Past Events

Knowledge and understanding of processes and products linked to land to sea coupling are essential for the geological approach to earth system research. Crustal movements, material fluxes, sea-level fluctuations and climatic processes interact to determine environmental conditions and distribution of georesources. The international annual meeting of the Geologische Vereinigung and the SEDIMENT in Hamburg in 2012 will focus on these topics. In the course of the meeting we want to provide a forum for interchange and discussion of new knowledge about land to sea coupling through Earth history and to put the geological view in perspective of comprehensive earth system research. We are looking forward to welcome you in Hamburg in 2012!

The  European Space Agency, in collaboration with the French Space Agency, CNES, is organising an exceptional Symposium on "20  Years of Progress in Radar  Altimetry". This event will be sponsored by other partner agencies and organizations supporting the development of altimetry. Along with this symposium, several related events will take place on the same week, including the annual meeting of the Ocean Surface Topography Science Team (OSTST) and the International Doris Service (IDS) workshop, as well as other thematic workshops still to be organised, such as, Sea Level for Climate, Coastal Zone, Space for Hydrology, Argo, etc. These events will be held over 6 days, from 24 to 29 of September 2012, in Venice-Lido, Italy.

More information will be forthcoming.

Unmanned aerial systems couple innovative design and construction to assist business, science, the military and even ensure public safety from the air. Alaska offers a vast landscape in which unmanned aircraft can work. Whether it's monitoring the state's wildlife, gathering data on precious resources or assisting public safety efforts, these aircraft are proving themselves a crucial component of living and operating in the far north.

Now is your opportunity to participate in a forum dedicated solely to setting goals for unmanned aircraft in the Arctic. From Sept. 25 – 27, 2012, the Alaska UAS Interest Group will host its annual meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. Registration is currently underway at http://www.uasalaska.org. The cost to attend is $175. Commercial and government stakeholders are welcome.

The Alaska UAS Interest Group Annual Meeting will take place at the Embassy Suites Anchorage, located at 600 East Benson Boulevard. Rooms at the Embassy Suites are available at a discounted price when secured by Friday, September 14.

The conference, entitled "Pathways to Arctic Innovation," will focus on challenges, lessons learned, and innovations in wildlife conservation and co-management across the Canadian Arctic.

The challenges facing the Arctic during a time of change and global warming uncertainty will be the subject of frank and lively debate between policymakers, Ambassadors from European Union and Arctic nations, polar scientists, and representatives industry and Arctic indigenous peoples groups, at the 2012 Arctic Futures Symposium, taking place in Brussels on October 4th and 5th. High-level speakers include Prince Albert II of Monaco, Maria Damanaki, European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Belgian Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and European Affairs Didier Reynders, and Charles Emmerson, Chatham House Senior Research Fellow on Energy, Environment and Resources, and author of The Future History of the Arctic. Guest speakers will also include Sweden's Arctic Ambassador Gustav Lind, Greenland's Deputy Foreign Minister Inuuteq Holm Olsen, Robert Blaauw, Senior Advisor to Shell's Arctic programme, Bernard Funston, Chair of the Canadian Polar Commission, British Antarctic Survey glaciologist Prof. David Vaughan and Lars-Anders Baer, chair of the Working Group of Indigenous Peoples in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region.

Alaska’s IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society is announcing an upcoming lecture of its Luncheon Lecture Series on: “Remote Sensing of the Last Frontier”.

Unlike passive instruments such as radiometers or optical imagers, radars carry their own source of illumination and measure the scattered energy from an object or surface; in a sense reaching out and touching it. With control over various system parameters, radars can be designed to measure a broad variety of geophysical phenomena relating to oceans, atmospheres, land cover, and ice sheets. For over 40 years, the Radar Science & Engineering Section at Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been designing and building radar missions to probe the planets and better understand our changing Earth.

Alaska has some of the richest and most challenging terrain for remote sensing, from steep and glaciated mountains to fast-changing coastal dynamics and varied ecosystems in between. So naturally, JPL has favored Alaska as a natural laboratory for many of its airborne and spaceborne campaigns, and has worked closely with research institutions in the state, most notably the Alaska Satellite Facility and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

This talk will present an overview of the radar program at JPL, and will highlight some of the advances in technologies and techniques that have led to breakthrough measurements and discoveries in understanding our solar system.

Join us on Friday, October 5, 2012 at the GeoData Center in the International Arctic Research Center for "Snow & Ice" – a First Friday Art Show. The event will run from 5 to 7 p.m. on the West Ridge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

"Snow & Ice" features ice-inspired photography by USGS Scientist and Photographer Austin Post, Adam Hughes, a local nature photographer, and the work of faculty, staff and students of the UAF Geophysical Institute. Come see a wide range of snow and ice – from colorful satellite imagery of Alaska glaciers, scenic shots of radiant icebergs to microscopic images of ice crystals that resemble a colorful mosaic.

