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Rick Thoman will review recent and current climate conditions around Alaska, highlight some forecast tools and finish up with the Climate Prediction Center’s forecast for May 2023 and the early summer season. Join the gathering online to learn what’s happened and what may be in store with Alaska’s seasonal climate.

Please register to attend.

The Permafrost Discovery Gateway hosts a monthly webinar series on a Thursday at 09:00 Alaska time. The webinar aims to 1) connect the international science community interested in big data remote sensing of permafrost landscapes, and 2) provide the Permafrost Discovery Gateway development team with end-user stories (by the presenter and webinar participants), such as exploring tools the community needs to create and explore big data.

Abstract

Common methods of mapping ice wedge degradation use surface water in remotely sensed imagery as a proxy for ice-wedge degradation; this method consistently underestimates total degradation as surface hydrology in ice-wedge troughs is complex and only a portion of degrading ice wedges are flooded. More accurate remote sensing methods for detecting ice- wedge degradation stages – that depict ice wedges in undegraded, degraded, and stabilized states – will better allow us to monitor and predict Arctic landscape change. We characterized ice wedge degradation stages near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska using a novel approach that combines spectral (e.g., NDVI and NIR) and geometric properties of thermokarst pits and troughs with high-resolution (0.5 m) WorldView-2 imagery. Spatial patterns in ice-wedge degradation were identified through clustering: areas with significantly similar trough widths and flooding stage were grouped into hydrogeomorphic units. We can associate these hydrogeomorphic units with ice-wedge degradation stages based on both fieldwork and high-resolution temporal analysis of the evolution of these ice wedge landscapes. The resulting maps of ice-wedge trough networks and degradation estimates have been validated with field observations, drone LIDAR, multi- spectral and photogrammetry surveys. These improved maps of ice-wedge networks reveal that ice wedge degradation is heterogeneous across both meter and kilometer scales. In addition, this approach can provide high resolution baseline datasets for training deep-learning AI mapping efforts of ice-wedge degradation stages across greater spatial and temporal scales.

Join the Alaska Marine Policy Forum, sponsored by Alaska Sea Grant and Alaska Ocean Observing System. Every other month there is a one-hour meeting with participants across the state interested in marine policy in Alaska. Hear the latest about state and federal marine funding, legislation and policy issues.

Please register to attend this meeting.

Agenda

1. Updates from Alaska's Congressional Delegation
2. Updates from the Legislature
3. Guest speakers:

• 2022 Bering Strait harmful algal bloom (HAB) event—A collaborative response
• Bob Pickart, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• Evie Fachon, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• Emma Pate, Norton Sound Health Corporation
• Gay Sheffield, Alaska Sea Grant
• Thomas Farrugia, Alaska Ocean Observing System

4. Updates from participants

How the Greenland Ice Sheet responds to climate change is important for society for a number of reasons, least of which is sea level rise. Understanding ice sheet stability is central to this effort. In this regard, lessons from the past afford a view into ice sheet processes and history on timescales longer than what is available in the historical record and which are crucial for future predictions.

The Greenland Ice Sheet Workshop will be a three-day workshop focused on Greenland Ice Sheet stability, with an emphasis on lessons from the past.

Three workshop themes are to explore the ice-sheet surface (atmospheric forcing, Holocene and longer records of climate forcing); the ice-sheet margins (ice-ocean interactions); and the ice-sheet base (basal processes and archives of ice sheet history from the bed under and beyond the ice).

The goal of this workshop is to (a) synthesize the current state of knowledge and (b) develop key research priorities that will help guide future efforts to make significant traction on the problem of Greenland Ice Sheet stability. The aim of the workshop organizers is to work with the community on a manuscript to be submitted following the workshop.

The organizers wish to gather a community of diverse experts, including early career scientists, to bring different datasets and approaches together to see if consensus can be reached on the current state of knowledge of Greenland Ice Sheet history and sensitivity to climate forcing.

Tackling the topic of Greenland Ice Sheet stability requires input from a range of disciplines that encompass both paleodata generation (ice and climate history) and numerical ice sheet modeling.

Online Participation

Organizers will offer those unable to make it to Bergen to join via Zoom and ask questions via chat. Zoom participants will not participate in breakout sessions, but the Zoom session will be open for all oral events.

UPDATE FROM THE ORGANIZERS:

"We have had to cancel the 52nd Arctic Workshop planned for April 19-22, 2023. It appears that April this year has a number of conflicting meetings which have made it difficult for some members of our polar research community to participate. After all, we would like to see and hear from as many as possible! Thus we've made the difficult decision to postpone the meeting until 2024. We are happy to announce that UMass Amherst WILL host the 52nd Arctic Workshop in March 2024! We will be setting the dates very soon so that these dates are fixed in calendars throughout North America and participating European colleagues."

