northern Initiative.

Conferences and Workshops
2014-05-04 - 2014-05-10
South-central Alaska

The 5th, and final, IGCP 588 conference will take place in coastal south-central Alaska in 2014 from the 4th to 10th May. It will be a weeklong combined conference-fieldtrip in the 50th anniversary year of the 1964 Mw9.2 Good Friday earthquake. We will visit sites which experienced co-seismic deformation during 1964, but also record late Holocene paleosiemiscity and add to an increasing knowledge of seismic and tsunami hazard along the Aleutian megathrust. We will travel west to east from Anchorage to the Copper River Delta, taking in key seismic, tsunami, glacial and geological sites. There will be a 1.5 day paper session in the middle of the week based at a wilderness lodge on the edge of Prince William Sound, in an area impacted by the Exxon-Valdez disaster, now regularly frequented by sea otters which play outside the lodge. This trip will not only include excellent science, but will also be a once in a lifetime opportunity to take in many of the natural and scientific highlights of southern Alaska.

Being in Alaska there will be a seismic and glaciological focus; however the usual breath of IGCP science is of course welcome during the paper sessions. Due to the nature of this meeting being in a relatively remote location, it will be capped ~40 participants. We will circulate further details in the summer, including expected costs, with registration opening on a first-come-first-served basis in the late autumn. This trip follows after Seismological Society of America (SSA) Annual Meeting in Anchorage (30th April – 2nd May) and is supported by both IGCP 588 and SSA.

For more information, and a full copy of the flier with a provisional schedule, please email Natasha Barlow (n.l.m.barlow [at] durham.ac.uk) or Ian Shennan (ian.shennan [at] durham.ac.uk).