Past Events

Once every four years, Quaternary researchers from all over the world meet at the INQUA Congress to exchange the latest research results and develop agendas for the years to come. In 2015, the Congress will take place in Nagoya, Japan. The knowledge gained from Quaternary research, particularly from past records of unusual events and abrupt changes, is invaluable for understanding nature and taking appropriate actions to mitigate natural risks. Scientists involved in Quaternary studies must generously contribute their knowledge to help minimize the effects of disasters from hazardous natural processes.

Since 1928, INQUA, the International Union for Quaternary Research, has promoted communication and international collaboration in Quaternary research. The current scientific scope of INQUA is reflected by its five Commissions:

• Coastal and Marine Processes
• Palaeoclimate
• Humans and Biosphere
• Stratigraphy and Chronology
• Terrestrial Processes, Deposits and History

The Congress program will address the themes of the Commissions during 6 days of oral and poster sessions, plenary presentations, and side meetings. The scientific program will be garnished with social events at scenic spots, and of course, in the tradition of INQUA Congresses, with attractive field trips before, during, and after the Congress week.

Important Dates:

• 8 January 2015: New deadline for abstract submission and financial support submission
• 28 February 2015: Deadline for early registration

Visit the conference website for more information.

The North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) announces the release of the Arctic Program request for pre-proposals. Pre-proposals must be submitted on or before 31 July 2015; the anticipated deadline for full proposals is 15 January 2016.

NPRB is launching an Arctic Integrated Ecosystem Research Program in partnership with several collaborating organizations and agencies. NPRB and funding partners seek to develop a coordinated, collaborative program to fund science that will improve understanding of Arctic marine ecosystems. The program aims to inform a mechanistic understanding of the processes that structure the marine ecosystem and influence the distribution, life history, and interactions of biological communities in the Chukchi Sea, Bering Strait, and northern Bering Sea. NPRB intends to fund several projects that will integrate to achieve this goal.

This program is a collaborative partnership -- the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the North Slope Borough/Shell Baseline Studies Program have each contributed funds to support new research associated with this program. Several other institutions and agencies have identified ongoing research that will coordinate with and contribute to this program, and additional participation is welcome.

Pre-proposal deadline: 31 July 2015.

For further information and additional resources, please go to: http://www.nprb.org/arctic-program/request-for-proposals.

If you have questions or are interested in discussing partnership opportunities, please contact:

Matthew Baker
Email: Matthew.Baker [at] nprb.org

Danielle Dickson
Email: Danielle.Dickson [at] nprb.org

The application period for the “Summer School on Mass Balance Measurements and Analysis is now open”. This course will be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from 2-8 August 2015 with theoretical lectures taking place at the Central Asian Institute for Applied Geosciences and practical training in field work and safety aspects on nearby Golubin Glacier in the Ala Archa Range.

There is a limited number of about a dozen training positions which will be offered to candidates from the following Central Asian countries: Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. During the selection process, priority will be given to candidates involved in established mass balance programmes.

Letters of application including a CV can be sent to: marlene.kronenberg [at] unifr.ch

Deadline for application is 28 February 2015.

This summer school is carried out within the framework of the project “Capacity Building and Twinning for Climate Observing Systems” (CATCOS) which is led by MeteoSwiss and supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The event is co-sponsored by UNESCO through its Almaty Cluster Office for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

For more details and updates, please check the summer school website.

The Network for Sustainable Climate Risk Management (SCRiM) links an international, transdisciplinary team of climate scientists, economists, philosophers, statisticians, engineers, and policy analysts to answer the question, “What are sustainable, scientifically sound, technologically feasible, economically efficient, and ethically defensible climate risk management strategies?”

As a central part of its educational and research mission, SCRiM hosts an annual summer school to foster opportunities for collaboration and to provide a solid foundation in the broad, multidisciplinary knowledge, tools, and methods of the diverse fields participating in the network.

A key focus of the workshop will be developing a common vocabulary to help foster enhanced cross-disciplinary communication, enabling the possibility for future collaborative research. Participants will also gain hands-on experience with key methods and tools including robust decision making, use of simple models, and analysis of relevant datasets.

Lodging and meals are provided for all participants. In most cases, we are also able to provide full travel support.

This program is targeted at advanced graduate students and postdocs. However, in special circumstances, we may be willing to consider applications from other early-career professionals who have recently completed their master’s or doctoral degrees and are working in SCRiM-relevant fields.

