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June 26, 2020

Arctic Reading for the Quarantine:

If you find yourself looking for a good read, consider boosting your Arctic knowledge with this report.

(Alaska Ocean Observing System, June 2020)  Bering Science: Spring 2020 Bering Region Ocean Update-Learn What's Changing. The Bering Sea is experiencing many changes. Loss of sea ice and record high ocean and air temperatures impact wildlife and all aspects of life for coastal communities. 2019 saw many notable events, such as unusual mortality of ice seals, whales and sea birds; and changes in movement patterns and abundance of sub-arctic fish species. We created this publication to share what scientists are learning about some of the most striking changes in the Bering Sea region. This report focuses primarily on what we saw in 2019 in the northern Bering Sea, with some information about the southern and eastern Bering and the southern Chukchi.
Media

State's Largest Rural Solar Project Nears Completion Above the Arctic Circle in Kotzebue. Since construction of Kotzebue Electric Association's solar project began in May, a locally hired crew has clocked in ten-hour days, six days a week. They've hauled 1,440 solar panels across uneven tundra and installed the final one on June 18. The 576-kilowatt project is the second largest in the state, next to the Willow Solar Farm in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The construction site is southeast of the local airport, at the end of a long, gravelly access road. The rows of panels bring new fixtures to a rolling landscape marked by an aging wind farm that began KEA's run with renewable energy in the late 90s. Alaska Public Radio
 
Arctic-Adapted Dogs Emerged at the Pleistocene Holocene Transition. Although sled dogs are one of the most specialized groups of dogs, their origin and evolution has received much less attention than many other dog groups. We applied a genomic approach to investigate their spatiotemporal emergence by sequencing the genomes of 10 modern Greenland sled dogs, an ~9500-year-old Siberian dog associated with archaeological evidence for sled technology, and an ~33,000-year-old Siberian wolf. We found noteworthy genetic similarity between the ancient dog and modern sled dogs. We detected gene flow from Pleistocene Siberian wolves, but not modern American wolves, to present-day sled dogs. The results indicate that the major ancestry of modern sled dogs traces back to Siberia, where sled dog-specific haplotypes of genes that potentially relate to Arctic adaptation were established by 9500 years ago. Science Magazine  
 
Siberia Heat Wave: Why the Arctic is Warming so Much Faster Than the Rest of the World. On the eve of the summer solstice, something very worrying happened in the Arctic Circle. For the first time in recorded history, temperatures reached 38 °C (101°F) in a remote Siberian town-18°C warmer than the maximum daily average for June in this part of the world, and the all-time temperature record for the region. Phys.org
 
Spider Baby Boom in a Warmer Arctic. Climate change leads to longer growing seasons in the Arctic. A new study, which has just been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show that predators like wolf spiders respond to the changing conditions and have been able to produce two clutches of offspring during the short Arctic summer. Arctic spiders are at the top of the food chain among invertebrates and are numerous on the Arctic tundra. They typically take several years to become adults, and only produce offspring. Science Codex
 
New Briefing Paper on Arctic Change. BAS researchers have contributed to a new briefing paper about the Arctic published this week (25 June 2020). Working with a team at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, the paper provides a summary of Arctic change now and in the future.Summary highlights of the paper are: The Arctic has warmed by around 2°C since 1850, approximately double the global average. Even if the Paris Agreement successfully limits global warming to a further 0.5°C, the Arctic is expected to warm by at least another 1°C. Phys.org

Commonwealth North Arctic Policy Study Group- The Changing Arctic: Framing the Issues for Alaska Study Group Charge 2020. CWN is announcing the launch of an Arctic Policy Study Group to evaluate current state and federal Arctic policy issues and consider recommendations for publication. We encourage you to participate and be a part of developing these critical Alaska public policies. To participate and to receive meeting announcements, email events@commonwealthnorth.org . Commonwealth North Arctic Policy Study Group
Future Events

