Past Events

Speaker: Jeremy Mathis, Director NOAA Arctic Research Program (ARP)

With critical past, and potential future environmental changes affecting Alaska and the Arctic Region, the United States needs to rapidly expand long-term observing of the ice and marine environment across the greater Arctic Ocean Basin, as well as conditions across the state of Alaska. This will allow us to better monitor changes across the region, and support stakeholders with improving prediction capabilities for weather, marine ecosystems, sea-ice, and climate.

Please follow the link above to visit the website and register.

The meeting will be from April 4-7, 2017 in Prague, Czech Republic.

Sessions should address one of the three sub-themes: Changes in the Arctic, Global Implications of Arctic Changes, and Impacts of Global Change on the Arctic. Session proposal deadline is June 30, 2016. To submit a session proposal, go to:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1SX6ajAY5jaWnDaPJPX2qOd_T1gmPgtGddXKYQB…

The SEARCH Permafrost Action Team is seeking to fill a Postdoctoral research position based at the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). This position is funded by the Alaska Climate Science Center in collaboration with Northern Arizona University (NAU). The fellow will assist in a National Science Foundation funded project: Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). Within SEARCH, the Permafrost Action Team seeks to document and understand how degradation in near-surface permafrost will affect Arctic and global systems using synthesis science. In particular this position will examine Arctic impacts of degrading permafrost on fish, wildlife, ecosystems (services) and/or human infrastructure. The foci of the position are (1) to conduct new synthesis research on one of several topics important for understanding the impacts of degrading permafrost, (2) assist with the coordination of a permafrost synthesis network addressing this topic. The researcher will be expected to organize and maintain data sets synthesizing permafrost research, as well as participate in data analysis and writing publications. In addition, the researcher will help plan meetings, engage stakeholders and coordinate other activities to build and maintain a national and international research network. In addition to expertise in permafrost, ecosystems, or global change biology, candidates with experience connecting permafrost issues to community sustainability, climate impacts on native/indigenous peoples, and/or Arctic infrastructure and resource development are especially encouraged to apply. Position is located at UAF with research visits to NAU. Experience with data synthesis and/or data management will be helpful. This is a benefited position and salary is commensurate with experience.

For more information about this position please contact Dr. Ted Schuur (ted.schuur [at] nau.edu). To apply, please submit required documents to the IARC Post Doctoral Fellow pool position located at http://careers.alaska.edu/cw/en-us/job/497662/post-doctoral-fellow. Application review starts June 30 and position will remain open until filled.

The Committee on the Marine Transportation System (CMTS) will be holding a webinar to discuss the development of recommendations regarding Federal public-private partnerships (P3s) to support critical US Arctic maritime infrastructure needs.

This webinar will provide an opportunity to discuss the current elements of the CMTS report “A Ten-Year Prioritization of Infrastructure Needs in the U.S. Arctic" and seek input from interested parties for the refinement of P3 finance examples and recommendations, including best practices for successful P3 engagement and any specific opportunities or ongoing projects that could inform the document recommendations.

For questions, please contact ArcticMTS [at] cmts.gov.

WEBINAR DETAILS:

Online Session via WebEx

Web link: https://www.webmeeting.att.com
You will be directed to an online page, where you will be asked to insert the meeting number and participant code.
Meeting Number: 8773361839
Participant Code: 7705293

When inserting your name, type your name and (in parentheses) your agency/ organization, for example, “John Smith (CMTS).” This is the name we will see listed in the webinar chat box. Sign in as a “Participant.”

Log in SIMULTANEOUSLY by conference line OR use the conference line alone, if preferred, to hear the audio.

Phone conference number: 877-336-1839
Phone conference access code: 7705293#
When prompted, join the conference as a “Participant.”
The webinar may end early when no further questions or comments are provided.

Registration closes July 1st, 2016.

