Past Events

The organizing committee from Swiss Polar Institute calls for poster proposals by PhD and Early Career Researchers to "High Altitudes meet High Latitudes: Globalizing Polar Issues" Conference.

We invite contributions expending upon the main topics addressed at the conference. We are encouraging proposals that highlight the relations between High Altitudes and High Latitudes and are looking for a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, including physical sciences, earth and bio sciences, as well as social sciences and humanities. In addition to a conventional poster presentation, all selected posters presentations will take part in flash-talk sessions (120' for each session).

In order to mobilize PhD and Early career researchers from European and non-European research communities, we will provide partial travel and accommodation support (up to 1200 CHF). Participants will be selected on the basis of an extended abstract (up to 600 words).

Application and deadline:

Deadline for abstracts: April 30, 2017
Notification of acceptance: May 29, 2017
Deadline for a Flash-talk presentation: September 5, 2017

Please, send abstracts to spi.cransmontana [at] epfl.ch

How the Greenland Ice Sheet responds to climate change is important for society for a number of reasons, least of which is sea level rise. Understanding ice sheet stability is central to this effort. However, we do not currently have data or models that allow for a definitive consensus view of ice sheet variability during the past. The goals of this workshop are two-fold: (1) With a community of experts, both senior and junior, bring different datasets and approaches together to see if consensus can be reached on the current state of knowledge of Greenland Ice Sheet history and sensitivity to climate forcing, and (2) Develop key research priorities that will help guide future efforts to make significant traction on the problem of Greenland Ice Sheet stability.

To tackle the issue of Greenland Ice Sheet stability requires input from a range of disciplines. These include ice coring, ice sheet modeling, glaciology, geophysics, geodesy, glacial geology, paleoceanography, geochronology, geochemistry, sea level studies, and others. These disciplines have focused on four major (and integrated) approaches that collectively hold most promise for going forward: (1) ice and bedrock coring, (2) stratigraphy and chronology, (3) ice sheet modeling, and (4) ice sheet processes.

Invited keynote presentations by Dorthe Dahl-Jensen (U Copenhagen), Sophie Nowicki (NASA Goddard), Jeremy Fyke (Los Alamos Nat’l Lab)

Organizing Committee: Richard Alley, Michael Bender, Jason Briner (chair), Beata Csatho, Kristin Poinar, Joerg Schaefer

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

This workshop will address sea ice processes across a wide range of lengths and time scales, with an emphasis on understanding emergent and scale-invariant phenomena. Mathematical methods that account for the smaller scale processes and enable computation and analysis of these processes' effect on larger scales relevant for coarse-grained climate models will be a focus of the workshop and linkage of scales is a central theme of this workshop.

Registration deadline: Sunday, 11 June 2017.

Workshop Theme:

Realistic models of Earth's climate system are essential to making projections about what we may experience as our climate changes. Polar sea ice forms a critical system component which must be accurately accounted for in global climate models. It forms the thin boundary layer coupling the polar oceans and atmosphere and has seen rather dramatic changes over the past two or three decades. An important feature of sea ice is that it displays rich structure and behavior on scales ranging over 10 orders of magnitude, length scales from microns to hundreds of kilometers, and time scales from milliseconds to decades. This broad range of scales for sea ice structure and properties is relevant to biological, chemical, industrial, weather, and climate-related processes. It also leads to sea ice structure at certain scales being similar to other materials such as porous human bone and polycrystalline metals, which can be used to bring new techniques to studying sea ice.

The complex behavior of sea ice over such a large range of scales presents a fundamental challenge to modeling these systems. For example, many key processes, whose relevant length scales may be centimeters or meters to kilometers, impact climate and must be incorporated into large-scale numerical climate models with grid sizes often on the order of tens of kilometers. Moreover, some sea ice properties exhibit scale invariance or predictable scale dependence while others appear to be wholly emergent, a consequence of interacting processes within and applied to the ice cover.

