Search Events

David Balton served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Fisheries in the Department of State, attaining the rank of Ambassador in 2006. He coordinated U.S. foreign policy concerning oceans and fisheries, as well as issues relating to the Arctic and Antarctica, and oversaw U.S. participation in international organizations dealing with these issues. U.S. Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2015-2017). He also co-chaired Arctic Council Task Forces that produced the 2011 Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement and the 2013 Arctic Oil Pollution Agreement.

Sponsored by the Institute of Arctic Studies at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding.

For more information, contact:
Sharon Tribou-St. Martin
sharon.m.tribou-st.martin [at] dartmouth.edu

The 8th Annual World Congress of Ocean (WCO-2019) will be held in Xiamen, China. WCO-2019 intends provide an unique international platform for exchange of ideas and experiences, to facilitate the healthy development of marine industries and to promote sustainable utilization of marine resources, and involves the participation of the public and raise their awareness of marine environmental protection. It has been the most definitive and professional ocean event in China.

This conference will be an outstanding experience, both scientifically and socially. WCO-2019 will be jointly held with the famous World Ocean Week in Xiamen, which will make the conference more grander than ever before. World Ocean Week (WOW) in Xiamen serves as a platform for regional cooperation as well as for connecting marine and social science, technology, education, public awareness in making policies, management decisions and actions to achieve sustainable use of coastal and marine resources and for achieving sustainable development of the oceans. The World Ocean Week in Xiamen has been held for 12 years. In 2018, the event attracted more than 2,000 enterprise representatives and 200 officials and scholars from 45 countries and regions along the Maritime Silk Road.

High qualified speakers will be Selected from all over the world, and they usually be the distinguish leaders of their organizations. These presentations will identify or offer solutions to problems, utilize case studies, fill the knowledge gaps or forge collaboration opportunities, and discuss broader applications and implications.

The Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) announces the next Arctic Research Seminar featuring Anna Liljedahl, Research Associate Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). This event will be held online via Zoom.

Registration is required for this event.

The ARCUS Arctic Research Seminar Series invites leading Arctic researchers and community leaders to share the latest findings in Arctic research and what they mean for decision-making. The events are free and open to the public, and will be of particular interest to interest to the international Arctic research community, federal agency officials, congressional staff, non-governmental organizations, Arctic educators, and the public.

This seminar, titled Permafrost Hydrology Discoveries and Opportunities, will be presented by Anna Liljedahl, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Growing up in northern Sweden, Anna enjoyed playing with the abundant meltwater flowing behind the small family farm in spring. At UAF she researched the controls and fate of water under a changing Arctic climate through collaborations in field measurements, numerical modeling, remote sensing, and, in the coming years, big data cyberinfrastructure.

Seminar Abstract:

Arctic and sub-Arctic field measurements are showing warming and thawing permafrost, increasing winter runoff, and groundwater levels. Local scale remote sensing analyses reveal degrading ice wedges, thermokarsts, and retrogressive thaw slumps, and watershed-scale numerical modeling results suggest micro-topographical geomorphological controls on fluxes and stores of water as ice-rich ground thaws and subsides. We are living in a time of rapid change to the permafrost-affected landscape across the Arctic region, with dramatic changes occurring over just a few years. Yet, our understanding of the spatial continuity of change is limited due to the logistical constraints in doing fieldwork in a remote region, under-harnessed high performance and image processing resources, and the coarse resolution of pan-Arctic models. Collaboration across disciplines and organizations allow for a holistic approach in quantifying change, understanding underlying mechanisms, and in encouraging knowledge-generation beyond the scientific community. If successful, one’s weakness becomes the other’s strength and the sum larger than its parts.

Instructions for accessing the webinar will be sent to registrants prior to the event.

The Arctic faces critical policy challenges on many issues including climate change response, public health and health care infrastructure, energy, environmental protection, sustainable management of the Arctic Ocean, infrastructure, Indigenous rights, and governance. These challenges require international cooperation and policy decisions that are grounded in Indigenous and local knowledge and western science and informed by Arctic residents. The Fulbright Program, with its 73-year history of creating connections in a complex and changing world, formed the Fulbright Arctic Initiative to support interdisciplinary policy-relevant research important to residents and stakeholders vested in the future of the Arctic.

This Symposium reports on research findings and selected policy recommendations from the Fulbright Arctic Initiative thematic research teams, who during 18-months of collaborative work focused on 1) supporting health and well-being to ensure that Arctic communities develop pathways to thrive and, 2) addressing scales of risk from local to global to enhance economic sustainability in the Arctic. The discussion to follow will focus on possible research priorities and opportunities for the next round of scholars in the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, 2020-21.

The 2020 Quaternary Research Association (QRA) Annual Discussion Meeting will be held in Leeds, Yorkshire, United Kingdom from 8-10 January with the theme ‘Quaternary Earth System processes and feedbacks: challenges for society’.

Quaternary climate feedbacks, tipping points and shifts in system states are important areas of current research (as highlighted by the IPCC, and with UKRI developing funding calls on these themes) as they provide relevant case studies for understanding our currently evolving climate and projecting it into the future. The conference is broad in scope, capturing the range of interests of the members of the QRA, particularly welcoming abstract submissions in the areas of:

• Ice, oceans and sea level (Keynote: Natalya Gomez, McGill University, Canada)
• Ecosystems (Keynote: Angela Gallego-Sala, University of Exeter)
• Quaternary carbon cycling (Keynote: James Rae, University of St Andrews)
• State shifts and abrupt changes (Keynote: Camille Li, University of Bergen, Norway)
• Recent advances in Quaternary Geochronology (Keynote: Kirsty Penkman, University of York)
• Implications of Quaternary Science for Earth’s Future (Keynote: Paul Valdes, University of Bristol)

Abstract submission is now open, and closes on 31st October.

