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Organizers announce that registration is available for the NASA Scoping Study Arctic-COLORS (Arctic-COastal Land Ocean inteRactions) Open Community Workshop, which will be held from 28-29 July 2016 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Arctic-COLORS is a Field Campaign Scoping Study supported by NASA's Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry (OBB) Program that aims to quantify present and future impacts of changing land and ice on marine net ecosystem productivity in the fastest warming environment on the planet: the Arctic. A Science Plan is under development that describes and justifies the design of an integrative, interdisciplinary oceanographic field campaign and modeling program that addresses high priority science questions related to land-sea-ice interactions in the nearshore Arctic, and assesses the impacts of natural and anthropogenic changes on coastal ocean ecology and biogeochemistry.

The panel convened by NASA OBB to review a preliminary version of the Arctic-COLORS Science Plan wasvery supportive of Arctic-COLORS and recommended revisions and re-submission of the report for further consideration by NASA.

To view the science plan, go to:
http://arctic-colors.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ArcticCOLORS_Final.pdf

The one and a half day open community workshop at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute will engage interested scientists in a dialog about the proposed field campaign and obtain broad community input on these revisions. During this workshop participants will focus the top level science questions, discuss potential de-scoping scenarios, and narrow the study domain.

Registration Deadline: 15 June 2016.

To register please visit the link above.

For questions, please contact:
Antonio Mannino
Email: antonio.mannino-1 [at] nasa.gov

The Eastern Snow Conference (ESC) is a joint Canadian/U.S. organization founded in the 1940s originally with members from eastern North America. Today, Our members come from the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, as well as North America. Our current membership includes scientists, engineers, snow surveyors, technicians, professors, students and professionals involved in operations and maintenance. The western counterpart to this organization is the Western Snow Conference (WSC), also a joint Canadian/US organization. Every fifth year or so, the ESC and WSC hold joint meetings.

At its annual meeting, the Eastern Snow Conference brings the research and operations communities to discuss recent work on scientific, engineering and operational issues related to snow and ice. The location of the conference alternates yearly between the United States and Canada, and attendees present their work by giving talks or presenting posters. Authors can choose to have their papers reviewed if they desire feedback on ways to improve the manuscript prior to publication in our yearly Proceedings of the Eastern Snow Conference Papers may also be submitted for a special annual ESC edition of the journal Physical Geography. These manuscripts are subject to a standard academic journal peer review process.

Volumes of the Proceedings can be found in libraries throughout North America and Europe; papers can also be found through the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) in the United States and CISTI in Canada. The conference's proceedings are indexed in the Cold Regions Bibliography Project.

In recent years, the ESC meetings have included presentations on snow physics, management and hydrology, snow and ice loads on structures, river ice, winter survival of animals, remote sensing of snow and ice, glacier processes, snow science as a teaching tool and socio-political impacts of winter. The ESC encourages students to submit their work to Student Paper Competition which will also be considered for the general session.

The ESC and its annual meeting is kindly supported by a number of Corporate Members.

We have just started a $30 sustaining membership for those members who are unable to attend the Annual ESC Meeting, but would like a copy of the proceedings. For information please visit our organizational information page.

The Next Generation Ecosystems Experiments (NGEE-Arctic) is a 10-year Department of Energy (DOE)-supported project whose mission is to improve mathematical models that predict climate through advanced understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological behavior of terrestrial ecosystems in Alaska. With a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from a range of institutions, NGEE-Arctic integrates field and laboratory investigations to inform climate models, ultimately scalable to the region and to the Arctic. This webinar will first feature an NGEE-Arctic evaluation of methane emissions across gradients of permafrost thaw. The project’s program manager will then discuss the role of this research within the broader DOE priorities, as well as techniques for individual researchers to connect their ideas to policy driven funding priorities in order to produce effective interdisciplinary research coordinated within and among Federal agencies.

