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The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Arctic Section is supporting a 'Planning Workshop on joint Arctic Research using the Swedish Class 1A Icebreaker Oden.' This workshop is held in collaboration with the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) and the Swedish Research Council (Formas and VR). The US delegation will be led by Drs. Patricia Matrai (Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences) and Peter Minnett (RSMAS, U. Miami), as workshop co-organizers with Dr. Caroline Leck (Stockholm U.).

The event will be held 30 March (half day) and 1 April (half day) 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden near the airport. Travel and per diem will be covered.

This workshop will bring together those with research and operational/logistical interests in the Arctic and will discuss a baseline for establishing a new, longer-term collaborative relationship among U.S. and Swedish scientists for Oden-based research in the Arctic Ocean. In addition, a pilot program in 2017 will be discussed which is already part of the SPRS agenda with an interdisciplinary ocean-atmosphere focus. Science themes will be developed for conducting research that takes advantage of the Oden's ice-breaking and unique ice-maneuvering capabilities as well as her ability to transit areas that are sparsely sampled. The Oden has a proven track-record of supporting extended research expeditions in the Arctic that have involved a wide range of multi-disciplinary investigations (SWEDARCTIC) (e.g., http://polar.se/en/forskning/aktuella-expeditioner/).

The workshop organizers invite interested scientists representing a broad range of expertise in the ocean, atmospheric, and climate sciences in the Arctic to participate. An expression of interest (< 1 page) is requested by U.S. participants for selection to 13 available openings by 26 January 2015. Expressions of interest may include: name, affiliation, research focus description, and responses to two questions: 1) suggested research focus areas for 2017 and 2) areas of interest for research on future Oden cruises.

The workshop organizers, in consultation with NSF Arctic, will select the final U.S. participant list. Sweden is inviting 10-15 Swedish Arctic scientists. Both groups will include some of the scientists who deployed during recent Oden Antarctic and Arctic field seasons. Participants will serve as liaisons to their respective scientific communities, and represent community-wide interests in the development of science themes for Oden-based research. The workshop will produce a report, similar to the 'Forum for Developing U.S.-Swedish Research Cooperation on Oden in Antarctica' (https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/antarct/science/workshop_rpt/oden_workshop_…).

Expression of Interest requested by: Monday, 26 January 2015

For questions, please contact:
Patricia Matrai
Email: pmatrai [at] bigelow.org

Peter Minnett
Email: pminnett [at] rsmas.miami.edu

In celebration of its 10th Anniversary, the Alaska Ocean Observing System and Alaska Geographic are co-hosting a Coast & Ocean Film Festival at the Bear Tooth on Saturday, March 28th. The festival will showcase fantastic short films that highlight an array of ocean-related topics. This event promotes ocean conservation, raises awareness about issues facing marine habitats, and celebrates Alaska's unique coast and ocean environments.

The 11th annual Polar Technology Conference (PTC) will be hosted by the Lockheed Martin Antarctic Support Contract and CH2MHILL Polar Services. The primary purpose of this conference is to bring together Polar Scientists and Technology Developers in a forum to exchange information on research system operational needs and technology solutions that have been successful in polar environments. This exchange of knowledge helps to address issues of design, implementation, and deployment for systems that are to achieve their research goals in the Polar Regions.

Past participants have come from the private sector, state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academia. Presentations generally cover system requirements for proposed research along with descriptions of systems and approaches that have been proven in polar deployments. Typical hardware and software topics have included weather stations, robotics, power systems, telemetry, and remote communications. The scale of systems ranges from the autonomous data collection towers to large scale research stations. Polar venues represented include under, on, and above the ice, tundra, or sea.

Discussions on intra- and inter-national cooperation in site deployment and maintenance are encouraged. Informal breaks allow for opportunities for networking and information exchange. A poster session is also included. Workshops have been held offering tutorial exchanges on specific technologies (e.g., power systems, Iridium). We are pleased to have support from the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs as an endorsement of the concept of bringing together providers and consumers of these technologies in hopes of benefiting from that synergy.

For more information, visit the conference website link above.

Mark the dates in your calendars!

Information, application, program etc. will become available on the website of the Network on Arctic Glaciology: http://www.iasc.info/nag/
and will be sent over Cryolist as it becomes available!

The goal of this workshop is to summarize our fundamental understanding and description of small-scale processes in the coupled atmosphere-ocean-ice climate system at high latitudes in order to assess and reduce bias and uncertainties in weather prediction and climate models.