To apply, visit scrimhub.org/summer-school. Apply by 22 March 2015 to receive full consideration.

Instructors & Sessions

• Chris Caldwell - Tribal Perspectives on Climate Change
• Chris Forest - Earth System Modeling
• Murali Haran - Uncertainty Quantification
• Klaus Keller - Risk Analysis
• Robert Lempert - Policy Analysis and Robust Decisionmaking
• Robert Nicholas - Climate Data Analysis
• Alan Robock - Geoengineering
• Christian Traeger - Integrated Assessment
• Nancy Tuana - Coupled Epistemic-Ethical Analysis

Please contact Katerina Kostadinova (katerina [at] psu.edu) with any questions.

The National Academies’ Polar Research Board is pleased to announce that the report “A Strategic Vision for NSF Investments in Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research” will be released on Tuesday, August 11 at 11:00 AM EDT. A PDF version of the report will be available for free download at that time at http://dels.nas.edu/prb/.

This study builds directly upon an extensive process to gather input and ideas from Antarctic and Southern Ocean researchers across the country.

You are invited to join us for a webinar presentation and discussion of the report on August 11th at 1:00 PM EDT. Robin Bell (Co-Chair) and other members of the authoring Committee will lead a discussion about the report’s main outcomes and recommendations. If you would like to join the webinar, please register here: http://dels.nas.edu/Upcoming-Event/Strategic-Planning-Antarctic-Souther….

Further questions can be addressed to:
Lauren Everett
Email: leverett [at] nas.edu

The International Glaciological Society (IGS) will hold an International Symposium on 'Contemporary ice-sheet dynamics: ocean interaction, meltwater and non-linear effects' in 2015, in Cambridge, UK, from 16–21 August 2015.

The meeting will bring together researchers from the oceanographic and glaciological communities who use observational and modeling tools in the study of ice-sheet stability, surface mass balance and its influence on glacier dynamics, ice stream–ice shelf interaction, ice-sheet basal properties, sub-glacial hydrology, tidewater glaciers and ocean interactions, ice shelf mass balance, ice shelf stability, iceberg calving, oceanographic circulation and processes within sub-ice shelf cavities, circulation and ocean heat transfer through fjord systems, continental shelf processes that modify oceanographic conditions and processes beneath ice shelves, and teleconnections that influence shelf seas. By bringing all these communities together, the aim of the meeting is to establish an integrated understanding of this interrelated sequence of processes that ultimately link open- ocean variations with changes in the inland ice sheet, and to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge in this rapidly-moving field of research.

TOPICS
Following on from the discussion above, topic areas will cover the sequence of environments and disciplines from the open ocean to the inland ice sheet, and include observations and modeling of:
1. Transport of ocean heat across the continental shelf break (oceanographic mechanisms that allow heat onto the continental shelf, influence of teleconnections, shelf break ocean dynamics)
2. Continental shelf ocean processes (processes influencing shelf conditions, circulation in proglacial fjords, impacts on the ice shelf cavity and tidewater glacier calving fronts, air-sea exchange, sea-ice formation, coastal polynyas)
3. Sub-ice-shelf processes and environment (ice shelf basal mass balance, ice- ocean boundary layer, sub-ice shelf heat transport)
4. Tidewater glacier and ice-shelf stability (iceberg calving processes, impact of sub-glacial drainage on ice front processes, ice-shelf disintegration, structure of ice shelves)
5. Ice sheet-stream-shelf glaciology (impact of ice shelves on ice streams, grounding line dynamics, upstream propagation of grounding line changes, ice stream dynamics, ice stream basal conditions, sub-ice stream hydrology, ice sheet and ice stream mass balance)
6. Dynamics and stability of ice sheets (evidence of past ice sheet instability from proxies, observed state of the great ice sheets, non-linear dynamical processes)
7. Integrated understanding of the processes linking oceans and ice sheets,and changes therein (external drivers and internal instabilities, interactions between these, model predictions of future behavior and implications thereof, overall effect of ocean and atmosphere on changes in the great ice sheets)

Please note that the abstract submission system is separate from the IGS portal. You will have to register your details if you have not submitted an abstract with us before.

If you have not already done so please go to http://www.igsoc.org/symposia/2015/cambridge/ and register your interest to attend as that will ensure you receive all future communications relating to the symposium.

Please go to at http://www.igsoc.org/symposia/2015/cambridge/ and submit your abstracts.