The goal of the workshop is to develop and propose a strategy to improve estimates of the SMB of the GrIS that build on community input. The outcomes of the workshop will provide, among other things, community-driven guidance to funding agencies on targeted research activities. Presentations and breakout sessions for discussion will focus on the improvement of Greenland SMB estimates and projections through the application and interpretation of remote sensing data (e.g., Operation IceBridge, OIB, Icesat, GRACE, MODIS, SSM/I), the analysis and improvement of modeling toolsand the reduction and constrain of uncertainties in accumulation (e.g., compaction, densification), mass loss and associated processes (e.g., water retention in snow and firn; meltwater outflow to the ocean; albedo). The workshop participants will be engaging in discussions to address questions such as: What are the parameters most affecting SMB and how well can we model their current and historical evolution? Which measurements are currently available about these parameters? What are the uncertainties associated with estimates of the parameters identified above and how are they spatially and temporally distributed? Which measurements are mostly needed and where? The discussion will initially focus on the parameters identified during the PARCA 2015 and 2016 and follow-up discussions: a) runoff and outflow; b) accumulation; c) densification and compaction; d) albedo; e) water retention in firn.

More information about the Workshop format, agenda and details will be provided before the summer. In the meantime, those who are interested in participating are encouraged to register.

​Financial support is available for a limited number of participants, mostly junior and international colleagues.

The Workshop is free of charge for registration but participants might be requested to cover expenses for lunch and other meals in case the number of participants exceed the estimated original number.

A social dinner is planned for the evening of Thursday. This is by invitation and by first-come first-serve basis. There is a limited number of seats and those who are interested in participating should mention this in the registration form.

Should they be interested, participants are invited to submit an abstract. All abstracts will be presented as posters during the breaks.

We kindly encourage participants to submit scientific papers presented at the Workshop to the Special Issue on the Mass Balance of the Greenland ice sheet on the journal the Cryosphere (http://www.the-cryosphere.net/special_issues/schedule.html#12).

Participants should arrange their own trip and logistics. Those who will receive financial support will be notified and should anticipate their expenses and then submit request for reimbursement.

Conveners: Sarah Woodroffe, Natasha Barlow, Nick Rosser, Matthew Brain, Durham University

The second annual field meeting of the Sea level and Coastal Change (SLaCC) QRA Research Group will take place in North Yorkshire between Mon 4th - Fri 8th July 2016. The focus of this meeting will be on sea-level change, coastal processes and their geomorphic effects over a broad range of spatial and temporal scales in both low- and high-energy coastal environments. We welcome contributions that utilise a range of methods, from field and laboratory studies to physical and numerical modelling approaches. The meeting is being run in association with the COBRA (COastal Behaviour and Rates of Activity) project.

Confirmed invited speakers:

• Ivan Haigh (University of Southampton)
• Martin Hurst (British Geological Survey)
• Tom Spencer (University of Cambridge)
• Nick Rosser (Durham University)
• David Evans (Durham University, field trip leader)

The meeting will take place over four days, with oral and poster presentations on Tues 5th and Weds 6th July at Whitby Museum, North Yorkshire, UK. We will then visit coastal and glacial sites of interest along the North and East Yorkshire coastlines on Thurs 7th and Fri 8th July.

Registration and abstract submission is now open via our online booking system (please see our website above for more information and to register). The number of participants will be limited so we encourage you to register as early as possible. We particularly encourage postgraduate students and Early Career Researchers to attend as a way of receiving mentoring and support as training for larger, more formal international meetings.

The deadline for registration for the 2016 UK Antarctic Science Conference is fast approaching: deadline of Friday 17th June.

The main conference will be preceded by a meeting of the UK branch of APECS - the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists - (4th-5th July), and followed by a Workshop on Southern Ocean biases in Climate Models (afternoon of 7th July).

Online booking is available at:
http://store.uea.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&deptid=28…

Accommodation on the UEA Campus may be booked on the website for the low cost of £40 per night B&B, or there are a range of other accommodations available on and off campus in the fine medieval city of Norwich.