The workshop will be limited to ca. 90 participants. Limited travel funding will be available to support a selection of early career scientists (Post-docs within 5 years of PhD and PhD students).

Conference registration fees are covered by the sponsors. Special hotel rate and full board (per night): 1550,00 (single) / 1250,00 (double) NOK.

Session themes and invited speakers:

1. The Polar Climate: large scale circulation and interaction with mid-latitudes
   Jennifer Francis, James Screen, Sharon Stammerjohn
2. The Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean-Ice System: current understanding and processes
   John Cassano, Chris Fairall, Andrew Roberts, Michael Tjernström, Timo Vihma
3. Extreme Events in the Polar Regions: dynamics and characteristics
   Günther Heinemann, Ian Renfrew, Thomas Spengler
4. Polar Predictability: state of the art and challenges ahead
   Jim Doyle, Jun Inuoe, Thomas Jung, Jørn Kristiansen

Important dates:
Application deadline for contributed talks and posters: 8 October, 2014
Travel support application (early career): 8 October, 2014
Notification of acceptance: 4 December, 2014
Deadline to confirm participation: 15 January, 2015

The 6th Arctic Shipping Summit will focus on technological, operational, and logistical and challenges encountered by ship owners in harsh Arctic conditions. It will address key developments in transport and regulation in the Arctic as well as; commercial, communication and safety issues. Particular emphasis will be put on evaluating potential opportunities in the region. This summit, through presentations, roundtable discussion and case studies will examine practical solutions to Arctic shipping issues and present the latest innovations of technology in this specialized area.

Key Topics include:

• Governing The Arctic: The Arctic Council and IMO Polar Code
• The Polar Code: Monitoring of Compliance
• Placing the Arctic in a Global Context
• LNG and the Future of Arctic Shipping
• Improving Satellite Coverage in the Arctic and its Impact on Search & Rescue
• Identifying the Arctic's Global Impact
• A Focus on the Immediate Future of Arctic Shipping
• Search and Rescue: Infrastructure, Communications and Satellite Coverage
• The Potential of the Offshore Arctic Market

Attend ACI's 6th Arctic Shipping Summit and hear from a panel of the industries most respected operators and commentators.
Confirmed Speakers Include:

• Peter Sandell - Senior Lecturer On Maritime & Commercial Law, Faculty of Technology & Maritime Management Satakunta University Of Applied Sciences
• Richard Corley - Head of Arctic Department Department of Transport
• Kathrin Keil - Europe Director The Arctic Institute
• Johanna Ikävalko - Ministerial Adviser Ministry of Transport And Communications
• Frank Boman - Director Operations Aerospace & Marine International Corp
• Halldor Johannsson - General Manager Arctic Portal
• Gary Timco - Principal Researcher National Research Council of Canada
• Michael Baldauf - Associate Professor World Maritime University
• Peter R. Skold - Head of International Arctic Centre Umeå University
• Jack Gallaher - National Treasurer Maritimes Division of The Company Of Master Mariners
• Peter Cullen - Partner Stikeman Elliott

The Arctic Dialogue has been organized and initiated by the High North Centre for Business and Governance at Bodø Graduate School of Business, University of Nordland, and up to 2012, supported by HBW Resources (USA), to foster dialogue and increase information sharing between stakeholders in the Arctic.

The Dialogue series offers a unique and intimate scene and was at the beginning in 2006 a departure from a traditional conference setting. All stakeholders are equal participants and help in constructing the directional content of the Dialogues. The circum-Arctic-Dialogue offers valuable lessons for all communities that are currently examining the prospects of expanding offshore oil and gas production in an environmentally sustainable manner. The roundtable seminar series endeavours to foster discussion, develop dialogue on sustainable development and sound environmental practices as well as share regional experiences from such diverse locations as the counties of Nordland, Troms and Finnmark in Norway, North Aleutians and North Slope, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico in the United States, the Beaufort and Labrador Seas in Canada and Yamal Peninsula and Sakhalin, Russia to fully examine the benefits and challenges associated with offshore commercial fishing, oil & gas activities and other industries located in the Arctic.

For more information, please visit the conference website.