Registration closes 29th November.

The next IGS Nordic Branch meeting will be held at Fosshótel Reykholt, which is located in the vicinity of Langjökull ice cap (2nd largest in Iceland).

The Icelandic Meteorological Office and The Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, will host this meeting which will provide great opportunities for scientists and students in glaciology and related topics to present their latest results in relaxed, informal atmosphere. Participants will also have the opportunity to go on an exciting field excursion into the 500 m long man-made ice tunnel in Langjökull (https://intotheglacier.is) on November 1st.

Registration will open 1 August 2019.

The online abstract submission is now open.

Abstract submission deadline is 11:59pm, 15th October 2019 GMT but the sooner you get your abstract in the easier it will be for us to get ready for the meeting.

BOEM Program Officers Cathy Coon and Guillermo Auad will host this webinar on BOEM funding opportunities and welcome the research community to join, ask questions and share feedback.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management‘s (BOEM) Environmental Studies Program (ESP) develops, funds and manages research on marine, coastal, and human environments to collect information needed for assessment and management of potential impacts from energy and marine mineral development on the Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Since the ESP’s launch in 1973, it has funded more than $1.1 billion of research nationwide, approaching $500 million dedicated to research in coastal Alaska, and has produced more than 1,000 study reports and peer-reviewed publications. These studies have provided information for use in 25 different lease sales, which have generated nearly $9.5 billion for the U.S. Treasury.

Research within the Alaska OCS Region, which covers more than 1 billion acres, is multidisciplinary, encompassing oceanography, marine mammals, biology, and social sciences. The research is mission-oriented, focusing on providing information for environmental impact assessment and monitoring environmental changes associated with OCS activities. The ESP in Alaska currently manages more than 55 ongoing study projects in disciplines including protected and endangered species; physical oceanography; fate and effects of pollutants; wildlife biology; subsistence, and traditional knowledge studies; and economic forecasting.

This webinar will be held via Zoom.
You can connect to audio via computer or telephone.
Click the link first, then follow the prompts to connect to audio.
If you connect via telephone please enter your participant ID when prompted.

https://iarpc.zoom.us/j/2069310090
Meeting ID: 206 931 0090

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) bring partners together to work on conservation solutions that help communities and decision makers adapt to and thrive in a rapidly changing north. Alaskans face many challenges as the climate warms, erosion accelerates, storms and flooding intensify, sea ice and river ice changes, wildfires increase, and subsistence resources shift.

These challenges are too complex for any one entity to address alone. By working together we are better able to preserve the natural and cultural heritage of current and future generations of Alaskans. Despite recent changes in federal funding, and with new help from private funders, four of the five original Alaskan LCCs are still active:

• Aleutian and Bering Sea Initiative
• Northwest Boreal LCC
• North Pacific LCC
• Western Alaska LCC

Currently the LCCs are helping to lead projects focused around climate resilience and adaptation, coordinated and community-led monitoring, and collaborative, climate-smart approaches to land use planning. This presentation will give an overview of the four Alaska LCCs.

16-22 February 2020, Col du Lautaret, France.

The Snow Science Winter School aims to teach modern techniques of snow measurements, based on a field training and theoretical lessons. It includes the practice with some of the state-of-the-art snow measurement techniques (specific surface area by reflection and spectroscopy, near-infrared photography, high-resolution penetrometry, micro-tomography, etc). Students will learn about how to characterize the snow cover, what are the fundamental processes responsible for its evolution, and how does it interacts with the environment. For the 2020 edition, a special focus will be on snow in a changing climate, impact on human and nature.

Any graduate student or post-doc working on snow or in some snow related fieldis welcome to participate. The course corresponds to 3 ETCS-Points.

Application will close on October, 20th, 2019.

The Sixth International Symposium on Arctic Research (ISAR-6) will take place March 2 - 6, 2020 in Tokyo, Japan.

The rapid warming in the Arctic has been revealed, however, the precision of forecasting the future of climate and environmental change is still insufficient for utilization in sustainable development in the Arctic, while interests for resource utilization and economical activities are growing and progressing rapidly. The ISAR is aimed at presenting and discussing the scientific research results together with the Arctic researchers from all over the world, extracting and sharing issues to solve, and exploring the future of the Arctic. In ISAR-6, we are planning to discuss how the Arctic research has been progressing in the past ten years, and what we should do in the next ten years for the sustainable development.

ISAR-6 will consist of general sessions and special sessions. The general sessions will address the following topics: atmosphere; ocean and sea ice; rivers, lakes, permafrost and snow cover; ice sheets, glaciers and ice cores; terrestrial ecosystems; marine ecosystems;
geospace; laws, politics and economy; language, culture and health; engineering for sustainable development. Special sessions will be solicited on cross-cutting themes, until May 6, 2019.

We would like to invite you to attend ISAR-6, which will be held at Hitotsubashi Hall in Tokyo. It will be organized by the Japan Consortium of Arctic Environmental Research (JCAR) with the auspices of several institutions in Japan.

Young scientists and students are encouraged to attend by lower registration fee. Presented papers in ISAR-6 are eligible to submit to the Special Issue (tbd) as a peer reviewed fall paper in "Polar Science."

Important Dates:

• January, 2019 Call for Session starts, First Circular.
• May 6, 2019 Call for Session ends. Session coordination starts.
• August 5, 2019 Call for Abstract/Registration starts, Second Circular.
• October 20, 2019 Call for Abstract ends (Extended from October 7).
• November 15, 2019 Accept/Reject notice ends.
• December 16, 2019 Oral/Poster notice starts.
• December 20, 2019 Program Open, Third Circular.
• January 20, 2020 Early Bird registration ends.
  February 3, 2020 Registration ends.