The conference includes talks on the New UK Polar Research Vessel, the Sir David Attenborough, and the iSTAR Pine Island Glacier traverses.There will be invited talks by David Wilson (great nephew of Edward Wilson who died with Scott) on the Centenary of the Shackleton Expedition to Antarctica, and by Amanda Lynnes of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. There is an exciting programme of talks and posters on all aspects of Antarctic Science.

The programme for the main meeting can be found at the link above.

Partial registration fee rebates are available for UK-based PhD students thanks to funding by the Natural Environment Research Council.

If you have any enquiries or issues, please contact:
online.registration [at] uea.ac.uk

Connect to the the Arctic! Join us for an upcoming PolarConnect event with DJ Kast and the Microbial Changes in Arctic Freshwater team. This event will be broadcast live from Toolik Field Station in Alaska. Please join us! Register today!

The International Glaciological Society will hold a second International Symposium on ‘Interactions of Ice Sheets and Glaciers with the Ocean’ in 2016. The symposium is a follow-on to the successful 2011 IGS symposium on the same theme, which brought together 194 delegates from nearly 20 countries and resulted in the publication of 36 peer-reviewed research articles cited over 650 times since 2012. The Symposium will also serve as the first of two annual Forum for Research into Ice Shelf Processes (FRISP) meetings to be held in 2016. FRISP (http://folk.uib.no/ngfso/FRISP/index.html) originated as a subcommittee of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Working Group of Glaciology.

THEME:
The mass balance of the Earth’s land ice (ice sheets, glaciers and ice caps) and the circulation of the adjacent oceans are strongly coupled through physical processes occurring at the ice–ocean interfaces at the fronts and bases of ice shelves and glacier tongues, and the termini of tidewater glaciers. Improved understanding of these processes is essential to realistically represent the evolution of ice sheets and glaciers in a changing climate and to improve predictions of global ocean circulation and sea-level change. The goals of this symposium are to: (1) assess the state of our knowledge of ice–ocean interactions; and (2) discuss what is needed for development of reliable, quantitative models of ice-sheet evolution.

We expect that this symposium will attract experts in ice-sheet, ice-shelf, glacier, ocean and climate studies whose research addresses interactions of the ocean (including sea ice) and land ice in the global climate system using in situ observations, remote sensing and/or modeling. While we expect most contributions to be related to the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, we encourage contributions on all aspects of interactions between ice sheets, glaciers and the ocean, towards achieving the symposium goals.

For more information please follow the link above.

Abstract submission is now open. Deadline for submission is EXTENDED until 29 March. 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.

Interested in attending? Please register your interest. This will ensure you will receive all relevant notifications related to the symposium.

Co-sponsored by:

• Forum for Research into Ice Shelf Processes (FRISP)
• Greenland Ice Sheet Ocean network (GRISO)
• Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics
• Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• National Science Foundation
• NASA

Organizers announce that the Girls on Ice 2016 Expeditions are now accepting applications. The 2016 program includes two expeditions. The original North Cascades expedition in Washington State will be held 10-21 July 2016, and an Alaska-based expedition will take place 17-28 June 2016.

Girls on Ice is a unique, free, wilderness science education program for high school girls. Each year a team of nine teenage girls and three instructors spend 12 days exploring and learning about mountain glaciers and alpine landscapes through scientific field studies with professional glaciologists and mountaineers.

Applicants must be at least 16 years old by the Alaska program start-date (17 June) and no older than 18 on the North Cascades program end-date (21 July). International students are welcome to apply to the North Cascades expedition. The Alaskan expedition is primarily intended for girls from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

Application deadline: 29 January 2016.

The international Polar Libraries Colloquy meets every four years to conference and present papers and posters relating to library and museum collections of with special collections in this field will attend. The colloquy is open to all and will include paper and poster sessions, keynoter Fran Ulmer (invited) and field trips in the area.