The International Arctic Workshop is a friendly, informal, and relaxed conference open to all students and professionals interested in the Arctic. Originally starting at INSTAAR at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Arctic Workshop alternates between INSTAAR and an international host. This year, University of Massachusetts with the department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences & Climate System Research center will be hosting.

Abstracts are being accepted for poster presentations and talks. Abstracts can be uploaded during the registration process.

There’s a deep snowpack across Alaska as spring melt approaches. Celine van Breukelen with the NWS Alaska-Pacific River Forecast Center (APRFC) will review break-up basics and provide an overview of current conditions. ACCAP Alaska Climate Specialist Rick Thoman will discuss the latest subseasonal outlooks that help inform the APRFC’s official break-up outlook.

Please register to attend.

The annual High North Dialogue conference brings together major stakeholders concerned with Arctic development. The organizers encourage and facilitate dialogue to promote sustainable development in the Arctic, as well as the sharing of information and the discussion of best practices.

This year’s topic is “Business in the Arctic – Spaces of Opportunities”. The thematic panels will have dialogues about the Opportunities in the High North within Politics, Business, Outer Space and Ocean Space.

There will be dialogue with the ambassadors from the Arctic Countries, the awards for High North Hero and High North Young Entrepreneur will be presented, as well as the best High North Scenario from students. In addition to the main program, there will be a number of side events about the development of the society and business in the North.

The main conference will take place on 19-20 April. Tuesday 18 April is the day for Side Events and on 21 April will be The Generation Barents Youth Side Event.

The 6th Nordic Conference on Climate Change Adaptation, NOCCA23’ will be held in Iceland, Reykjavík Grand Hotel from 17-19 April 2023, the same year that Iceland will hold the Precedency at the Nordic Council of Ministers.

The focus of NOCCA 2023 is on adaptation in cities and municipalities in the Nordic countries. What actions have been implemented and how, what has worked and what are the key learnings in the adaptation process. The event is a valuable venue for Nordic countries to exchange key learnings and to open the dialog on adaptation.

The conference welcomes all who work on climate change adaptation, within the fields of science, in local communities, governments and municipal administration, in ministries and national authorities, politics, businesses, industry and NGOs.

NOCCA collects knowledge from municipal experts and civil servants to enhance the value of current work carried out in the Nordic region and contributes to the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation into decision-making and planning on the municipal level. It will provide a certain overview of the knowledge of existing methodological approaches to climate change adaptation on the municipal level in the Nordic region.

The output from the workshops will be synthesized in a policy paper as a leading document for further Nordic cooperation on adaptation, especially for upcoming ECCA23 and/or COP28.

The Migration in Harmony research coordination network (MiH-RCN) is pleased to invite those in the Washington DC area to join their meeting at Georgetown University.

The goal of this meeting is to bring 25-30 Arctic academics, practitioners, and storytellers to share their current work, identify challenges to and opportunities for cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaborations, and consider future opportunities to create new projects, present at Arctic conferences, and create media with other meeting attendees.

If you are based in the Washington, DC area and would like to attend this in-person meeting, please email PI Dr. Victoria Herrmann at vh159 [at] georgetown.edu

The SCAR INSTANT Conference 2023 will take place 11-14 September 2023 in Trieste, Italy.

The INStabilities & Thresholds in ANTarctica (INSTANT) Scientific Research Programme provides a co-ordinating framework that will augment other important international research initiatives and consortia.

INSTANT aims to quantify the Antarctic ice sheet contribution to past to future sea-level change, from improved understanding of atmosphere, ocean and solid Earth interactions and feedbacks, so that decision-makers can better anticipate and assess the risk in order to manage and adapt to sea-level rise and evaluate mitigation pathways.

This international conference aims to bring together researchers across the geo-, physical, biological and social sciences interested in understanding the interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, solid Earth and the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) and their global consequences.

The priority focus is on improving knowledge of the key rate determining processes, instabilities and potential irreversibilities that affect the mass change of the AIS and its contribution to past, present and future global sea-level. We invite leading and emerging experts, and early career researchers (ECRs) from modelling, paleoclimate, observation and process communities to present and discuss in plenary the state of the science and critical knowledge gaps. We also invite perspectives from the stakeholder and practitioner communities, and will discuss the best practices in communication and engagement.”

Abstract submission extended deadline: 17 April 2023.