Potential workshop topics include:

• Large-scale numerical models of the evolution of polar sea ice
• Sea ice simulations including variability, predictability, and climate projections
• Sea ice microphysics, fluid transport, convection, and the porous brine microstructure
• Melt ponds on Arctic sea ice
• Ice thickness distribution, melting, freezing, mechanical redistribution, ridging, and rafting
• Waves in the marginal ice zone
• Scaling in sea ice fracture and dynamics, sea ice rheology
• Momentum balance including form drag, interactions with currents, tides and winds
• Sea ice thermodynamics and exchange processes
• Low order models of polar climate
• Tipping point phenomena
• Stochastic processes in sea ice modeling

The Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study (iLEAPS), a global research project of Future Earth, will hold its 5th Science Conference in Oxford, United Kingdom.

The event has the theme 'Understanding the impact of land-atmosphere exchanges.' It is being organised by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology of the Natural Environment Research Council. The iLEAPS International Project Office (IPO) has a limited number of financial bursaries available to cover registration fees, especially for early-career scientists and those from developing countries.

Sponsored by:
The Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University
Netherlands Earth System Science Centre
The Descartes Prize (EPICA), EU

The course will provide a basic introduction to the dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets with a focus on ice-climate interactions. The course is meant for Ph.D. students that work on (or will soon start working on) a glaciology-related climate project. The registration fee will be € 700. This includes lodging, full board, course material and excursion.

Lecturers include:
T. Blunier, O. Eisen, I. Hewitt, A. Jenkins, N. Karlsson, F. Pattyn, G. Spada, A. Stroeven, C. Tijm-Reijmer, J. Oerlemans (convener).

Send your application to the convener (j.oerlemans at uu.nl), before 8 May 2017.
You will be notified about the decision of the Selection Committee by 7 June 2017.

Your application should include:

• A short statement why you want to participate in this course
• Affiliation and name of supervisor
• A description of your research project (~200 words)
• A curriculum vitae

Please supply this information as a single PDF file.

Please visit the link above for more information.

The Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy (ACCAP) announces a webinar on the United States Arctic Research Commission (USARC) Working Groups. This webinar will be presented by Cheryl Rosa of the USARC.

The webinar will be available online or in-person at the Akasofu building, Room 407 on the University of Alaska campus.

Webinar Summary:

A primary duty of the USARC is to interact with Arctic residents, international Arctic research programs and organizations, and local institutions including regional governments, in order to obtain the broadest possible view of Arctic research needs. To facilitate this, the USARC coordinates working groups to examine and develop research needs for specific topics, generally based on feedback from stakeholders.

USARC's Anchorage-based office currently coordinates three working groups: the Alaska Rural Water and Sanitation Working Group (ARWSWG), the Arctic Renewable Energy Working Group (AREWG) and the Arctic Mental Health Working Group (AMHWG).

This webinar will present an overview of the mission and objectives of the three USARC working groups, as well as ways to connect with their activities.

For questions, contact:
Tina Buxbaum
Email: tmbuxbaum [at] alaska.edu

We invite the private, public, and civic sectors as well as researchers, developers, and the academic community. We invite student and community participation and the conference sessions will take place in a variety of settings. The North Atlantic Forum aims to be trans-sectoral and welcomes paper and poster proposals on a variety of topics connected to the conference theme.

Organizers are still encouraging submissions for the programme. Deadline for abstracts is March 1, 2017.
For further details on the Forum see our website.

Registration for the conference is now open and can be done through the website. The Early bird rate is available until April 15, 2017.

Starting off as a national students' event, Youmares has expanded over the years to a bottom-up worldwide network and international meeting of young ocean researchers and experts.

We are very happy that we can meet at Kiel University, place of the Cluster of Excellence 'The Future Ocean' with organisational support of the 'Integrated School of Ocean Sciences' (ISOS).

Follow the link above for more information.

Abstract submission deadline: 31 May 2017.

The Arctic-FROST research coordination network is pleased to announce the availability of travel awards for Early Career Researchers to attend The Third Arctic-FROST network meeting and Early Career Scholars Workshop on Community Sustainability in the Arctic.