APECS webinar organizers announce registration for audience members to participate in our International Online Conference, “New Perspectives in the Polar Sciences,” which is scheduled for 16 March 2015 (09:00 GMT to 22:05 GMT):

Please register for New Perspectives in the Polar Sciences on Mar 16, 2015 9:00 AM GMT at:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/9104074290012167682

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

This conference will engage scientific dialogues between early career scientists from multiple disciplines and backgrounds on new research perspectives in their field of research. With increased attention on the changing polar environment and the future challenges this will bring, this conference aims to convey the broad range of new research currently being conducted internationally. Guest speakers include Prof. Pete Convey from the British Antarctic Survey, UK, who will be discussing new research on the evolution and adaptation of Antarctic terrestrial biota and the implications of this for future management and conservation; and Prof. John Smellie from the University of Leicester, UK, will be discussing new methodological applications of glaciovolcanism that are able to better reconstruct the evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, the largest ice mass in the world. The full conference programme is given below:

The detailed conference programme including all abstracts can be downloaded on the APECS website.

APECS Online International Conference
New Perspectives in the Polar Sciences

SESSION ONE

09:00-09:05 GMT: Session One Conference Introduction

SESSION: CULTURAL, POLICY, EDUCATION & HISTORY

09:05-09:20 GMT: Antarctica in Advertising: Media Representations of the South
Presenter: Hanne Nielsen, Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania, Australia

SESSION: GEOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT & TERRESTRIAL CRYOSPHERE

09:20-09:35 GMT: Spatial and temporal variations of total mercury in Antarctic snow along the transect from Zhongshan Station to Dome A
Presenter: Chuanjin Li, State Key Lab of Cryospheric Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

09:35-09:50 GMT: GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) research on Livingston Island, Antarctica
Presenter: Asparuh Kamburov, University of Mining and Geology, Bulgaria

09:50-10:05 GMT: Persistent organic pollutants’ release from a glacier in the context of changing melt and snowfall
Presenter: Krystyna Koziol, Gdansk University of Technology, Poland

SESSION: OCEANOGRAPHY & SEA ICE

10:05-10:20 GMT: The Polar Regions: Ideal Test Beds for Data Assimilation
Presenter: François Massonnet, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium and Catalan Institute for Climate Sciences, Spain

SESSION: TERRESTRIAL & MARINE BIOLOGY

10:20-10:35 GMT: Vegetation Extraction in Antarctica Using Remote Sensing
Presenter: Chayanika Devi,National Center For Antarctica And Ocean Research, Goa, India

10:35-10:50 GMT: Boreal Shrub Growth Response to Fertilization, Herbivory and Climate near Kluane Lake, Yukon
Presenter: Meagan Grabowski, University of British Columbia, Canada

10:50-11:05 GMT: Effects of iron and light co-limitation on Southern Ocean phytoplankton
Presenter: Raissa Philibert, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

11:05-11:20 GMT: Insights into trophic ecology of the Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma antarctica) in Antarctic coastal ecosystems
Presenter: Erica Carlig, ISMAR-CNR U.O.S. Genoa and University of Siena, Italy

SESSION: CULTURAL, POLICY, EDUCATION & HISTORY

11:20-11:35 GMT: Web conferences: interaction with Antarctic researchers from anywhere
Presenter: Adriana Keiko Nishida, Universidade Federal do ABC, Brazil, and Universidade Aberta do Brasil, Brazil

SESSION: GUEST SPEAKER

11:35-12:15 GMT: How do you mix biology and ice ages in the Antarctic?
Presenter: Prof. Pete Convey, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

12:15-12:20 GMT: CONCLUDING SESSION ONE & THANKING PRESENTERS

SESSION TWO

18:55-19:00 GMT: Session Two Conference Introduction

SESSION: GUEST SPEAKER

19:00-19:45 GMT: Volcanoes and reconstructing the Antarctic Ice Sheet – the myth of an irreversible step-change in thermal regime
Presenter: Prof. John Smellie, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

SESSION: TERRESTRIAL & MARINE BIOLOGY

19:45-20:00 GMT: Walrus and bearded seals go with the floe
Presenter: Olivia Lee, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA

20:00-20:15 GMT: Ecology of arrow worms in the Arctic – are they really the “tigers of the plankton”?
Presenter: Jordan Grigor, Takuvik Joint International Laboratory, Université Laval (Canada) - CNRS (France) and Québec-Océan, Université Laval, Québec, Canada

20:15-20:30 GMT: Spatial distribution of the macrobenthos at the Mackellar Inlet, King George Island: Explanations integrating the systematic and trophic grouping approaches
Presenter: Bernabé Moreno, Cientifica del Sur University, Lima, Peru

