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The Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research at the University of Bergen in collaboration with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is proud to host the 2014 Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM) Workshop. The workshop will take place at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research at the University of Bergen, located in Bergen, Norway, from Monday, June 2nd to Wednesday, June 4th, following the IGS conference in Chamonix.

Interactive sessions will be offered for beginners/advanced users and developers interested in learning how to use ISSM. Updates to ISSM since last year’s workshop, including user-requested features (i.e. a new Python port, support for new OS/Platforms, etc) will be presented. Also, we invite participants to showcase their work during an open poster session. Details for participating in this poster session will be available on the registration website.

A limited amount of travel support may be provided by CliC (Climate and Cryosphere) to help students or early-career scholars attend the workshop. Details on applying for travel support will be provided on the registration page. In addition, there is no fee for participation in the workshop.

We hope this workshop will generate fruitful interactions between our team, the growing community of ISSM users, and the broader cryosphere community.

Stephen Tanner, Project Manager at the National Snow & Ice Data Center, will present an in-depth overview of the Satellite Observations of Arctic Change (SOAC) website (http://nsidc.org/soac/). The SOAC site exposes NASA satellite data and research on Arctic change, in the form of maps that illustrate the changes taking place in the Arctic over time. Change maps of seven selected datasets available on this website include: near-surface air temperature, water vapor, sea ice, snow cover, vegetation, frozen ground, and annual minimum exposed snow and ice. Steve's presentation will entail a demonstration of the site features, including how users can view the data and how the data shows change over time. He also will explain how the data was processed and where to get more information. The presentation will conclude with a general discussion focused on questions and feedback on the site.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

The Institute of the North is excited to announce the Northern Regions Mining Summit, to be held May 28-30 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at the Pinnacle Marriott Hotel. The Summit will address the social, cultural and economic impact and opportunity of mineral resource development for Northern peoples in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. The organizing committee hopes you will consider attending and participating in what promises to be a unique forum for exploring the relationship between responsible mineral resource development and benefits to Northern peoples.

Recognizing that the North American Arctic has vast reserves of mineral resources – from traditional base and precious metals to rare earth elements and coal – the Summit will explore how policy development, regulatory environments, and fiscal regimes impact the mining industry. It will provide an interactive, meaningful opportunity for cross-governance engagement and cross-sectoral communication among participants, resulting in practical recommendations to address the challenges faced in northern exploration and development.

Issues to be addressed include Resource Supply and Market Evaluation; Governance; Regulatory Frameworks; Fiscal Regimes; Infrastructure, Operations, Access, Transportation and Logistics; Workforce Development; Capacity-Building; Investment; and Partnerships.

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

International Symposium on Glaciers and Ice Sheets Contribution to Sea-Level Change (Observations, Modelling and Predictions)

Meeting participants are encouraged to present on a wide variety of topics. All these topics can be addressed using observations, forward or inverse modelling, theoretical analysis or the coupling of data and modelling through the use of data assimilation methods. The first six topics are more related to a specific interface and focus on local processes, whereas the last ones seek to address the large-scale response of ice mass. These include, but are not limited to:

1. Basal processes: effect of basal water, link between runoff and surface velocity, hydrological model, friction law linking basal hydrology and water pressure, drumlins and associated sub-glacial landforms.

2. Basal melting below ice-shelves and at the front of marine terminated glaciers, distribution and amount of melt, accretion of marine ice, coupling of ice sheet and ocean models.

3. Grounding line dynamics: marine ice sheet instability, observed rate of migration, positioning by various techniques, sensitivity of the rate of migration of grounding line to forcing regimes.

4. Calving processes: calving rate parameterization, damage modelling, numerical implementation in ice-sheet models.

5. Surface mass balance: snow accumulation and runoff, influence of refreezing in firn, coupling of regional climate and ice sheet models.

6. Ice body and rheology: anisotropy, temperature field within ice masses, borehole records, rheology of marine ice, modelling of englacial structure.