The International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks announces that the 2016 IARC Summer School will be held 11-23 July.

Arctic climate is the result of a complex interplay between the atmosphere, the ocean, sea ice and a terrestrial component in which freezing and thawing are critical to variations over a range of timescales. Since changes in the Arctic may well have global implications, it is essential that Arctic climate simulations be enhanced in order to reduce the uncertainties in projections of climate change.

The two-week summer school will bring graduate students and young scientists together with specialists in Arctic climate and climate modeling to convey to a new generation of scientists the opportunities and challenges of Arctic climate modeling.

The summer school will consist of background lectures in the mornings and mini-projects and informal discussions in the afternoons. Mini-projects will be performed in collaboration with faculty members or lecturers. All participants will give short presentations on their mini-projects at the end of the two-week period.

Application deadline: 15 February 2016

University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) seeks applicants for an Undergraduate Summer Field Course in High Arctic Environmental Change. The course will take place from 11 July to 6 August 2016 in Svalbard, Norway.

The field-based course for undergraduate students at UNIS will investigate how climatic and watershed processes influence the modern glacial, fluvial, lacustrine, and periglacial systems in the high Arctic setting of western Svalbard. During this course, students will gain experience in aspects of glaciology, fluvial hydrology and sediment transport, periglacial geomorphology, physical limnology, and pro-glacial lacustrine sedimentation. Students will use a network of environmental monitoring instrumentation to interpret seasonal, annual, and long-term changes in the high Arctic terrestrial system. The course is taught by instructors from UNIS Arctic Geology Department and guest instructors.

Application deadline: 15 February 2016.

For questions, please contact:
Mike Retelle
Email: mretelle [at] bates.edu

The Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN) announces the call for contributions for the 2016 Sea Ice Outlook July report (based on May and June data). We encourage all past contributors to submit Outlooks for this report and we also hope to see new participants.

The Sea Ice Outlook provides an open process for those interested in Arctic sea ice to share ideas. The monthly reports contain a variety of perspectives—from advanced numerical models to qualitative perspectives from citizen scientists. A post-season report will provide an in-depth analysis of factors driving sea ice this summer as well as explore the scientific methods for predicting seasonal conditions. The June report can be found at: https://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2016/june.

We are accepting pan-Arctic outlooks, regional outlooks (including those specific to the Alaska region), and informal contributions.

Contributors should review the detailed submission guidelines at:
https://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2016/july/call

All submissions should be sent to: sio2016 [at] arcus.org.

Submission deadline: 6:00 p.m. (AKDT) on Monday, 11 July 2016 (firm). Contributions received after the deadline will be posted to the website but may not be incorporated into the Outlook report or discussion.

For questions, contact Betsy Turner-Bogren, ARCUS
Email: betsy [at] arcus.org

The Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) will host a webinar entitled "Systematic Improvements to Reanalyses of the Arctic (SIRTA) White Paper Review and Discussion".

A draft White Paper, which has been prepared at the request of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC), is now available for community review and comment. This white paper on atmospheric reanalyses, with a focus on issues related to Arctic reanalyses, was requested in May 2015 by the IARPC Principals. A small working group was formed in the fall of 2015 under the leadership of Richard Cullather, Tom Hamill, David Bromwich, and Xingren Wu. The working group held four open meetings for the community to share ideas and provide input to the white paper.

The working group was asked to develop a white paper to:

• Evaluate the state, utilization, limitations and potential utility of the current Arctic reanalyses
• Inventory and assess the currently planned operational and experimental observations of the Arctic system to improve reanalyses
• Examine reanalyses products and forecast models for potential improvement
• Assess the potential utility of YOPP and CMIP6 as focal points to facilitate progress

Based upon these instructions, the working group has prepared a white paper which is now available for further community review and input.

