Witness Community Highlights Archive

The Fourth Decadal Review Report on the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network was released publicly in June 2022. The report discusses the strengths and challenges of the LTER network, summaries of findings, and includes recommendations from the committee. The report states that, "After more than forty years of sustained support from NSF, the LTER program has become one of the most highly regarded and successful programs in ecology." Response to the report, approved by the LTER Executive Board in October 2022, summarizes recent progress and plans in four focal areas from the review: diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice; synthesis; human-environment interactions; and education and outreach.

Editor's note: Text is excerpted from the LTER Network Response to the Fourth Decadal Review Committee Report

The Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, a Department of Defense (DOD) Regional Center established by the Secretary of Defense in June 2021, is located on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. The mission of the Stevens Center is to build strong, sustainable, domestic and international networks of security leaders and to promote and conduct focused research to advance DOD security priorities in the Arctic that include addressing the impacts of climate change in the region. The range of activities, seminars, symposiums, and products produced in support of that mission are highlighted in this article.

By: Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Randy "Church" Kee, USAF, Senior Advisor, Arctic Security Affairs, Ted Stevens Center

The ARCUS 2022 Annual Meeting, held virtually on 1 November, brought together members from the Arctic research and education community. Small group discussion were focused on a range of Arctic research-related themes. A report on the meeting discussions and recommendations is in development and will be made available to the broader Arctic community. ARCUS member institutions were invited to share updates on Arctic research activities. Links to those updates are provided in this article.

By: ARCUS Staff

In spring of 2022, a Snow ALbedo eVOlution (SALVO) research team traveled to Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow), Alaska to monitor snowmelt patterns and albedo trajectories on two tundra and two sea-ice sites. The team investigated the nature and differences in the melt mechanisms operating in these two environments, and their role as drivers of regional and global climate systems.

By: Serina Wesen, University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF); Anika Pinzner, UAF; Matthew Sturm, UAF

The Tribal Climate Adaptation Guidebook, published as a PDF in 2018 and adapted to a website in 2022, supports Tribes in their efforts to prepare for climate change. The Guidebook provides a comprehensive framework for climate change adaptation planning that explicitly recognizes the distinct circumstances of Tribal governments, culture, and knowledge systems while highlighting exemplary efforts by Tribes to adapt to climate change. The Guidebook's framework includes considerations for integrating and protecting Traditional Knowledges throughout the adaptation planning process relying on the Guidelines for Considering Traditional Knowledges (TKs) in Climate Change Initiatives.

By: Sascha Petersen, Adaptation International

The Arctic plays a critical role influencing and driving planetary change and is part of the global geopolitical system. As such, Arctic observing must contribute to and enhance existing global observing networks to support forecasting, planning, adaptation, mitigation, and the identification of emerging issues in the context of ongoing change. The 2022 Arctic Observing Summit (AOS) is a biennial event convened as part of the Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) initiative to guide the design, coordination, and long-term operation of an international network of observing systems that improves our understanding of, and response to, Arctic change.

By: Alice C. Bradley, Williams College; Maribeth Murray, Arctic Institute of North America; Malgorzata Smieszek, Arctic University of Norway

The Native Village of Point Lay (Kali) on the North Slope of Alaska has been identified as the second-most permafrost thaw-affected community in the state of Alaska. In June 2022 a team of physical scientists, social scientists, and engineers traveled to Point Lay to observe, study, and discuss the effects of thawing permafrost on homes and critical infrastructure in the village. The multi-disciplinary team learned from one another and shared their discipline-centric ideas and observations which allowed for a more robust transfer of knowledge to the community, regional governance bodies, and engineers coping with the combined effects of thawing permafrost, infrastructure, and climate change.

By: Benjamin Jones, University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF); Jana Peirce, UAF; Billy Connor, UAF; Mikhail Kanevskiy, UAF; Yuri Shur, UAF; Tracie Curry, Northern Social-Environmental Research; Peppi Bolz, UAF; and Bill Tracey, Native Village of Point Lay

ARCUS Community Member Profiles highlight our individual members and member representatives. They are short, easy-to-read profiles to help the ARCUS community get to know one another and support connections across disciplines and perspectives. This article summarizes the featured Profile of Gaurav Madan, Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo. For more information, please download the attached Member Profile and the transcript of a related interview.

