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On view May 2 through Sept. 7.

Undulating Golden Sand Dunes as far as the eye can see. One hundred-degree days and 25-degree nights. And caribou. Welcome to Kobuk Valley National Park, where Alaska meets Lawrence of Arabia.

Nearly half a million caribou migrate yearly across the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, their tracks crisscrossing dunes rising up to 100 feet high. But few people make the trek. No roads lead to the park: It’s consistently one of the 10 least-visited national parks.

Arctic Desert, featuring images taken by the National Park Service, is a photographic exploration of this rarely seen phenomenon, located above the Arctic Circle in northwestern Alaska.

Deserts are defined by precipitation, not temperature. Technically speaking, Antarctica is a desert. Alaska’s Great Kobuk Sand Dunes are arid, experiencing about 10 inches of precipitation annually.

The dunes were created when retreating glaciers left pulverized rock in their wake and no vegetation to hold it down. Strong easterly winds blew this loose sand and rock into crescent-shaped dunes.

At first blush, the dunes may appear almost lifeless. But just as the Sahara Desert supports everything from camels to cobras, the Kobuk is home to wildlife including grizzly bears, loons and wood frogs. For at least 8,000 years people have hunted caribou during their annual migration along the Kobuk River.

Today the park is becoming known for hunting of a different sort: Scientists are hunting Kobuk for evidence of life on other planets. Even though Alaska is 34 million miles away from Mars, their sand dunes are similar. Scientific research being conducted in Kobuk Valley National Park suggests although there is no visible water on Mars, there may be water below Mars’ surface.

By telling this park’s story, this exhibition demonstrates the many ways Alaska’s desert is truly fertile ground.

This exhibition is part of the Anchorage Museum’s Northern Initiative.

The annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy is the conference for people interested in public policy issues facing the science, engineering, and higher education communities. Since 1976, it has been the place where insiders go to learn what is happening and what is likely to happen in the coming year on the federal budget and the growing number of policy issues that affect researchers and their institutions. Come to the Forum, learn about the future of S&T policy, and meet the people who will shape it.

Session Topics include:

• Budgetary and Policy Context for R&D in FY 2015
• A Conversation with the President’s Science Advisor
• AAAS Overview of R&D in the FY 2015 Proposed Budget
• Measuring the Impacts of Science
• Synergy in STEM + Arts: Catalyzing US Innovation and Competitiveness
• Making Science Matter: Strengthening Engagement of Scientists & Engineers in the Policy Process
• US Leadership in the Artic Council: International Science Cooperation
• William D. Carey Lecture
• Reproducibility in Science
• Emerging Technologies & National Security

The aim of this seminar is to investigate the progress of development in the Canadian Arctic and the needs to support an expanded shipping season for cruise ships, resource extraction and the potential traffic using the North-west Passage as a shorter shipping route. The Seminar will consider the resources in place for Search and Rescue, Oil Pollution Response, Ice-breaking, Ice-navigator services, re-fuelling, ship repair and places of refuge. Discussions will consider requirements for investments in infrastructure and regulatory regimes to protect seafarers, the fishery and the sensitive environment, resources and communities.

The Polar Research Board is pleased to announce that the Committee on Emerging Research Questions in the Arctic (http://dels.nas.edu/Study-In-Progress/Emerging-Research-Questions-Arcti… DELS-PRB-12-01?bname=prb) will release their report "The Arctic in the Anthropocene: Emerging Research Questions" on Tuesday, April 29. The PDF report will be available for download at that time.

We hope you will join us for a webinar presentation and discussion of the report at 2:00 pm EDT on the 29th. The Co-Chairs of the authoring Committee, Stephanie Pfirman and Henry Huntington, will give a presentation followed by a question and answer period.

If you would like to join the webinar, please register at the link above.

The EarthScope National Office is excited to invite all who are interested to attend the EarthScope Alaska-Yukon Regional Workshop for Interpretive Professionals. This workshop will be the 10th in a series of EarthScope workshops that attempt to connect informal educators with place-based Earth science in North America. The upcoming workshop will have a focus on the geology of Alaska and Eastern Canada. It will also have a focus on the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964, including a field trip to view evidence of this quake. This workshop will be free to all who attend. Food and accommodation will be provided for by the EarthScope National Office.