For questions, contact:
Sara Bowden
Email: bowden [at] arcus.org

Connect to the the Russian Arctic! Join us for an upcoming PolarConnect event with Stanley Skotnicki and the Vegetation Impacts on Permafrost research team. This event will be broadcast live from Northeast Scientific Station in Cherskiy, Russia. Register today!

The Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) announces ARCTIC ALERTS 2016, a media roundtable in which Arctic researchers will outline the unprecedented changes taking place in the Arctic environment and the local and global consequences. This year continues the recent trend of remarkable anomalies in the Arctic, and the presentations and discussion will focus on their connections to global changes.

The roundtable will take place at The National Press Club in Washington, DC on 13 July 2016 from 1-3 pm (EDT). Five brief presentations by scientific experts will be followed by questions from—and discussions with—journalists. In addition to the presenters, other scientific experts will be available to address journalists’ questions.

This roundtable is designed as a discussion between the researchers and journalists, so we won't be taking questions from the audience. Nonetheless, others are welcome to attend in listen-only mode. Please notify Brendan Kelly (bpkelly [at] alaska.edu) if you plan to attend so that we can accommodate everyone.

Recent extreme cold weather outbreaks across the mid-latitudes have been the subject of great interest to the public and debate among the scientific community, with some researchers proposing a link to the warming Artic. To learn about the latest observational and modeling studies that examine these linkages, join Judah Cohen (AER Inc./MIT) and Lantao Sun (U. Colorado, Boulder/NOAA ESRL) for this webinar.

Cohen and Sun will discuss the roles of Arctic sea ice loss and snow cover change, natural variability, El Niño-Southern Oscillation and other possible connections in causing the “Warm Arctic, Cold Continents” pattern.

Both Cohen and Sun have recently published articles on the attribution of cold winters across the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. Cohen argues that the cold winters are at least partially forced by a warming Arctic, while Sun argues it is simply natural variability. The webinar will be a unique opportunity to hear scientists discuss very different causes for the same observed weather phenomenon and highlight why this topic remains controversial.

The Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) invites members of the Arctic Community to participate in a survey to examine Arctic-Research information needs and how ARCUS can better meet these needs.The information from the survey will be used internally by ARCUS to make improvements to current communication channels. ARCUS asks that you complete the survey no later than Friday, 15 July 2015.

In return for your participation, you will be entered into a drawing for a free Arctic umbrella (see https://www.arcus.org/orders). If you choose not to provide any contact information, you will not be entered and the survey responses will remain anonymous.

The survey will take about 10 minutes to complete.

For more information about ARCUS, go to:
https://www.arcus.org

Participation Deadline: Friday, 15 July 2016.

For questions, please contact:
Liz Bowman
Liz [at] arcus.org

Organizers invite graduate and post graduate students who are interested in Arctic Science to apply for the 2016 Connaught Summer Institute in Arctic Science: Atmosphere, Cryosphere, and Climate.

The Connaught Summer Institute in Arctic Science: Atmosphere, Cryosphere, and Climate brings together students and established scholars who are engaged in Arctic research, to provide an understanding of the Arctic climate and the processes that control it, and to establish an interdisciplinary forum in which they can discuss current challenges and identify emerging research opportunities in this area.

It is intended for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows engaged in Arctic research. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from experienced researchers in a small and comfortable setting. Students will also participate in professional development activities, engage in a diverse career panel discussion, develop strategies for linking scientific knowledge to public engagement, education and outreach, and present their own research during a poster session.

Topics to be covered include Arctic paleoclimatology, the Arctic climate system, climate modelling, causes of changes in Arctic sea ice, high-latitude snow processes, Arctic aerosols, composition-climate interactions, tropospheric halogen chemistry in the Arctic, stratospheric ozone and chlorine chemistry, the carbon cycle, aerosols and climate, atmospheric measurement techniques, Arctic archeology, Inuit heritage, and science communications.

Application Deadline: 30 May 2016.

For more information and to apply, please follow the link above.