The second circular is posted on the IGS website. http://www.igsoc.org/symposia/2015/cambridge/

Please note that there is a discrepancy in the printed version of second circular. The correct abstract deadline is 19 April. This has been corrected in in the online version.

This workshop will be held in Cambridge on Sunday afternoon, 16 August 2015, right before the IGS meeting. The precise location and time will be announced soon.

Ice‐ocean interactions are considered to lie at the basis of current and future ice mass loss of the Antarctic ice sheet. One of the feedback mechanisms that can be generated through such ice‐ocean interaction is the so‐called marine ice sheet instability, which generates at present the most important uncertainty for the projections of sea level in the context of global warming.

A set of 3 types of idealized intercomparison experiments for studying marine ice sheet processes in ice‐sheet, ocean and coupled models have been developed over the past year. MISMIP+ was announced at EGU 2014 and presented at AGU 2014. The remaining experiments (ISOMIP+ and MISOMIP1) were conceived of at WCRP Climate and Cryosphere workshop at NYU Abu Dhabi in October 2015. All three experiments were presented at the MISOMIP Splinter meeting at EGU (April 2015) by Xylar Asay‐Davis and Stephen Cornford.

• MISMIP+, the third Marine Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project, in which a marine ice sheet is forced by the ocean (chair Stephen Cornford and Hilmar Gudmundsson)
• ISOMIP+, the second Ice Shelf‐Ocean Model Intercomparison Project, where the ocean (and sub‐ice shelf cavity) is forced by a prescribed marine ice sheet geometry changing with time (chair Xylar Asay‐Davis)
• MISOMIP1: the first Marine Ice Sheet‐Ocean Model Intercomparison Project, a coupling of MISMIP+ and ISOMIP+ (chair Xylar Asay‐Davis)

More information is available on the MISOMIP website: http://www.climate‐cryosphere.org/activities/targeted/misomip

The design of these experiments will be published by this summer (in the Copernicus journal GMD).

Therefore, the meeting in August will be an excellent opportunity to:

• Explain what the relation is between this set of experiments and ISMIP6 (ice sheet intercomparison in connection with CMIP6). Several communities are concerned by these experiments and it is important that these communities understand each other.
• Have a progress report on these 3 intercomparison projects
• Discuss the timeline of the intercomparison and the various deadlines for submission and evaluation of MISIMP+, ISOMIP+ and MISOMIP1 experimental results.

Registration

To register, please send an e‐mail to:
ismass2015cambridge [at] gmail.com
indicating your name, position and institution.

Grants for Early Career Scientists

An announcement will soon be made through the CRYOLIST (by about 15 May).


The Polar Geospatial Center and the University of Minnesota are pleased to announce the 2015 University of Minnesota Summer Polar Boot Camp, an intensive, five-day geospatial workshop held from August 17th to 21st on the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota.

The Summer Polar Boot Camp focuses on applications of commercial satellite imagery for polar science and operations. A proficiency with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a prerequisite for admission to the workshop. See a full summary of topics and courses on the Polar Boot Camp website.

Timeline
Application opens: April 1, 2015
Application deadline: June 1, 2015
Notification of acceptance: June 6, 2015
Course fee due: July 1, 2015
Workshop begins: August 17, 2015

The 29th (2015) Forum for Research into Ice Shelf Processes (FRISP) workshop will be held in conjunction with the International Glaciological Society's meeting in Cambridge, UK, 17-22 August 2015.

FRISP was started in 1984, and used to mean "Filchner-Ronne-Ice-Shelf-Programme". FRISP is a subcommittee of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Working Group of Glaciology. For several years the work of the FRISP parties was focused on the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (FRIS). But meanwhile the geographical restriction to FRIS was widened up and other ice shelves have been included into the investigations. FRISP started out as an European forum, but now welcomes any scientist working on ice shelves and related issues. FRISP remains a focus on glaciology, but the scope is extended to include continental shelf oceanography, meteorology, and quaternary paleoclimatology to encourage discussion between these disciplines.

ACDC 2015 (Advanced Climate Dynamics Courses)

Topic: Climate and Volcanism

Target: Advanced PhD candidates and early career scientists.