** New this week ** Webinar: Understanding Arctic Disaster Risk and Response, July 15, 2020 (Virtual). Arctic environmental change is creating new hazards, and is shifting how we understand and plan for challenges, from disasters to military strategies. Traditional methods to assess risks may underestimate impacts, particularly when geophysical and ecological changes undermine resilience and adaptability, and when external shocks, like COVID-19, stress systems. Dr. Chad Briggs, a Professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, will explore tools to develop Arctic risk scenarios, and will discuss security simulations of disaster response in Alaska during the current pandemic. The event is hosted by Migration in Harmony: An Interdisciplinary Network in Littoral Species, Settlements, and Cultures on the Move (MiH-RCN), an international, cross-disciplinary network of Arctic migration researchers funded by the National Science Foundation.

Arctic Circle Assembly, October 8-11, 2020 (Reykjavi­k, Iceland). The annual Arctic Circle Assembly is the largest annual international gathering on the Arctic, attended by more than 2000 participants from 60 countries. It is attended by heads of states and governments, ministers, members of parliaments, officials, experts, scientists, entrepreneurs, business leaders, indigenous representatives, environmentalists, students, activists and others from the growing international community of partners and participants interested in the future of the Arctic. 

3rd Arctic Science Ministerial, November 21-22, 2020 (Toyko, Japan). Since the last Arctic Science Ministerial in 2018, changes in the Arctic ecosystem and the resulting impacts locally and globally have been severely felt. While the reasons for these changes in climate largely stem from activities outside of the Arctic, the Arctic is warming at a rate of nearly double the global average. Considering the need for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and repair measures, the relevance of an international Arctic Science Ministerial has never been greater. It is necessary to strengthen scientific cooperation and collaboration among both Arctic and non-Arctic States in order to develop our understanding of the rapid changes impacting the Arctic. The First Arctic Science Ministerial (ASM1) was hosted by the United States in 2016, and two years later, the Second Arctic Science Ministerial (ASM2) was co-hosted by Germany, Finland, and the European Commission. The Third Arctic Science Ministerial will be co-hosted by Iceland and Japan.

AGU Fall Meeting, December 7-11, 2020 (San Francisco, California USA). Fall Meeting is the largest gathering of Earth and space scientists in the world. More information will be available at the link.

Arctic Science Summit Week, March 20-26, 2021 (Lisbon, Portugal). The Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the Local Organizing Committee will host the Arctic Science Summit Week 2021. The Conference is organized by FCT, Ciência Viva, AIR Center, the Portuguese Arctic Community and by IASC and partners. Framed by the overarching theme for the Science Conference "The Arctic: Regional Changes, Global Impacts," Lisbon invites International experts on the Arctic and Indigenous Peoples to discuss the "New Arctic" and also its impacts and interactions to and with the lower latitudes.

Save the Date: 2nd Symposium on Polar Microbes and Viruses, May 3-6, 2021 (Hanko, Finland). Organizers announce, that due to the coronavirus outbreak, the 2nd Symposium on Polar Microbes and Viruses has been postponed to 2021. This symposium will bring together molecular microbial ecologists specializing in different organism groups to share our latest results and discuss methodological problems, as well as future prospects in the field, including practical international collaborations. The environmental focus will be on cryospheric environments including sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost, but excellent research in other polar environments is also invited. The methods to be discussed will focus on 'omics' techniques, ranging from single cells to metagenomes, but research using additional methods is encouraged as well.
 

2021 Regional Conference on Permafrost/ 19th International Conference Cold Regions Engineering, July 11-16, 2021 (Boulder, Colorado USA). For the first time a Regional Conference on Permafrost will be combined with the bi-annual 19th International Conference on Cold Regions Engineering. This conference is hosted by the US Permafrost Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the International Permafrost Association, the Permafrost Young Researchers Network, and the University of Colorado Boulder. A complete list of planned sessions is available here.

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