The Research Networking Activities for Sustained Coordinated Observations of Arctic Change (Arctic CoObs RNA), now in its third year, helps define and build linkages between observations serving local-scale needs of Arctic and Indigenous communities and broader scale regional and global observing frameworks. The project works in partnership with the Indigenous-led Food Sovereignty Working Group to identify benefits and essential variables central to Pacific Arctic Indigenous food security and sovereignty.

By: Maureen Biermann, International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF); Margaret Rudolf, UAF; Victoria Qutuuq Buschman, UAF; Craig Chythlook, UAF; Hajo Eicken, IARC/IUAF; and Sandy Starkweather, US Arctic Observing Network

While the Arctic overall exhibits increasing vegetation productivity trends, Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta has appeared repeatedly as a notable region of declining trends. This has puzzled climate scientists for some time. A new 40-year analysis reveals an unmistakable long-term pattern of rising and falling vegetation productivity in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and finds that spring sea-ice concentration is a low-frequency driver of vegetation productivity in that region.

By: Amy Sakura Hendricks, University of Alaska Fairbanks

The Arctic Rivers Project, funded by the National Science Foundation's Navigating the New Arctic Program in 2020, is a five-year effort to improve understanding of how rivers, ice transportation corridors, fish, and communities might be impacted by and adapt to climate change. The project is guided by an Indigenous Advisory Council and focuses on Arctic rivers in Alaska and Canada and the Yukon River drainage.

By Keith Musselman, University of Colorado Boulder and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research

Researchers find emerging evidence that climate change is causing boreal trees and shrubs to expand along the cool northern margins of the boreal forest, while at the same time causing trees to become more stressed and die along the warm southern margins of the boreal forest. These dynamics could lead to a gradual northward shift in the geographic extent of the boreal forest biome, but the extent to which such changes are already underway remains unclear.

By: Logan Berner and Scott Goetz, Northern Arizona University

The Alaska Native Collaborative Hub for Research on Resilience (ANCHRR), funded through the National Institute of Mental Health, is a network of Alaska Native leaders, social advocates, researchers, educators, and students working to change the narrative on suicide prevention and re-imagine Indigenous research partnership within an academic environment. The importance of community-level protection for suicide prevention is becoming clearer with the first phase of research, and the team is preparing to describe how the various kinds of community protection are maintained within communities, and how they work in the lives of young people.

By: Evon Peter, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Lisa Wexler, University of Michigan; Stacy Rasmus, Center for Alaska Native Health Research at the University of Alaska Fairbanks; James Allen, University of Minnesota Medical School in Duluth

The 16th International Circumpolar Remote Sensing Symposium convened 16–20 May 2022 in Fairbanks, Alaska. The symposium offered both in-person and virtual attendance options and saw 102 registrants from 12 countries. The 49 oral presentations were given by both in-person and virtual attendees, who received continual technical support to enhance participation. Organizers made COVID-19 safety and mitigation a priority—creating a detailed mitigation plan and requiring all attendees to acknowledge it during registration.

By: Melissa K. Ward Jones, University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), Jessica Garron, (UAF), Benjamin M. Jones, (UAF), Helena Bergstedt (b.geos), Martha Raynolds, (UAF), Simon Zwieback, (UAF), and Gerald "JJ" Frost (ABR, Inc.)

A remote uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) inspection and response team was developed with funding through a grant from US Department of Homeland Security. The project was designed to train a set of UAS pilots in the remote, coastal, hub community of Unalakleet, Alaska to fly small UAS as a means to monitor climate change impacts, inform local decision-making, and support the US Coast Guard mission in western Alaska.

By: Jessica Garron, Deputy Director of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center and Research Assistant Professor with the International Arctic Research Center; John Henry, Jr., Deputy Director of the Native Village of Unalakleet; and Margaret Hall, Assistant Director of the Model Forest Policy Program

As the Arctic Data Center enters its seventh year of operation, the staff is busy developing and teaching data management courses, collaborating on workshops and Arctic-related projects, and creating new resources for the Arctic social science research community.