Arctic-FROST: Arctic FRontiers Of SusTainability: Resources, Societies, Environments and Development in the Changing North is a new NSF-funded international interdisciplinary collaborative network that teams together environmental and social scientists, local educators and community members from all circumpolar countries to enable and mobilize research on sustainable Arctic development, specifically aimed at improving health, human development and well-being of Arctic communities while conserving ecosystem structures, functions and resources under changing climate conditions

The theme of the Annual Meeting and Early Career Scholars Workshop is on Community Sustainability in the Arctic. Papers could deal with (1) sustainability and sustainable development in the Arctic or Sub-Arctic of particular relevance to the rest of the world, (2) comparative studies of sustainability between Arctic and other regions, (3) studies from various geographic contexts, which provide valuable insights into Arctic sustainability, (4) studies that analyze the role of outside actors in arctic sustainable development are welcome.

The main focus question of the conference is “What sustainability theories and practices work and what fail in Arctic Communities?”
At this first meeting the Arctic-FROST casts a wide net and welcomes papers that address one of the following broad categories:

• Sustainable environments
• Sustainable economies
• Sustainable cultures
• Sustainable regions/communities

All participants:

• Will present their work at the Annual Meeting (all papers/presentations will be published online and considered for inclusion in the Arctic-FROST edited volume and/or in Polar Geography)
• Will participate in discussions and round tables with leading sustainability science researchers
• Will participate in the Workshop activities immediately following the Annual Meeting

Eligibility: an applicant shall be:

• Early career scholar (5 years since PhD) or current graduate student.
• Arctic-FROST network member by registering at uni.edu/arctic/frost prepared make an oral presentation on the subject related to sustainability and/or sustainable development in the Arctic or Sub-Arctic regions at the meeting.
• Available to participate in all conference and workshop activities.

We accept applications from eligible applicants from all countries, disciplines and institution types. Applications from Indigenous scholars and Arctic residents are especially encouraged.

Funding: Arctic-FROST will cover full cost of attendance including travel and accommodations. Normally funds will be paid after the travel is completed; based on the reimbursement claim. The participants will be expected to comply with NSF travel requirements.

Application Deadline: May 10th, 2017

Application: submit extended abstract of your paper (500-750 words), short biosketch (1 page), statement of interest in workshop participation (1 page), register as Arctic-FROST member at www.uni.edu/arctic/frost

Send your applications and inquiries to ann.crawford [at] uni.edu and andrey.petrov [at] uni.edu (copy to both emails).

This workshop will bring together senior and early career scientists to gain insight into the rapidly changing pan-Arctic land surface and boundary layer. The workshop will review current representation of Arctic ecosystem, carbon, water and energy balance
processes in the land model component of Earth System Models, including land-atmosphere interactions, and the next steps to address knowledge gaps. The workshop will also focus on developing a pan-Arctic land model assessment that includes a broader range of models, and engage the data community to provide new validation products for the Arctic and sub-Arctic.

Core focus:

• Representation of Arctic terrestrial ecosystems in models
• Role of observations: calibration, validation, assimilation
• Water, nitrogen, carbon, and energy dynamics
• Land-atmosphere interactions and feedbacks across spatial and temporal scales
• Pan-Arctic land model assessment
• Arctic boundary layer processes
• Extreme/disturbance events
• Knowledge gaps

Deadline for abstract submission and registration: 31 March 2017

Connect to the Arctic! Join us for an upcoming PolarConnect event with teacher Lisa Seff and the research team studying Upwelling and Ecology in the Beaufort Sea:

https://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/upwelling-and-ecology-in-the-beau…

This event will be broadcast live aboard the Research Vessel Sikuliaq somewhere in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska. Register today!

Organizers of the 5th International Symposium on Arctic Research (ISAR-5) announce a call for special session proposals. The symposium will convene 15-18 January 2018 in Tokyo, Japan.

This symposium will be comprised of discussions on environmental changes in the Arctic and their regional and global implications and seeks additional international scientific collaboration in this area by gathering, synthesizing, and sharing information related to these changes occurring in the Arctic. Arctic change has impacts on the global climate, as well as ecosystems and human societies in higher-middle latitudes. A better understanding of these processes is needed so that improved information can be given to society and stakeholders, particularly decision makers.

Special emphasis will be placed on the fields of the social sciences and humanities, which have not been included in previous ISARs.

The symposium will consist of plenary, general, and special sessions, as well as poster sessions. Special sessions are inter-disciplinary and solicited from participants.