20:30-20:45 GMT: Automatic zooplankton species identification for the greater North Water Polynya region
Presenter: Moritz S. Schmid, Takuvik Joint International Laboratory, Université Laval (Canada) - CNRS (France) and Québec-Océan, Université Laval, Québec, Canada

20:45-21:00 GMT: Forecasting the habitat suitability of high risk invasive species in the Canadian Arctic
Presenter: Jesica Goldsmit, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Institut des sciences de la mer de Rimouski (UQAR/ISMER), Quebec, Canada

SESSION: CULTURAL, POLICY, EDUCATION & HISTORY

21:00-21:15 GMT: From Winds to Sea Ice: A Historical Perspective on Global Climate
Presenter: Julianne Yip, McGill University, Quebec, Canada

21:15-21:30 GMT: Brazilian initiative to psychological interventions in Antarctica
Presenter: Paola Barros-Delben, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil

21:30-21:45 GMT: Exploration of Utility and Expansion of Indigenous Knowledge within the Seasonal Ice Zone Observing Network (SIZONet) Local Observation Program Database: Pilot in Barrow, Alaska of the North Slope Borough
Presenter: Irene Holak, Antioch University New England, New Hampshire, USA

21:45-22:00 GMT: To the Extremes! A Teacher Research Experience Program in the Polar Regions
Presenter: Sarah Bartholow, Arctic Research Consortium of the US (ARCUS), Fairbanks, USA

22:00-22:05 GMT: CONCLUDING SESSION TWO & THANKING PRESENTERS

For more information and enquiries about the conference, please email Rachel Downey (rachel.v.downey [at] gmail.com)

The 2015 Polar Marine Science Gordon Research Conference (GRC) entitled “Polar Shelves and Shelf Break Exchange in Times of Rapid Climate Warming” will be held in Lucca, Italy from March 15-20, 2015. The GRCs provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies. The guiding principle of a GRC is to encourage communication and discussion of ideas and new unpublished results at the very frontier of a particular field of research, by bringing together outstanding scientists from academia, industry, and government, ranging from senior experts to Ph.D. students. With the increasing impacts of reduced sea ice and warming seawater conditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic, this conference can act as a forum for potentially transformative discussions for interdisciplinary, international and compare/contrast evaluation of polar sciences. In addition, the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) will precede the GRC to provide a forum for graduate students and post-docs to present and exchange new data and cutting edge ideas with experts in the different polar fields of science.

This meeting link provides a description of the conference, listing of the invited speakers and discussion topics, registration link, and logistical information. The meeting is chaired by Dr. Paul Wassmann, University of Tromsø, Norway and co-chaired by Dr. Jackie Grebmeier, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, USA. The registration link is now open until February 15, 2015, including contact links for the organizers.

The ice might be melting but megaprojects planned in the Arctic are coming to a grinding halt with dropping oil prices, rising tensions with Russia and America’s new production capabilities. The icy ‘last frontier’ is expensive and hazardous for all industries and stakeholders are weighing the return on their current and future investments. Is commercial interest in the Arctic a bubble about to burst?

In 2015, The Economist Events’ Arctic Summit will return to Oslo, Norway on March 12th 2015.

Topics to be covered include:

• Can the Arctic serve as a reliable alternative transport corridor?
• In-depth country focus: Russia’s evolving strategy and positioning in the Arctic
• New leadership and transition in the Arctic Council: The US approach
• What effect will the sanctions against Russia by US/EU have on the Arctic energy industry?
• Will China benefit from the deterioration in Western-Russian relations in the European Arctic?

High-level industry experts confirmed include:

• Peter Hinchliffe, Secretary General, International Chamber of Shipping
• Koji Sekimizu, Secretary General, International Maritime Organisation
• Malte Humpert, Founder and Executive Director, The Arctic Institute
• Artur Chilingarov, Special Representative to the President of the Russian Federation on International Cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic, Member of the Board of Directors, Rosneft and First Vice-President, Russian Geographical Society
• Tom Paddon, Chair, Arctic Economic Council and Chief Executive Officer, Baffinland
• Julia L. Gourley, Senior Arctic Official, Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs, U.S. Department of State
• Erik Vilstrup Lorenzen, Senior Arctic Official, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark
• Hannu Halinen, Ambassador, Arctic Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland
• Jason E. Box, Professor of Glaciology, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland

Discussions will be led by the event chair James Astill, Political Editor, The Economist
20% discount for members of International Arctic Science Committee. Simply quote IASC/DC when registering.