Goal: To mix students and lecturers with empirical/proxy and dynamical training within climate science and focus on understanding the basic principles and dynamics behind current topics in our field. This year we will focus on changes to volcanism and its link to climate in the past, present and future. In particular, we will investigate the possible link between volcanic activity on mid-ocean ridges, sea level and glacial cycles, as well as the link between glacial unloading and volcanism on land. Lectures will also focus on the impact of volcanic eruptions on atmospheric chemistry, circulation and climate.

Confirmed lecturers:

• Peter Huybers (Harvard),
• Annica Ekman (Stockholm University),
• Trude Storelvmo (Yale),
• Ilona Riipinen (SU),
• Kristin Krüger (UiO),
• Kerim H. Nisancioglu (UiB),
• Patrick Heimbach (UTA/MIT),
• David Battisti (University of Washington),
• Jake Gebbie (WHOI),
• Tore Furevik (UiB), and
• Øyvind Paasche (UiB)

Application form and more information can be found online at above link or resclim.no/activities/courses/acdc-2015-climate-and-vuolcanism/

Deadline is now 21st of March, 2015!

The Arctic Circle in cooperation with Alaskan partners and authorities invites decision-makers, experts, business and political leaders and others for a forum on Arctic shipping and port development, August 23–25, 2015, at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, Alaska.

The goal of the forum is to articulate plans and facilitate partnerships for developing safe, secure and reliable shipping through the Arctic, with a focus on the Bering Sea and other Arctic sea routes. At this stage of Arctic development, public- and private-sector cooperation will be essential to good outcomes. Similar partnerships in the past helped create the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Panama and Suez Canals. The meeting will lead to the establishment of an Arctic Circle task force on shipping.

The forum is being hosted by the State of Alaska and partners, including President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson of Iceland; Alice Rogoff, publisher of Alaska Dispatch News; and Mead Treadwell, president of Pt Capital and former Alaska lieutenant governor, in cooperation with Governor Bill Walker and legislative leaders.

Attendees will work toward the following goals:

• Plans for safe and reliable global shipping practices that protect the hunting and fishing activities of our Arctic residents and our environment
• Public, private and intergovernmental cooperation models to produce the necessary infrastructure investments to reach these goals
• The establishment of a task force that will develop further partnerships necessary to offer global shippers a regular, safe, secure and reliable shipping system in the Arctic

This gathering builds on the success of the Arctic Imperative Summits convened in Alaska in 2011 and 2012 and the Arctic Circle Assemblies in Iceland in 2013 and 2014. It will be convened under the umbrella of the Arctic Circle as the first in a series of issues-based forums held around the world.

To register, please visit www.alaskasummit.com, where you will find more information, meeting details, and a draft program. For further questions, please contact:
info [at] alaskasummit.com
alaskaforum [at] arcticcircle.org

We invite people to participate in the second international conference for "Polar Climate and Environmental Change in the Last Millennium", to be held in Torun, Poland, August 24-26, 2015. The aim of the conference is to present scientific achievements, detect gaps in the field of the historical climatology of the area of polar regions based on early meteorological observations, history, dendroclimatology, paleolimnology, geophysics, geomorphology and other sources.

Conference Topics include:

• Sources of paleoclimate information;
• Research methods of climatic changes in historical times;
• The climate of the area of polar regions in the last millennium and its changeability;
• Causes and effects of climate change in historical times

Invited speakers and their topics include:

Prof. Terry Callaghan, UK
Interpreting long-term ecosystem change and stability: case studies from the Arctic and sub-Arctic
Prof. Klaus Dethloff, Germany
Regional and global interactions between Arctic sea ice and the atmospheric circulation
Prof. Antoni Lewkowicz, Canada
Evolution of mountain and latitudinal permafrost in northwest Canada
Prof. Astrid E. J. Ogilvie, Iceland
Documentary evidence of changes in climate and sea-ice incidence in Iceland during the last millennium
Prof. Rein Vaikmäe, Estonia
Polar climate and glaciation during the last millennium
Prof. Jan Marcin Wês3awski, Poland
20 years of observations of the warming of marine ecosystem on Svalbard versus older historical records
Dr. Kevin Wood, USA
Old Weather: progress and future plans

Registration is open on the conference website. Details about the submission of abstracts (including a template) and about the conference fees are also available there. After the abstracts are evaluated the Scientific Committee will decide about the form of presentation (oral or poster).