The general sessions include the fields of:

• Atmosphere
• Ocean and sea ice
• Rivers, lakes, permafrost, and snow cover
• Ice sheets, glaciers, and ice cores
• Terrestrial ecosystems
• Marine ecosystems
• Geospace
• Policies and economy
• Social and cultural dimensions

For further information about the call for special session proposals or to submit a proposal, follow the link above.

Special session proposal deadline: 15 April 2017.

Abstract submission deadline: 15 September 2017.

Early registration deadline: 15 November 2017.

The EU Horizon 2020-funded APPLICATE project, in cooperation with the World Meteorological Organisation’s Polar Prediction Project (PPP) in occasion of the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and other partners will be organizing the Polar Prediction School 2018 on weather and climate prediction in the polar regions from 17 - 27 April 2018 at Abisko Scientific Research Station in Sweden.

The course will include a combination of polar weather and climate theory lectures with exercises on modeling and field meteorology techniques as well as soft skill training. Each of these components forms a crucial pillar of the prediction problem, and the motivation for combining these is to provide participants with a complete overview of the components required to understand and predict polar weather.

The Polar Prediction School 2018 will be open for 30 early career researchers (focus on advanced graduate students, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) from around the world. An international set up instructors will be teaching the sessions. The course will be run at Abisko Scientific Research Station in Sweden where the instructional facilities are conveniently located in an environment well suited to Arctic observations. Here participants can begin to develop a sense for the environment they are studying.

••Application deadline: 15 September 2017.**

For any questions about the Polar Prediction School 2018, please contact info [at] apecs.is.

Organizers invite nominations for the International Mohn Prize for Outstanding Research Related to the Arctic (The Mohn Prize). This award was established is to recognize excellence in research related to the Arctic. The prize aims to highlight issues that are of particular relevance to the future development of the Arctic and help put these issues on the national and international agenda.

The Mohn Prize has been established in collaboration by Academia Borealis - The Academy of Sciences and Letters of Northern Norway, Tromsø Research Foundation, and University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway (UiT).

Nominations can be submitted for individuals or research groups who hold a leading international position in their field, are widely recognized as leaders in their field, and have developed groundbreaking new knowledge about the Arctic.

The nomination process is open to anyone. Nominations are confidential and should not be made known to the nominee.

Self-nominations will not be accepted and the prize cannot be awarded post mortem.

For more information on how to nominate an individual, please follow the link above.

Nomination deadline: 15 September 2017.

CUAHSI is pleased to partner with the University of Washington, U.S. Forest Service, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Colorado Boulder, and Universite de Sherbrooke to offer the Snow Measurement Field School, a 3-day field school on making and analyzing snow measurements from January 9 – 11, 2018 at the Fraser Experimental Forest in Fraser, Colorado.

This course will give fundamental training to students in making and analyzing snow measurements including depth, density, water equivalence, grain size and shape, stratigraphy, temperature and hardness. Students completing this course will be able to perform high-quality fieldwork and design studies making snowpack measurements.

The course is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, post-docs, professionals and senior scientists, modelers and remote sensers that will make snow measurements as part of their research, or use snowpack data in their research. There are no required prerequisites, but students should be physically able to spend days outside being active in the snow.

Applications will be accepted until 5:00 p.m. EDT on September 15 2017 via the following Google Form:

http://cuahsi.memberclicks.net/message2/link/0d746cfd-b984-45ba-97ab-9d…

A very limited number of student travel grants are available to accepted applicants on a first-come, first-served basis to help defray the cost of travel to this course. Contact Elizabeth Tran at etran [at] cuahsi.org for more information.

Organizers announce a call for presentation abstracts for the 2017 Arctic Energy Summit.

The 4th biennial 2017 Arctic Energy Summit is a multidisciplinary event expected to draw several hundred industry officials, scientists, academics, policy makers, energy professionals, and community leaders together to collaborate and share best practices as they relate to a comprehensive array of Arctic energy issues. The 2017 Arctic Energy Summit builds on the Sustainable Development Working Group's legacy
efforts to address energy as a fundamental element of the sustainable development of the Arctic, and occurs during Finland's Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2017-2019).

The three-day summit will focus on a diverse set of topics including:

• Oil and gas
• Geothermal, solar, wind, hydro, and tidal energy
• Utilities
• Microgrids
• Energy policy and regulation
• Community impacts
• Energy finance and investment
• Climate change
• Energy security

Hosted by Alaska's Institute of the North, in collaboration with the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the Arctic Energy Summit will highlight the Arctic as a leader in renewable energy development and integration and exporter of world-class knowledge and expertise.