Dr. Stover is a Program Manager for Terrestrial Ecosystem Science programs in the Climate & Environmental Sciences Division of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research within the DOE Office of Science. He manages a portfolio of university and national laboratory research projects aimed at improving the representation of terrestrial ecosystems and their processes in predictive Earth system models, including NGEE-Arctic.

Lydia Smith Vaughn is a Ph.D. candidate in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley. Her research explores the intersections of terrestrial carbon cycling, plant-soil-microbe interactions, and climate. She is currently a graduate student researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she studies high latitude carbon cycling through the NGEE-Arctic project.

The Polar Geospatial Center (PGC) and the University of Minnesota announce registration for the 2016 Polar Geospatial Center Boot Camp. This
workshop will take place on 13-16 June on the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The workshop will focus on applications of commercial satellite imagery for polar science. Instructor-led courses include Discovering Geospatial Data at the Poles, DEM Extraction from Stereoscopic Imagery, Georeferencing Maps and Aerial Imagery, and more. The PGC Boot Camp also hosts visiting speakers and offers dedicated project work time for one-on-one support from PGC staff.

Registration Deadline: 16 May 2016

For questions, please contact:
Lucas Winzenburg
Email: winz0017 [at] umn.edu

or

Jonathan Pundsack
Email: pundsack [at] umn.edu

The Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN) announces the call for contributions for the 2016 Sea Ice Outlook June report (based on May data). The firm submission deadline is 6:00 p.m. (AKDT) on Monday, 13 June 2016.

Follow the URL above for more information and guidelines for contributors.

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

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

We will reassemble the members of the National Steering Committee and a small but diverse selection of representatives from the five regional workshops, to total about 15 people. Our aim will be to identify and synthesize the core threads of the previous workshops and public contributions proffered between workshops. Our target output for the workshop will be a final report draft and outline of steps leading to the final report release in June 2016. The Jefferson Institute will manage production of the publication.

The conference will discuss the role played by non- Arctic European Member States in designing a regional Arctic policy. It will be developed on the basis of selected papers focused on five key issues and a set of round table discussions will be coordinated, on the basis of the call for papers. The call is open to all early careers, researchers and senior scientists whose contributions can enrich the reflection on the topic.

We invite proposals related to the following areas:

The European Union in the Arctic Council

Several European non- Arctic Member States are Permanent Observers to the Arctic Council, while the European Union as a regional orgsnization has remained excluded from acquiring this status. Considering that all its Member States are required to accomplish with the European directives and regulations under European Law, and that the geographical boundaries of the organization overlap with the polar ones; the role of the European Union should be reconsidered in order to avoid conflicting or impasse situations. The call would ask for proposals of practical solution to reconcile the International role played by the European Union as a regional actor, maintaining both strategic interests in the North Pole and a commitment to the sustainable management of its environment and populations.

European decision- making power and influence in a changing Arctic

In 2011 and 2014 the Arctic States have exclusively adopted under the auspices of the Arctic Council two relevant agreements related with search and resque activities and with marine oil pollution response in the Arctic, envisaging the possible evolution of the same ino a proper International Organization. Considering this possibility, the exclusion of all European non- Arctic Countries from the bargaining processes and the fact that the Arctic Council may encompass security and defence issues; the call would ask for the definition of future possible scenarios with regard to global security subjects such as navigation, piracy, terrorism, smuggling etc. directly affecting the European territory.

A sustainable development of the Arctic: the European commitment

The European Union has compromised internationally in the fight to climate change, and is currently widely investing in Arctic scientific research. Moreover, all European States have traditionally been funders of scientific programmes and promoters of the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Taking all this in mind, the call would ask how this European commitment can be balanced with Arctic States sovereign rights and aspirations, considering for example the existing International Law framework and the lack of enforcement of several international agreements for some relevant Arctic States (UNFCCC, Paris Agreement, UNCLOS).

The European economic situation: is there an Arctic solution?