ATTENTION RESEARCHERS IN THE NOME REGION: The US Arctic Research Commission (Fran Ulmer, Chair) invites you to share your Arctic research activities and/or suggestions on research when the Commission meets in Nome, Alaska, August 25-26, 2015. There will be limited opportunities for formal presentations to the Commission, as well as a community comment period. If you would like to share your research (or ideas on research) with the Commission and will be in the area during our visit, please contact USARC's Deputy Director, Cheryl Rosa, at crosa [at] arctic.gov by June 30th.

An increasingly ice-diminished environment in the Arctic is accelerating interest and potential for new maritime trade routes, merchant transportation, and resource development such as mining, oil & gas exploration, tourism and fishing. The IMO and the Arctic Council have been focused on ‘Safe Arctic Shipping’ through the recently adopted Polar Code and as a key theme among the Arctic Council’s priorities. The World Maritime University plays a key role in conducting research on, and building capacity in, Arctic issues and governance.

The pace of development in the Arctic marine environment is challenging our capacity to prepare for it in a safe and sustainable way. It is urgent to engage stakeholders in resource development, shipping, sustainable management, and those most likely impacted (e.g., coastal communities) in the ShipArc 2015 international conference to discuss a forward-looking regulatory, governance, research, and capacity-building agenda that will assist in achieving Safe and Sustainable Shipping in a Changing Arctic Environment.

Themes

• The Polar Code: Implementation & Compliance Assurance
• Beyond the Polar Code
• Arctic Governance
• Sustainable Arctic Business Development
• Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment
• Training, Capacity-Building, Science & Research
• Call for Papers and Posters

Papers and posters under all themes will inform and enrich the conference discussions. The extended abstract submission deadline is 30 June 2015 to AbstractsShipArc2015 [at] wmu.se

APECS members are invited to participate in an IARPC (Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee) webinar to learn about the benefits of being a part of the IARPC Collaborations website. This special website tutorial will focus on effective use of the IARPC Collaborations website for early career scientists.

During the webinar you will learn how to:

• Join one or more of the 12 thematic research teams led by federal program managers
• Attend collaboration team meetings with informational research webinars
• Effectively post on the IARPC Collaborations website to contribute your research to reporting on the Arctic Research Plan
• Form interdisciplinary collaborations with Arctic scientists and stakeholders from Federal, State, academic, NGO, and industry organizations

Date: August 26, 2015 (through WebEx)
Time: 3 to 4 pm EDT

Attendance is limited and registration is required. Email IARPC Collaborations Web Manager Jessica Rohde to request attendance (jrohde [at] arcus.org).

What is IARPC Collaborations?
IARPC Collaborations is the structure created by the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) to implement its 5-Year Research Plan. The structure is organized around 12 topical Collaboration Teams. The Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC), which consists of principals from 16 agencies, departments, and offices across the Federal government, is charged with enhancing both the scientific monitoring of and research on local, regional, and global environmental issues in the Arctic. In order to meet the Nation's economic, scientific, and environmental needs, IARPC envisions a prosperous, sustainable and healthy Arctic understood through research coordinated among Federal agencies and domestic and international collaborators. More information about IARPC and its charter can be found on IARPC page at the National Science and Technology Council website.

We are pleased to announce the 33rd International Conference on Alpine Meteorology (ICAM). It will take place from 31 August to 04 September 2015 in Innsbruck, a scenic town located in the heart of the Austrian Alps. Papers on all aspects of mountain weather and climate are welcome, including but not limited to:

• Dry and moist dynamical processes in complex terrain
• Boundary layer processes, air quality and chemistry in mountainous regions
• Stable and convective orographic precipitation
• Snow, ice and hydrological processes in mountainous terrain
• Mountain climate, extreme events and associated risks
• Impacts of climate change in mountainous regions
• Numerical modeling of weather and climate in mountainous regions
• Data assimilation and predictability in complex terrain
• Statistical post-processing of numerical weather and climate predictions
• Recent and future field campaigns in complex terrain

The conference is hosted by the Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics (IMGI) at the University of Innsbruck (UIBK). It will be held at the Center for Chemistry and Biomedicine (CCB).

Important Dates include:

• Abstract Submission Deadline: 07 April 2015
• Notification of Acceptance: End of May 2015
• Early Registration Deadline: 26 June 2015
• Hotel Booking Deadline: 30 July 2015
• Conference: 31 Aug - 04 Sep 2015

For more information and to register, please visit the conference website.