Organizers invite subject matter experts to submit expressions of interest in speaking at the Arctic Energy Summit. The organizing
committee welcomes abstracts for technical presentations, workshops, or moderated panel discussions. Organizers are especially interested in presentations that discuss collaborations between academia, industry, and government; building on what is known and learning from experience; and evaluating differences and working toward common approaches.

Potential speaking topics include:

• Small community energy solutions
• Oil and gas
• Renewable energy
• Regulation and financing
• Community impact

Deadline for expressions of interest: 31 January 2017.

Early registration deadline: 15 June 2017.

The OCEANS North America conference will be hosted in Alaska for the first time ever. On behalf of the Marine Technology Society and the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, the OCEANS ’17 Anchorage Local Organizing Committee (LOC) is honored to invite your participation in this prestigious event.

The theme, “Our Harsh and Fragile Ocean,” or “How to protect the Fragile from the Harsh with application of modern technology and traditional knowledge working together” will bring consideration of the issues of Climate Change, Diminishing Arctic Ice Pack, Ocean Acidification, Increase vessel traffic in Arctic waters, Energy extraction and much more.

Abstracts may be submitted in one of three categories:

• Regular Technical Program
• Student Poster Competition
• Special Sessions

Abstracts and student poster submissions are due March 6, 2017.

Following the success of last year's Polar Film Fest 2016, US APECS is organizing the second-ever Polar Film Fest, which will take place during International Polar Week. The theme for this falls celebration is #PolarWorld, so for each of the five days of the Film Fest, we're looking to showcase the best the planet has to offer in movies about the Arctic, Antarctic, and wider cryosphere – no matter what language they're in.

We're looking for film suggestions, whether they're just a few minutes long or future length, that fit any of the following themes:

1) #PolarWorld: Polar issues are global
2) Science in action: Working in extremes
3) People at the poles: The human dimension
4) Polar policy: Preparing for the future
5) Icing on the cake: Frozen fun

Films may be original or produced by someone else. To submit your own film, upload it to a video sharing site (i.e., Youtube or Vimeo) and submit the link along with a description of the film and a note indicating that you made the film, on the submission form. Films produced by others must be available publicly online. Films that can be watched for free are preferred; please do not submit links to illegal streaming websites.
​
We invite you to please submit your suggestions through the Google Form we've set up:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSew4lBBvEX1p1wPpQkYV17LuERwAz7…

Once the films have been selected and curated, organizers from US APECS will put together a schedule with virtual and in-person watch parties. If you're interested in helping to curate the films or in organizing an event, be sure to get in touch!

The UK Arctic Science Conference brings together natural and social scientists with a common interest in the Arctic environment. We welcome the submission of abstracts from across the themes of the International Arctic Science Committee Working Groups: Cryosphere, Marine, Terrestrial, Atmosphere and Social and Human.

The deadline for submissions is 31st July 2017.

For further information, please visit the link above.

The Arctic Frontiers Science 2018 takes place Tuesday 23 January until Thursday 25 January 2018 in Tromsø, Norway.

Conference description:

Search and rescue (S&R) in cold waters is a short race against time. Low temperatures, poor visibility, and bad weather, as well as vast distances, conspire to make S&R operations challenging. Although ice floes can keep people afloat for longer periods, and modern communication systems means there is less search and more rescue, even with the best survival gear the odds are decidedly poorer than in warmer waters. With the advent of dramatically reduced summer ice coverage, human activity in the Arctic Ocean ranging from petroleum exploration and drilling to shipping and cruise traffic is set to increase significantly. Mass rescue operations (MROs) must be handled differently in the Arctic, and to understand how the risk of a large accident in this sparsely populated area should be assessed one must draw on the understanding of the weather conditions, the changing climate, and the limited resources available in this region.

Conference topics will include:

• Aquaculture in the high north in time of change
• The new Arctic in the global context
• Resilient Arctic societies and industrial development
• Circumpolar safety, search, and rescue collaboration

Abstract submission deadline: 19 September 2017.