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The U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability Research Program (CLIVAR) will sponsor an international workshop entitled "Understanding the Response of Greenland's Marine Terminating Glaciers to Oceanic and Atmospheric Forcing." It is scheduled to convene 3-7 June 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

CLIVAR is a U.S. national research program investigating the variability and predictability of the global climate system on seasonal, inter-annual, decadal, and centennial timescales, with a particular emphasis on the role the ocean plays in climate variability.

Organizers of the workshop seek to bring together oceanographers, glaciologists, and atmospheric and climate scientists working on all aspects of the problem related to the widespread retreat and speedup of marine-terminating outlet glaciers in Greenland over the past two decades. This process has led to a doubling of the ice sheet's contribution to sea level rise and increased the freshwater input to the North Atlantic. Its coincidence with a period of oceanic and atmospheric warming suggests a common climate driver. Progress on understanding and parameterizing the mechanisms behind these dynamic responses in climate and ice sheet models requires a collaborative, international, cross-disciplinary, and multi-faceted approach.

The 70th Eastern Snow Conference (ESC) will be held at the Active Learning Centre in, Huntsville, ON, Canada 4-6 June, 2013. The scientific program is open to sessions on theoretical, experimental, and operational studies of snow, ice, and winter hydrology. This year’s general theme is “SNOW AND ICE UNDER A CHANGING CLIMATE”. The ESC has only plenary (paper and poster viewing) sessions, allowing time to view and discuss the research of each participant. You are all invited on an afternoon local historical train trip. You are invited to submit an abstract for an oral or a poster presentation (please indicate type). An abstract of 200-250 words should be submitted by 18 March 2013 using the Abstract Style Guide to ensure correct formatting to the program chair. Please email your submissions to:

Dr. Alex Langlois
a.langlois2 [at] usherbrooke.ca

The French Arctic Initiative's inaugural symposium entitled "Arctic : the Major Scientific Issues" will be held June 3-5, 2013 at Collège de France, in Paris. It will be followed, on June 6, 2013, by a day of reflection on future prospects for the Arctic and, in the evening, public event at l'Institut Océanographique.

The objectives of the symposium are:

• To address the major scientific issues and recent developments with regard to the Arctic,
• To mobilize the scientific community, from multiple disciplines, around these issues,
• To highlight the most promising avenues for improving our understanding of this complex system.

This symposium will lead to the production of a white paper on future research priorities confronting the French scientific community. The organizers of the symposium hope to attract the attention of the best researchers in the country, including those who have never worked on scientific problems in the Arctic. It is important to note that researchers with leading-edge expertise that is not necessarily focused on a particular environment may contribute to the development of innovative research in the Arctic. We will address the Arctic in a broad context in terms of discipline and temporal (past, present future) or spatial (polar, global) dimension.

The symposium is organized in the framework of a partnership between the French Arctic Initiative and la Chaire de l'Evolution du Climat et de l'Océan du Collège de France.

Contributions to the following topics are invited:

• Scientific applications of remote sensing, emerging methods, and technologies
• Capacity building at organizations and authorities involved in environmental monitoring and protection
• Remote sensing for archaeology
• Land use and land cover, degradation, and desertification
• Urban remote sensing
• Open ocean remote sensing
• Natural and man-made disasters
• Forestry and forest fires
• Remote sensing and its associated support to the understanding of climate change
• Hydrological applications: water management, underground water sources, and land, ice, and snow
• 3D remote sensing, radar, lidar, and thermal remote sensing
• New instruments and methods, including ground truth

Contributions are particularly welcome in the following areas: EO for improving Smart City management; monitoring and protecting biodiversity; support of regenerative energy production and transport; improving climate observations; improving agriculture, water, and fisheries management; and supporting disaster management.

Registration is now open for a variety of field courses and teacher trainings offered by Alaska Geographic. The multi-day field courses explore Alaska's national parks, forests, and refuges, and are available during summer 2013.

Field courses are open to all participants. Several field-based teacher workshops explore geology, climate change, and learning styles. All field courses are accredited through the University of Alaska. Courses in Denali National Park are offered through the Murie Science and Learning Center. Alaska Geographic offers classes developed in partnership with the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Contact: David Tomeo
Email: david-tomeo [at] murieslc.org
Phone: 907-683-6432 or 907-683-6438

A recently-held Arctic transportation workshop in Iceland highlighted the need to better understand private sector transportation infrastructure and assets, recognizing industry's role in the responsible development of resources, response and supportive infrastructure. As a follow-up to its efforts to inventory and map Arctic transportation infrastructure, the Institute of the North is hosting a workshop at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle, Washington that focuses on three critical areas: private sector assets and infrastructure in the Arctic, staging areas outside the Arctic that support Northern development, and vessels and technology that are difficult to map but need to be measured for future decision-making. Participants include industry representatives, technical experts, researchers, Coast Guard and other response personnel.

Past and present changes in the mass balance of the Earth's glaciers and ice caps induce present-day deformation of the solid Earth on a range of spatial scales, from the very local to global. Of principal interest are geodetic observations that validate, or may be assimilated into, models of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) and/or constrain models of present-day ice mass change through measurements of elastic rebound. Using geometric measurements alone, elastic and viscoelastic deformations cannot be separated without additional models or observations. The conference will focus on resolving these issues and work on dissemination of these measurements within the glaciological community.

Topics include:
*Observations of present-day changes in glaciers and ice sheets
*Measurements and models of elastic rebound
*Cryospheric deformation in low viscosity regions
*Reconciling models and observations of GIA
*Glacial isostatic adjustment on a heterogeneous Earth: Going beyond 1D Maxwell Earth models

This symposium is a farewell symposium for Professor Louwrens Hacquebord and is supported by the Canadian Embassy in the Netherlands. Please visit the symposium website for more information.

Organizers of the 20th international scientific symposium on The Integration of Archaeological and Ethnographic Research announce an invitation for papers and panels. The symposium will take place from 27 May - 2 June 2013 in Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, Russia.

The primary themes of the conference are ethnoarchaeological research, environmental archaeology, biosociality, sacred landscapes, alternative worlds and worldviews, and historical reconstruction. Abstracts are due by Tuesday, 30 October 2012. Accepted abstracts must be followed by a longer written summary of the paper by 20 January 2013. Specific submission instructions are available on the webpage.

Abstract submission deadline: Tuesday, 30 October 2012.

The SOOS Asian Workshop aims to showcase Asian nations’ Southern Ocean research and observation activities and to stimulate discussion for further involvement in SOOS by Asian nations.

The Workshop will be held over two days:

• Day 1 is open to all interested parties (registration essential) and will see guest speakers from the Asian science community present their nation/organization’s Southern Ocean observation and research activities. Members of the SOOS Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) will also present a brief overview of relevant SOOS activities.
• Day 2 is by invitation only (guest speakers, SSC members and other key representatives) and will provide an opportunity for working group discussions and strategic development planning.

Participants wishing to attend Day 1 of the Workshop are urged to register with SOOS by 23 April 2013 (email: info [at] soos.aq)

We look forward to welcoming colleagues from Asia, in particular, with an interest in Southern Ocean research and who wish to learn more about how to become involved in SOOS.

The SOOS Asian Workshop is sponsored by the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC), SCAR and SCOR.