The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of anywhere else on Earth. Recent monitoring indicates that this is having major impacts on the extent and distribution of ice masses, sea ice, permafrost, and Arctic ecosystems. Environmental change in this sensitive region has implications not only for the Arctic itself, but also for the global climate system. This session explores the current status of climate change in the Arctic and the approaches that are being used to manage these changes for local environments, communities, and industries. The special session, to be held as part of the World Symposium on Climate Change Adaptation, to be held in Manchester, UK on 2-4th September 2015, will bring together climate scientists, engineering and energy specialists, as well as social scientists and NGOs. We particularly welcome papers that focus on innovative environmental monitoring, engineering, and adaptation strategies.

Papers accepted for the special session will be published in the book “Innovative Approaches to Implement Climate Change Adaptation” (Springer), as part of the “Climate Change Management Series”, the leading book series on the topic: http://www.springer.com/series/8740

Details of the Symposium are available at:
http://www.haw-hamburg.de/en/wscca-2015.html

An abstract submission form and guidelines are available at:
http://www.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/FakLS/07Forschung/FTZ-A…

For abstract submissions, please indicate the special session ‘Arctic climate change’. If you have any queries or need further details, please contact Dr Adamson at: K.Adamson [at] mmu.ac.uk

Abstract deadline: December 20th 2014
Submission of full papers: 30th March 2015
Early bird registration deadline: January 30th 2015
Registration deadline: May 30th 2015

The Department of Geography at Durham University is delighted to be hosting the British Branch meeting of the International Glaciological Society on Wednesday 2nd and Thursday 3rd September, 2015.

As in previous meetings, the conference will include oral and poster presentations, spread over two days, on a wide range of snow and ice research. In the spirit of previous meetings, registration and accommodation costs will be kept to a minimum and delegates from overseas are very much welcome to attend.

The conference dinner will take place in the magnificent Great Hall of Durham Castle on the evening of Wednesday 2nd September. Accommodation (both en-suite and shared bathroom) has been reserved in nearby Grey College. A number of other accommodation options are available for those who wish to make their own arrangements.

Durham is a spectacular cathedral city with a rich heritage. Narrow cobbled streets wind their way around the rocky peninsula to the majestic Norman cathedral and castle, which are a designated World Heritage Site. The city is well served by motorway access, Durham railway station, and Newcastle International Airport (30 minutes by car, 1 hour by rail).

Registration and abstract submission will open in mid-May, when further details will be circulated.

This multi-disciplinary conference will be both inclusive and substantive involving biologists, geologists, geographers and palaeontologists addressing research questions over different timescales, i.e. decadal, multi-decadal, millennial or tens of millennia to millions of years in deep time.

The conference will provide a unique platform to present a range of research cultures and topics linked to the common challenges of understanding the impact of climate change on ecosystems throughout geological time.

Four Key Themes have been identified:

• Bridging Timescales: reconciling research on Ma timescales with that on a resolution of ka or a;
• Data Modeling: framing and testing hypotheses in deep and shallow time;
• Comparing the impacts of change at the equator and the poles, and;
• Looking forward: what can past changes tell us about the present/future.

The conference will take place in association with the Climate Impacts Research Centre and will be hosted at Van Mildert College, Durham University as part of its 50th Anniversary celebrations.

For further information, please visit the conference workshop link above.

Organizers of the 6th International Conference on Polar and Alpine Microbiology announce a call for early registration and abstract submission. The conference will be held 6-10 September 2015 in Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic.

This meeting will be a continuation of the highly successful meetings previously held in Rovaniemi 2004 (Finland), Innsbruck 2006 (Austria), Banff 2008 (Canada), Ljubljana 2011 (Slovenia), and Big Sky 2013 (USA). The conference will bring together the scientific community for discourse on the latest in all aspects of cold-living microorganisms and their role in polar and alpine environments. The 2015 conference will again provide an opportunity to share ideas and build research collaborations addressing the latest developments in microbiology in polar and alpine habitats.

We welcome submissions for oral and poster presentations that fit any of the conference topics:

• Polar/alpine microbiology and environmental change: past, present and future
• Microbial diversity and evolution
• Cold physiology and cryobiology
• Supraglacial, glacial and subglacial microbiology
• Polar/alpine cyanobacteria
• Biotechnology in low temperatures
• Astrobiology of icy worlds

The deadline for abstract submission and early registration is 1 May 2015.

For further information, or to register or submit an abstract, please go to: http://polaralpinemicrobiology2015.prf.jcu.cz/pages/index.