In the light of the present energy scarsity and increasing International interests for Arctic resources use and extraction, it is doubtful whether International stakeholders - beyond Arctic States and within the limits of the Law of the Sea- are claiming valid rights of use of the Arctic territory and natural environment. The call ask for proposals on the development, renew of concrete implementation of a European policy for the Arctic, that takes in due account the needs of European non- Arctic States (e.g. access to new sea routes, fishing quotas, access to recources and hydrocarbons) as a possible factor of mitigation of the present economic crisis, considering particularly the relation with some Arctic economic giants, for example Russia.

The European Union and the protection of Arctic Indigenous Peoples

Although not derived from the treaties, the evolving case law of the European Court of Justice has integrated some human rights into the acquis of the European Union. One of the goals of the EU in its Startegy towards the Arctic region is to provide for high standards of protection for Indigenous Peoples, support their sustainable development, resilience and adaptation to climate ghange.The Arctic Member States of the EU are the natural territory of some Arctic Indigenous Peoples whose rights as citizens might be considered by the European Court of Justice. What is more, besides the fact of being a member of the Council of Europe, the EU itself committed to implement the human rights' protection of Arctic Indigenous Peoples within European borders, being this domestic or implemented through regional organizations. In addition to this, one of the most indigenous populated Arctic islands- Greenlad- mantains a relation of Oversea Territory with the European Union and is still dependant on Denmark in the International representation, defence and foreign policy. Considering the possibility for Greenland to become the first Indigenous self-governed country, the call would ask for outlining which could be the consequences of such a a self- government arrangement within the European boundaries and strategic considerations.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 22 April, 2016.

Acceptance of abstracts: 16 May, 2016.

Please submitt the abstracts (250-350 words) to:

Ms. Elena Conde Pérez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid: conde [at] der.ucm.es

Ms. Marzia Scopelliti, Universidad Complutense de Madrid: marziasc [at] ucm.es or marzia.scopelliti [at] gmail.com

The best paper will be selected for the publication into the Spanish Yearbook of International Law.

Enormous mineral and energy resources hide under the arctic ice. Because of the climate change new sea routes open and new opportunities for raw material extraction emerge. That is also the reason why politics and economy are focusing increasingly on this region. Professors from TU Bergakademie Freiberg will discuss with scientists, politicians, diplomats and business representatives from the Arctic coastal states as well as from Germany about geo-strategic, legal, technical, and economic developments in the Arctic region.

The TU Bergakademie Freiberg is the oldest mining university in the world. It has been founded 250 years ago. It combines as one of few universities in the world all scientific fields along the resource value chain at one location. The Arctic Conference in 2016 is the starting point of a series of conferences and workshops on specific arctic topics. It is organized by TU Bergakademie Freiberg to promote and enhance the scientific exchange on arctic-related topics.

USAPECS is organizing a webinar series for Spring 2016 (April - June) focused on how to best share your science.

Building Bridges & Designing Activities with Teachers
For over seven years, Mia Bennett has written a blog on all things Arctic. Drawing on her experience blogging for the Foreign Policy Association and now the independently-run Cryopolitics, she'll talk about the art and science of blogging and how you can use it to improve your communication, research, and impact.

Register here for the webinar: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5254651105278066180

Thanks to APECS for the use of the GoToMeeting platform for hosting the webinars.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 1 February 2016

The course is intended to provide glaciology graduate students with a comprehensive overview of the physics of glaciers and current research frontiers in glaciology with focus on quantitative glaciology, modeling and remote sensing of glaciers and ice sheets. The course is taught by glaciology faculty of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and several invited guest lecturers.

Current sponsors include NASA, the International Glaciological Society (IGS), the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) and the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Instructors:
Andy Aschwanden, Ed Bueler, Mark Fahnestock, Regine Hock, Martin Truffer (UAF),
Gwenn Flowers (SFU, Canada)
More instructors are being recruited.