By: Natasha Haycock-Chavez, Community Engagement and Outreach Coordinator, Arctic Data Center

ARCUS Community Member Profiles highlight our individual members and member representatives. They are short, easy-to-read profiles to help the ARCUS community get to know one another and support connections across disciplines and perspectives. This Profile features Hannah Holland-Moritz, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of New Hampshire. A transcript of the related interview accompanies the Member Profile and provides further information.

A team of disciplinary and local experts seeks to investigate options, obstacles, and opportunities to climate change adaptation from a legal and Inupiat perspective through the NSF-funded project, "Adaptations to Repetitive Flooding: Understanding Cross-Cultural and Legal Possibilities for Long-Term Solutions to Flooding Disaster." The team aims to examine what constitutes culturally relevant relocation from the perspective of Kigiqtamiut residents.

By: Elizabeth Marino, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sustainability, Oregon State University-Cascades

Climate warming across interior Alaska over the past ten years has dramatically increased top-down thaw of permafrost, as well as the initiation and growth of thermokarst features. Since 2013, seasonal thaw depth has increased by at least 50% in most places. In some areas, particularly near clearings, trail crossings, and other disturbed sites, it has more than doubled.

By: Thomas A. Douglas, US Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Alaska

For the Arctic and the polar regions, accurate data mining and forecasting are a basis for good decision-making. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) offer tools and new approaches to obtain powerful and best-possible predictions for inference and policy for the current time period, as well as for the future.

By: Falk Huettmann, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an urgent need to understand the impacts on daily life in remote Alaska. Researchers used an ecosocial approach that allowed analyses and interpretation based on the fact that the health and well-being of individuals and populations are dependent on and manifested through multi-level pathways linking biological, ecological, and social organization factors to one another. Study results provide evidence to tribal health organizations and community leaders to support past and ongoing pandemic responses.

By: Ruby Fried, University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies (ICHS); Micah Hahn, UAA, ICHS; Patricia Cochran, Inupiaq Elder, Alaska Native Science Commission; and Laura Eichelberger, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Research Services, Tribal Water Center

ARCUS Community Member Profiles highlight our individual members and member representatives. They are short, easy-to-read profiles to help the ARCUS community get to know one another and support connections across disciplines and perspectives. This Profile features Gabriella Gricius, PhD Student in Political Science at Colorado State University and the North American and Arctic Defense and Security Network. A transcript of the related interview accompanies the Member Profile and provides further information.

The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) is coordinating a multi-year planning process for the Fourth International Conference for Arctic Research Planning (ICARP). This process will engage Arctic researchers, policy makers, residents, and stakeholders from around the world to discuss the state of Arctic science, the place the Arctic occupies in global affairs and systems, to consider the most urgent knowledge gaps and research priorities that lie before us, and to explore avenues to address these research needs.

By Larry Hinzman, International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) President; Matthew L. Druckenmiller, US Delegate to IASC; Gerlis Fugmann, IASC Executive Secretary; Andrey N. Petrov, Alternate US Delegate to IASC; and Federica Scarpa, IASC Communications Manager

The Navigating the New Arctic Community Office (NNA-CO) was formed in February 2021. As a distributed office across across three universities, efforts focus on engaging and supporting Arctic communities in diverse ways and developing training resources to assist researchers in ethically and equitably partnering with Arctic communities; facilitating connections among NNA researchers and communities, teachers, and students across Alaska and beyond; and providing overall coordination and developing partnerships across US and international Arctic research communities.

By Matthew L. Druckenmiller, Navigating the New Arctic Community Office (NNA-CO) Director; Jenna Vater, NNA-CO Program Manager; and Karli Tyance Hassell, NNA-CO Indigenous Engagement Coordinator

The new Arctic Research Plan 2022–2026, released by the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC), outlines key research goals that will address community resilience and health, Arctic systems interactions, sustainable economies and livelihoods, and risk management and hazard mitigation. Where the Arctic Research Plan 2022–2026 provides the high-level strategy and goals for federal investment in Arctic research, new two-year implementation plans will be more granular, providing specific and tangible objectives and deliverables. The first implementation plan will run from September 2022 through October 2024. IARPC invites the Arctic research community to share input on what should be included in the first biennial implementation plan.

By: Liz Weinberg, Web Manager and Community Coordinator, Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee