Past Events

USAPECS (Association of Polar Early Career Scientists) announces a call for submissions of films for the Polar Film Fest, which will be held in connection with Polar Week, 19-26 September 2016.

To celebrate Polar Week 2016, USAPECS is bring together the best footage that the internet has to offer and showing off the Polar Regions to the world! Whether it is your own footage, a video you found while surfing the web, or something a you've seen at the cinema, as long as it shares the Poles with the world, then it can be featured in the Polar Film Fest. From silly to serious, one minute to feature-length, and Arctic to Antarctic, USAPECS wants to see it all!

All submissions should fit into one of four themes:

• Frozen Worlds:the Cryosphere;
• Partly Frozen, Mostly Cute: Polar Biology & Ecology;
• People at the Poles: The Human Dimension; or
• Climate and Connections.

To submit a suggestion for Polar Film Fest, please go to the link above.

Submission Deadline: 15 August 2016.

Please note that you do not have to be an early career researcher to submit a film.

USAPECS will post curated film playlists with submission information under each theme prior to the start of Polar Week, 19-26 September 2016. During Polar Week, join others online at #PolarFilmFest or plan your own in-person watch party to enjoy some of the best films in polar science!

For questions, please email:
usapecs [at] gmail.com

Organizers announce a call for abstracts and workshops for the Aleutian Life Forum 2016: Building Resilience in the Face of Change. This forum will take place from 16-20 August 2016 in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

The Aleutian Life Forum (ALF) is a gathering of national, state, and regional scientists, industry stakeholders, community leaders, tribal leaders, and local knowledge holders to promote resilient coastal communities. At this conference, pressing conservation issues will be brought forward for discussion and action through information sessions and community workshops. Topics will include sustainable fisheries, coastal hazards, community monitoring, and others.

Abstracts are being accepted for oral presentations, posters, and workshops.

To submit an abstract for an oral presentation or poster, go to:
http://www.aleutianlifeforum.com/abstracts

To submit a workshop proposal, please provide a one-page description of the workshop and details on workshop leads, anticipated participants, proposed format, and expected outcomes.

Abstract submission deadline: 29 April 2016.

For questions, please contact:
Nikita Robinson
Email: info [at] aleutianlifeforum.com

For more information, please go to: https://accap.uaf.edu/NWS_Briefings

The tools and techniques for making monthly and season scale climate forecasts are rapidly changing, with the potential to provide useful forecasts at the month and longer range. Rick Thoman (Climate Science and Services Manager, Environmental and Scientific Services Division, National Weather Service Alaska Region) will review recent climate conditions around Alaska, review forecast tools and finish up with the Climate Prediction Center's forecast for the upcoming season.

Rick will also present a "Feature-of-the-Month" special addition in which each month he will highlight a topic relevant to the particular month.

Feel free to bring your lunch and join the gathering in-person or join online to learn more about Alaska climate and weather.

This will be a monthly series generally taking place the third Friday of each month.

We would like to announce the Call for Abstracts for the SCAR 2016 Open Science Conference to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 22-26 August 2016. This conference will focus on Antarctica in the Global Earth System: From the Poles to the Tropics and how the changes that we are currently seeing in Antarctica will affect the rest of the world. It is sponsored by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia together with the Sultan Mizan Antarctic Research Foundation and the National Antarctic Research Centre, together with SCAR.

The conference programme, including sessions and descriptions, is now available on the conference website.

The submission of abstracts is open until 14 February. We encourage those participating in Antarctic expeditions to submit abstracts early. Early bird registration ends on 5 May.

As the only international Antarctic research conference of its kind, this meeting brings together people and groups with various interests - and thus we are happy to provide the opportunity to hold side meetings together with this conference. If you would like to hold a side meeting, please fill out the form as soon as possible. Space is limited and allotted on a first come, first served basis.

Summary:

The Ecosystem Approach to Management (EA) is a widely adopted management principle requiring management of human activities to be integrated across sectors of enterprise. The ultimate purpose of EA is to achieve sustainable use of natural resources, while maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem. The EA approach has been acknowledged, defined and adopted by the Arctic states working under the Arctic Council. Working groups of the Arctic Council have been engaged for more than a decade in developing aspects of the scientific, policy and indigenous foundations of the knowledge that enable the implementation of the ecosystem approach.

The conference will bring together experts and practitioners to examine the scientific, policy and indigenous understandings and experience of the ecosystem approach to management in the eighteen Large Marine Ecosystems of the Arctic and corresponding terrestrial areas. Topics to be addressed include scientific elements such as Integrated Ecosystem Assessment, as well as national policies such as Integrated Arctic Management and the Inuvialuit Settlement Agreement that are designed to carry out integrated management in an adaptive fashion. Proceedings from the conference will be presented to the ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council in spring 2017.

Objectives:

• Benchmark the status of implementation of EA in the Arctic
• Present innovative examples of best practices in EA implementation
• Identify priorities for future collaboration on EA implementation in the Arctic Themes

Themes:

• Knowledge base – integration of knowledge (including traditional) and Integrated Ecosystem Assessment
• Governance – integration across sectors, institutional arrangements
• Scale integration – integration across small to large scale in ecosystems, and integration across management levels.

Outcomes and Products:

The conference will review progress in implementing the ecosystem approach to management in the various LMEs in the circumpolar Arctic. Presentations and papers will identify best practices for implementation and methods for dealing with impediments to implementation, such as limited information. Approaches to dealing with changes caused by changes in demand across development sectors, and by climate change will be identified. The conference will also examine arrangements for international cooperation in the management of shared LMEs that include waters under national jurisdiction of two or more countries.

Call for abstracts:
We invite contributions for oral or poster presentations. Please send abstracts of presentations (up to 500 words) to eaconference [at] pame.is by April 5.

For registration and other information, please visit the link above.

This event is part of the 2016 Aleutian Life Forum.

Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm AK
Venue: Grand Aleutian Hotel, 498 Salmon Way, Unalaska, AK 99692

Workshop Description:
The predominant ways that changing sea ice affects society are well acknowledged: less sea ice means more open water for shipping, fishing, and offshore oil and gas activities; less sea ice means more wave damage and erosion to shorelines; and changing sea ice often results in less favorable conditions for subsistence hunting. However, in nearly all examples, the societal issue at stake has to do with much more than just sea ice, and relies on a variety of variables linked to infrastructure, economic drivers, cultural values, policy and regulatory environments, etc. The complexity of the system must be acknowledged, if not understood, in order for scientists to more meaningfully engage and partner with Bering Sea communities. This workshop will focus on how sea ice conditions (past, present, and future) play a role in impacting Bering Sea communities, stakeholder decisions, and local to regional economies. The event will explore various perspectives on how changing sea ice connects to societal issues and the implications for societally relevant science.

APECS will be organizing a one-day career development workshop on 21 August 2016 at the SCAR Open Science Conference 2016 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 20 - 30 August 2016).

On behalf of the International Center for Environmental Management of Enclosed Coastal Seas (International EMECS Center) and "Sea Coasts" Working Group of the RAS Council on World Ocean, the Organizing Committee of the Russian State Hydrometeorological University (RSHU), P.P.Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IO RAS) and A.P.Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute (VSEGEI) would like to welcome you and your colleagues to EMECS 11 - SeaCoastsXXVI Joint Conference "Managing Risks to Coastal Regions and Communities in a Changing World".

Main topics of the Conference:

• Coastal systems and their dynamics (from coast to water and from water to coast)
• Coastal erosion and dynamical processes in the near shore zone
• GIS & marine spatial planning
• Climate change in the changing world. Coastal adaptation to climate change
• Construction and exploitation of hydraulic engineering structures and dredging in the coastal areas
• Study and monitoring of coastal and marine ecosystems
• Approaches to and issues of processes in the coastal areas modeling and monitoring
• Interactions between coastal zone and the open sea: impact on the ecosystems
• Ecological sensitivity of coastal areas: anthropogenic loads and natural disasters
• ICZM – case study and new experience
• Sustainable use and development of coastal resources: effective management and approaches
• Legal and political issues of enclosed coastal seas management
• Human resource and indigenous dimension of enclosed coastal seas management

Deadline for Abstracts submission is February 1, 2016

The official language of the Conference is English.

Conference Organization Committee does not provide reservation for the Conference participants. The information about the hotels in the vicinity of the Conference venue will be available on the Conference web-site starting from January 1, 2016.

The Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN) announces an open webinar entitled "Uncertainty in Satellite-Derived Sea Ice Extent Estimates."

This webinar is designed for the sea ice research community and others interested in information about the uncertainty in sea ice extent estimates from remotely-sensed data. While this is an open event, attendees should be aware that the discussions will largely be of a technical nature. The speaker will be Walt Meier, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Walt Meier is a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory. His research focuses on remote sensing of sea ice, development of new sea ice products and sea ice climate data records, and analyzing changes in the Arctic sea ice cover. He has been principal investigator on a project to create a sea ice climate data record.

Meier’s presentation will focus on uncertainty in sea ice extent estimates from remotely-sensed data. Arctic sea ice extent estimates from remote sensing data (e.g., passive microwave sensors like Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System [AMSR-E] and others) are widely used to project sea ice trends, initialize models, and evaluate model forecasts. As with all kinds of remote observations, this method of estimating sea ice extent has strengths and weaknesses that result in unique kinds of uncertainty. To date, however, little effort has been made to provide an uncertainty range of extent estimates from satellite data. Meier will discuss our current understanding of these issues and propose various methods of estimating extent uncertainty, with the aim of improving analyses of sea ice extent trends and variability. Time for participant questions will follow the presentation.

More details including registration instructions, will be announced closer to the event. The webinar will be archived and available online after the event.

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

International Research and Practice Conference "Nanotechnology and Nanomaterials" will be organised for the fifth time. It is a large-scale event, which every year becomes larger and more important. In 2012 International Research and Practice Conference was held for the first time in the format of International Summer School for young scientists "Nanotechnology: from fundamental research to innovations". In 2013 and 2014 International Scientific and Practical Conference "Nanotechnology and Nanomaterials" was held in conjunction with the International Summer School for young scientists "Nanotechnology: from fundamental research to innovations": the first 4 days were held as the Summer School, the next 4 as International Conference. The International Summer School and International Conference in 2013 were attended by more than 300 scientists, and in 2014 they gathered more than 450 participants from about 20 countries, such as Poland, Italy, Estonia, France, Austria, Germany, Greece, Turkey, USA, Romania, Moldova, Czech Republic, Taiwan, Lithuania, Egypt, Iran, India, Algeria, Indonesia and others. Also there were Ukrainian participants actually from all over Ukraine. In 2015, the International Research and Practice Conference "Nanotechnologies and Nanomaterials" expanded its theme and gathered more than 500 participants from 20 countries.

We invite to take part in the conference all scientists making research in the field of nanotechnology and nanomaterials as well as in the fields combining different scientific directions.

During the conference there will made plenary sessions, oral speeches and poster presentations.

The conference will bring together leading scientists and researchers from different countries of the world.

This event will focuse on the latest advances in nanosciences and nanotechnologies and promotes profound scientific discussions between scientists and researchers from different disciplines and countries.

Thematic priorities of the conference will be the following:

• Nanoobjects microscopy
• Nanocomposites and nanomaterials
• Nanostructured surfaces
• Nanooptics and photonics
• Nanoplasmonics and surface enhanced spectroscopy
• Nanochemistry and biotechnology
• Nanoscale physics
• Physico-chemical nanomaterials science.

One of the focuses of the International research and practice conference "Nanotechnology and nanomaterials" is Possibilities in the participation in Horizon 2020 Programme of EU.

Working language: English.

Conference hall will be located in the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.

The conference will be comprised of three parts: plenary session in the morning, tematic session in the afternoon and poster presentations in the evening.

It is planned to publish abstracts and materials of the conference.

Best scientific works will be recommended for publication in the following editions: Springer book "Nanotechnologies and nanomaterials" and International journal "Nanoscale Research Letters".

Anyone who wants to participate in the conference must register online on the conference site at Registration section before March 15, 2016, prepare an abstract (rules are posted on this site at Abstracts submission section) and send them to the organizing committee before May 31, 2016 at the following address: conference.nano [at] gmail.com

Abstracts and materials of the conference will be published before the start of the conference.

Abstracts of each participant will be included in the Conference Abstract Book provided that they were submitted in time, properly made out and payment of fee made before June 20, 2016.

Abstracts of non-residents of Ukraine will be published providing that before June 20, 2016 they confirm by e-mail their intention to attend the conference and to pay publishing and registration fee on-site.

Publishing and registration fee is 300 UAH for citizens of Ukraine and CIS countries and 30 EUR for citizens of other countries.

For PhD students from Ukraine publishing and registration fee is 150 UAH.

The in-situ snow broadband albedo is automatically measured in many stations that monitor the surface radiation budget, and is used (a) to test snow albedo parameterizations, (b) to validate remote sensing snow albedo products, (c) as input parameter for snow, hydrological, and atmospheric models, and (d) for climate studies.

The in-situ snow broadband albedo is measured to (a) validate optical remote sensing observations, (b) derive surface snow characteristics such as effective snow impurity content, optical equivalent size of snow particles, and presence of liquid water using model inversion methods, and (c) calculate the snow broadband albedo and interpret the reasons for its evolution.

In the workshop we would like to address the following questions:
What is the accuracy that spectral and broadband albedo measurements can achieve?
What is, presently, the “standard” calibration and characterization of the instruments?
Which calibration and characterization of the instruments would be required in order to allow a meaningful comparison of the measurements obtained with different instruments, and under different environmental conditions?

Objective of the workshop is to try to answer to the above questions and develop a calibration and measurement protocol that will be applied and tested in a possible future inter-comparison campaign.

The 2-day workshop will include keynote lecturers, oral presentations, discussions, and a few-hour visit to calibration facilities and radiometric instrumentation. Participants are invited to give presentations about their activity related to the use of spectral and/or broadband radiometers to measure the snow albedo, about the challenges of the measurements, the estimated measurement accuracy and, on the other hand, the wished accuracy in view of specific research applications. In the workshop, we will compare the technical characteristics of various instruments (spectral resolution, fore optics, field of view, calculation of dark current, optimization of integrating time, etc.) and their known response (angular response, temperature drift of irradiance/wavelength calibration, dome heating effect, temperature stability and spatial homogeneity of Lambertian targets). The workshop will also address the measurement uncertainties due to measurement setup and environmental conditions (levelling of the instruments fore optics and of the target surface, shadows on the target area, obstructions of the field of view of the instrument, roughness of the measured surface, sky conditions) and the strategies and tools to reduce these uncertainties.

This workshop contributes to the activities of the MicroSnow Working Group of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences ( IACS).

Speaker: Dr. Chris Fallen

Presented in partnership with the Wrangell Institute of Science and Environment (WISE).

Recommended for ages 15 and up.

Follow the link above for more information.

HAARRP Open House is a FREE family event for all ages. Activities include:

• BBQ
• Facility Tours
• Mobile Planetarium
• Science Demos and Talks

See the link above for more information.

The University of Vienna, in cooperation with the European University in St. Petersburg is pleased to announce a call for applications for a PhD summer school (VASS) that will take place in late summer 2016. The course will take place in Vienna, Austria with a field trip to the Austrian Alps.

The basic idea of VASS is to bring Arctic social science PhD students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds to Vienna in order to confront them with international state-of-the-art social science approaches and methods applied outside the Arctic. At the same time, VASS will confront Arctic students with lessons learned from Alpine experience. VASS will provide its participants with in-depth treatments of three areas: human-environmental interactions in the Anthropocene, regimes of mobility and immobility, and the study of the interrelationship of human and non-human actants in technological and infrastructural settings.

VASS is designed for PhD students and younger researchers in the Arctic social sciences. Organizers are inviting applications from students in Arctic and non-Arctic countries. The total number of participants is limited to 18.

Interested students should email the following application materials to Ilja Steffelbauer (ilja.steffelbauer [at] univie.ac.at):

• a short letter of the student’s motivation to attend the summer school;
• a short Curriculum Vitae;
• a 1 page description of the applicant’s current research topic(s); and,
• non-native speakers of English should indicate their level of English-language proficiency.

Application Deadline: 4 April 2016.

The 2016 WAIS Workshop will be held in Sterling, Virginia, in the Washington, DC, area at Algonkian Regional Park. This multidisciplinary Earth system science workshop will focus on the distinctive glaciological, geological, oceanographic, and climatic aspects of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Registration for the 2016 WAIS Workshop is open! For details about the meeting and to register, see the WAIS site above.

Registration fees:

• Professional fee (includes Post docs): $225
• Active students fee (pre PhD): $175

The abstract submission deadline has passed and lodging at the venue is full. A hotel option remains.

August 29 is the deadline for registration.

September 6 is the last day for Conference Rates at the local hotel.

Join us for a PolarConnect Event with Nell Kemp and the research team! This is a real-time event with teacher Nell Kemp and the researchers looking at the tundra ecosystems. They will be sharing experiences and observations of their work from Toolik Field Station and Healy, Alaska. This will be a 1 hour event with a Q&A at the end for teachers, students, friends and family. Learn more about Deep Roots and read the latest journals here:

https://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/deep-roots

Held once every four years, the IUCN World Conservation Congress brings together several thousand leaders and decision-makers from government, civil society, indigenous peoples, business, and academia, with the goal of conserving the environment and harnessing the solutions nature offers to global challenges.

The Congress aims to improve how we manage our natural environment for human, social and economic development, but this cannot be achieved by conservationists alone. The IUCN Congress is the place to put aside differences and work together to create good environmental governance, engaging all parts of society to share both the responsibilities and the benefits of conservation.

The Congress is the place where IUCN’s more than 1,300 Member organizations exercise their rights, influence the global conservation agenda and guide IUCN’s work plan for the four years to follow.

The next Congress will take place 1-10 September in the Hawaiʻi Convention Center, in the Hawaiian capital, Honolulu. It is being hosted by the State of Hawaiʻi with the support of the Department of State of the USA.

Welcome to ECSA’s next major symposium, ECSA 56 – Coastal systems in transition from a ‘natural’ to an ‘anthropogenically modified’ state.

Humans are drivers of and affected by global change. Human-induced global climate and regional environmental change dramatically modify the structures and functions of coastal systems driving them into a new system state. The altered resource potentials and ecosystem services then, in turn, significantly affect the livelihoods of the population.

Distinguishing between natural and anthropogenic control factors and quantifying their impacts is a major challenge in the investigation of hydrodynamic, sedimentological, biogeochemical, ecological and socioeconomic processes in the coastal zone.

Inter- and transdisciplinary efforts are required to gain a profound understanding of these "novel" systems, which provides the basis for a sustainable management.

ECSA 55 brings together a global multi-disciplinary community of researchers and professionals to discuss and address issues of outstanding scientific importance in the science and management of estuaries and coastal seas in this rapidly changing world.

Abstract Submission Deadline: 1 April 2016

Follow the link above to learn more about the topics for oral and poster abstracts.

We are pleased to announce the International school-conference for young scientists “Climate, geography and environment of the Russian Arctic”.

The conference is organized by the Institute of the North Industrial Ecology Problems (Kola Science Center RAS), Institute of Geography RAS, the Faculty of Geography Lomonosov Moscow State University and A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics RAS. We would like to invite you to register to our event especially if you are Bachelor, Master or PhD students or young scientists under 35 years old. The school will have a focus on research in the field of geography, palaeogeography, climatology and oceanography of polar regions of Russia within the following topics:

• Evolution and modern dynamics of terrestrial and marine ecosystems of the Arctic
• Present conditions and projected changes of the climatic system of the Arctic
• History of study and exploration of the Russian Arctic
• Ecologic, economic and social problems of the Arctic
• Perspectives of the development of Arctic region in the changing climate

Contact: org [at] apatity2016.ru