The First Friday event is free and parking is available just outside the International Arctic Research Center. Refreshments will be served and items will be for sale. Orders for additional photographic and canvas prints of the featured photography can be ordered through GI's Design Services. Come support your friends and colleagues at this unique event and pick up some beautiful, yet affordable artwork.

The event is sponsored by the UAF Geophysical Institute and the International Arctic Research Center.

More information is available by emailing info [at] gi.alaska.edu.

Since November 2006 Dr. Jeffries has lived in Washington, DC, and worked in northern Virginia, first for the National Science Foundation (2006-10) and then the Office of Naval Research (2011-present). All the while he remained a professor and employee of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In this seminar he'll explain how one can work for the Federal Government and remain a university professor, describe what a science and technology program officer does, highlight differences between agencies, and suggest why it's important that academic researchers know and understand these differences. He will conclude with a few lessons he's learned that he believes can improve grantsmanship and proposal success.

This seminar takes place in the Elvey Globe Room at 3:30 PM on the UAF campus.

The Pechora Sea region in the European North-East is an area where the oil-and-gas industry is actively developed both offshore and onshore. At the same time, it is also a territory of unique tundra ecosystems, valuable coastal and marine regions, Indigenous cultures, and protected natural areas. The conference aims to evaluate the present-day environmental status of the Nenets Autonomous District territory and adjacent Pechora Sea, and search for ways of decreasing environmental risks.

Conference tasks are as follows:
* To provide an arena for sharing experience, knowledge, research results, and future plans for carrying out environmental activities and studies in the region.
* To get competent opinions and expert assessments of environmental status in the Pechora Sea region and possible challenges of industrial exploitation of nature resources.
* To propose the mechanisms for solving environmental protection problems.
* To attract the attention of state institutes and public to the Nenets Autonomous District as a pilot region for exploration of the offshore Arctic.

Conference topics include:
* Environmental risks related to the industrial activities in the region;
* Monitoring the environmental status of the region and the challenges of its conduct;
* Development of the state environmental protection management system;
* Protection, reproduction, and rational use of nature resources;
* Traditional nature use and prospects of its development; and
* Safety of oil-and-gas marine transportation.

Representatives of federal, regional and municipal level authorities, Russian and foreign scientific institutes, nature protection organizations, indigenous peoples, and oil-and-gas companies working in the region.

G. Carleton Ray from the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia will be speaking at 3:30 pm at Elvey Auditorium at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

The term "seascape" relates the natural history of ice-dependent pinnipeds to their sea-ice environments, following concepts of landscape ecology. Seascape habitats are characterized by heterogeneous but repeatable structures of sea ice. Demonstrable habitat partitioning among the five species of Beringian pinnipeds is important for understanding and projecting species' responses to change under current climate-change scenarios. The seascape approach also calls for a revised research agenda. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 required a science-based ecosystem approach for conservation and management. The MMPA established the concept of optimum sustainable population (OSP) for marine mammals as significant functioning elements of ecosystems and placed ecosystem health as a first priority.

It also adopted a precautionary approach by shifting the burden of proof to the user, thereby restricting human intervention where such actions might otherwise disadvantageously affect species or populations of marine mammals. How these policies might be carried out under a scenario of climate change will be critical for future conservation of Beringian pinnipeds and their ecological role in the Beringian ecosystem.

This workshop is intended to familiarize participants with a method of texture analysis and orientation imaging (the CIP method) and to discuss texture interpretation with a special emphasis on ice. The workshop is open to all PhD level and postgraduate students and researchers.
The aim of the workshop is twofold:
(1) to introduce participants to a light-optical method for texture analysis (CIP), orientation and misorientation imaging, and
(2) to bring together specialists for a general discussion on current techniques of texture analysis (including SEM/EBSD), with special emphasis on ice.

Please contact Renee Heilbronner (renee.heilbronner [at] unibas.ch) for further details.

An Interdisciplinary Seminar on Arctic Research for Young Scientists

The Franco-German seminar “Gateway to the Arctic” is an approach to bring together young scientists from different disciplines of natural and social sciences. The seminar will cover aspects of intensive exchange through a series of lectures and workshops addressing the latest research advances in various fields of Arctic research. The casual and interactive meeting format will privilege the participants, and partner institutions for networking and developing new collaborations. Looking at the two focus regions in the Arctic - Siberia and Alaska - organizers would like to work on how we can improve and promote interdisciplinary research activities.

A limited number of travel stipends is available. Applications can be submitted until 30 July 2012, using the application form posted on the website.