EarthScope is an NSF-funded Earth science project that attempts to image Earth's interior with a focus on North American plate tectonics. This workshop will allow for all attendees to hear from and interact with scientific professionals from universities, interpretive environments, and scientific institutions from across the continent. The workshop will prepare interpretive professionals to gain a better understanding of the landscape, tectonics, and geologic history of the region.

The workshop will be hosted by the Alaska Science Center in Anchorage, Alaska on April 28-30, 2014. We are especially encouraging all city, state and national park staff and museum personnel to apply.

For more information and registration visit http://www.earthscope.org/workshops/spring2014interpretive . Feel free to contact Sarah Robinson (serobins [at] asu.edu) or Patrick Schwab (pschwab [at] asu.edu) if you have any further questions.

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 EGU General Assembly 2014 will bring together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The EGU aims to provide a forum where scientists, especially early career researchers, can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of geosciences. For the first time, in 2014, the EGU General Assembly will have a theme!

Important Information:

• Call-for-Abstracts (deadline: 16 January 2014, 13:00 CET)
• Financial Support (deadline: 29 November 2013, 13:00 CET)
• Registration (Early Registration rate deadline: 31 March 2014, 13:00 CET)

The Face of the Earth theme intends to celebrate the diversity of geoscience processes and the great variety of associated forms, across all scales and from the core of the Earth to interplanetary space. This diversity is reflected in the five subtopics of the 2014 meeting:

• Rocks of the Earth
• Waters of the Earth
• Life of the Earth
• Atmosphere of the Earth
• Space and the Earth

The theme does not constrain the topics to be presented at the Assembly. Rather, it will add to the conference experience. We look forward to welcoming you in Vienna!

Speaker: David Herring, Director of Communications & Education, NOAA Climate Program Office

Americans’ health, security, and economic well-being are closely linked to climate and weather. People want and need information to help them make decisions on how to manage climate-related risks and opportunities they face. How can we balance our interests in tailoring our online communications to particular audiences with our needs to collaborate and integrate our climate data and information into a cohesive, contextualized presentation? Climate.gov is NOAA's primary online source of science and information for a climate-smart nation. The site is a source of public-friendly, timely, and authoritative scientific data and information about climate. It is designed to promote public understanding of climate science and climate-related events, to make our data products and services easy to access and use, to provide climate-related support to the private sector and the Nation’s economy, and to help people manage climate-related risks and opportunities. This presentation will feature a high-level overview of the site, lessons learned, and plans for its future evolution.Climate.gov is NOAA's primary online source of science and information for a climate-smart nation.

Organizers announce the first Martha T. Muse Fellows Colloquium, entitled "Beyond the Horizon - Antarctica and the Southern Ocean 2065." The colloquium will be held 22 April 2014 in Queenstown, New Zealand.

This colloquium, which is part of the First SCAR Antarctic and Southern Ocean Horizon Scan, will convene a panel of Martha Muse Prize awardees and guests to address the ramifications of dramatic population and climate changes forecasted for the next two decades.

The colloquium panel will include Martha T. Muse Prize Fellows:
- Steven Chown, terrestrial ecologist and policy adviser, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia;
- Helen Fricker, glaciologist and satellite observational specialist, University of California, San Diego, U.S.;
- Jose Xavier, marine biologist ecologist and marine mammals expert, University of Coimbra and the British Antarctic Survey, Portugal/United Kingdom;
- Steve Rintoul, physical oceanographic modeler and observationalist, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia; and
- Martin Siegert, glaciologist and geologist, University of Bristol University, United Kingdom.

The Muse Fellows will be joined on the panel by Neil Gilbert, policy adviser and Antarctic governance expert, Antarctica New Zealand and Gary Wilson, marine geologist and geophysicist and paleoclimate expert, Director of the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute.

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.