7. New generation of ice-sheet models, their numerical design, impact of mechanics, their coupling with ocean and/or climate.

8. Estimation of the contribution of glaciers and ice-sheets to sea level change: initialization (spin-up), forecast estimates of future sea level rise, ensemble methods, and associated error bars, paleo-reconstruction of past changes.

The registration (and travel support application) deadline for a workshop bridging glacial geology and ice sheet modelling for the Late Pleistocene evolution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has been extended to Feb 10/14. The workshop will be held at:

LGGE (Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement),
Grenoble, May 22-24, 2014, (just prior to the IGS International
Symposium on Observations, Modelling and Prediction of the Cryospheric
Contribution to Sea Level Change, in Chamonix)

Workshop Objectives include:

• Bring together the field and modelling communities working on
  Antarctica, Greenland, or both.
• Clarify key uncertainties for the field data and modelling
  communities
• Compare latest model results to data and glaciological/geological inferences
• Identify key model deficiencies wrt data
• Identify priorities for new data
• Consider what can be done to make paleo records and model output
  more accessible to various users
• Consider surprises in the model results and whether they are
  refuted by data

Confirmed speakers include:

Michael Bentley, Durham U.
Peter Clark, Oregon State U.
Rob DeConto, U. Mass.
Brenda Hall, U. Maine
Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, British Antarctic Survey
Anne Jennings, INSTAAR, U. of Colorado
Kurt Kjaer, U. of Copenhagen
Antony Long, Durham U.
Frank Pattyn, Free University of Brussels
John Stone, U. of Washington
Pippa Whitehouse, Durham U.

Thanks to generous support from International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS), IUGG, Past Antarctic Ice Sheet Dynamics (PAIS), and SCAR, funding will be available to support attendance by early career and non-OECD scientists. Deadline for travel support application is also extended to Feb 10/14.

For more information and/or registration/abstract submission refer to the workshop webpage. Note, abstracts are not required to register/participate.

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

The International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA) announces the 8th International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS VIII). It will be held 22-26 May 2014, at the main campus of the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada.

ICASS VIII's theme is 'Northern Sustainabilities'. The plural is used to underscore that 'sustainability' has social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental dimensions; and that definitions of the concept vary. Nonetheless, while debating specific definitions, most would agree that working toward sustainable ways of living in the North and on approaches to sustainable engagement with the North, are critical both to the North's and to the world's future. Community sustainability in the North, whether for small settlements or large urban conglomerations, requires new models of food and energy security, and access to employment, health care, and social and cultural services for residents. The North is faced with demographic challenges to sustainability. Appropriate governance regimes for renewable and non-renewable resources underpin sustainable development.

Additional information, including a call for sessions and then a call for abstracts, will be posted when available.

IARPC Collaboration Teams meet on a regular basis to implement the Arctic Research Plan: FY 2013-2017. Most meetings are open to the Arctic research community. Collaboration teams facilitate communication and collaboration between Federal agencies, the academic community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and State, local and tribal groups.

Contact Sara Bowden, bowden [at] arcus.org, if you would like to join this meeting.

ICASS VIII's theme is 'Northern Sustainabilities'. By using the plural, we underscore both that ‘sustainability’ has social, cultural, economic, political and environmental dimensions, and that definitions of the concept vary. Yet, while debating specific definitions, most would agree that working toward sustainable ways of living in the North and on approaches to sustainable engagement with the North, are critical both to the North’s and to the world’s future. Community sustainability in the North, whether for small settlements or large urban conglomerations, requires new models of food and energy security, and of access to employment, health care and social and cultural services for residents. The North is faced with demographic challenges to sustainability. Appropriate governance regimes for renewable and nonrenewable resources underpin sustainable development. We will welcome sessions and papers on all facets of sustainability in the North. And, as always, we also welcome sessions and papers on all other subjects of relevance to our members.