The Parallel Ice Sheet Model (www.pism-docs.org) project provides an open source, fully-parallel, high-resolution ice sheet model. The PISM developer team at the University of Fairbanks Alaska is organizing a one day informal, interactive and hands-on workshop covering the following topics:

• Introduction to PISM & theoretical basis
• Installation
• Tools for pre- and postprocessing
• Tutorials including SeaRISE examples

To attend this workshop, there is no prior PISM knowledge or C/C++ knowledge required. Registration is required but there are no registration costs (a small fee might be collected to cover course material and coffee breaks).

For questions and registration, send email to aaschwanden [at] alaska.edu.

Two days of relatively informal and un-orchestrated exchange of ideas and reports by glaciologists in the Northwest and/or interested in the Northwest.

For nearly 40 years, the world's second-best informal annual meeting of glaciologists.

This course will address modeling strategies in cold and permafrost regions. Participants will use data from small research sites and watersheds to develop physically based models, estimate model parameters, and transfer those to larger scales. Participants will also learn how to simulate the runoff process in different geographical regions (e.g., permafrost, taiga, semi-arid environment, temperate climate, and tropics), and how to apply the hydrograph model.

The course is scheduled for one full week during which the work of each participant will be evaluated. A group of students will be given the opportunity to stay a second week, during which they will develop a collaborative project proposal to be submitted to the German funding agency.

The course is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research; participation is free of charge. Travel and accommodation costs for German and Russian participants will be sponsored. Students from other countries are invited to attend the course, but will need to cover travel and accommodation expenses themselves. The course will be conducted in English.

Masters and PhD students interested in hydrology are invited to submit applications. Applications should include a curriculum vitae and a 1-2 page essay on any hydrological modeling topic. Essays may be written in Russian, German, or English. Applications should be sent to Olga Semenova (omakarieva [at] gmail.com) or Johannes Cullmann (Cullmann [at] bafg.de).

Application deadline: 30 April 2012.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 31 May 2012.

For questions, please contact:
Olga Semenovo
Email: omakarieva [at] gmail.com

The ART workshop will address the challenge of integrating modelling and observations in order to identify linkages and feedbacks between atmosphere-ice-ocean forcings and biological-geochemical processes that are key to ecosystem function, land-ocean interactions and to the productive capacity of the past, present and future Arctic Ocean.

The workshop is jointly organized with the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and will propose training sessions on theoretical and practical aspects of marine sciences, as well as plenary talks and breakout sessions to discuss and initiate the writing of collaborative papers lead by both early career and senior scientists.

The ART-APECS Workshop is open to any scientists who share a common interest in improving our current understanding and projective capacity of the causes and implications of changing physical conditions on Arctic marine ecosystems on multiple time-scales. Limited funding is available for participants that will express interest in contributing to the ART scientific framework through the registration form.

The 18th Inuit Studies Conference will be hosted by the Smithsonian Institution and will be held in Washington, DC. The conference will consider heritage museums and the North; globalization: an Arctic story; power, governance and politics in the North; the 'new' Arctic: social, cultural and climate change; and Inuit education, health, language, and literature.

The 2012 conference will be held in various Smithsonian museums. Several special Inuit-themed exhibitions will be displayed across the Institution. Opportunities for visiting collections, archives, and laboratories are available.

The conference will cover a broad spectrum of topics, including climate change and indigenous people; international cooperation in the Arctic; roles of museums and museum collections in preserving Inuit languages, heritage, and culture; governmental programs in the northern regions and their interactions with local communities; and Inuit cultural/political
institutions.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/ISC18/index.html

APECS Sweden is organizing a workshop for early career researchers, focusing on field based research methods and project design, the day before the International Glaciological Society’s Nordic Branch meeting. All students, PhD students, Post Docs and other early career scientists with interests in this topic are encouraged to participate.

During the day we will have presentations and discussions on the following topics:

• Logistics, equipment and field safety
• From idea to publication
• Designing a successful field work
• Instrumentation
• Processing field data

We are very happy to have following guest speakers confirmed: Richard Gyllencreutz (Stockholm University), Gustaf Hugelius (Stockholm University), Malin Johansson (Stockholm University), Steve Lyon (Stockholm University), and Henrik Törnberg (Swedish Polar Research Secretariat)

The day is generously sponsored by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat and participation is free of charge and includes lunch. Registration is open until the 15th of October.

The Nordic IGS meeting will take place in Stockholm on 25-27 October 2012. The meeting provides an informal venue for Nordic-based glaciologists and students in glaciology to present their latest results. The meeting is hosted by Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, and The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat.

The goal of the Graduate Climate Conference (GCC) is to provide a discussion forum for graduate students undertaking research on climate and climate change in an array of disciplines, including atmospheric, biological, earth and ocean sciences. We seek to share new techniques and avenues of research, discuss recent findings and their implications, and consider the major questions in the future of climate research. The format is designed to encourage new climate scientists to grow acquainted with the details of diverse areas of climate research and to place their own research in the broader context of the climate science community. We envision fostering connections that will lead to future collaborations across disciplines and between institutions.