DHS S&T's Centers of Excellence (COE) Summit is set and focused on Homeland Security Challenges: Evolving Threats & Dynamic Solutions. This event is a special opportunity for COE researchers to connect and network with DHS components, federal, state, and local stakeholders, as well as industry partners to present current and emerging solutions to threats and challenges faced by DHS. Attendees can visit the Innovation Showcase, where COE and vendor partners showcase research breakthroughs, new products and tools to assist operational decision-makers and dynamic solutions to secure our Homeland.

This event is hosted by Migration in Harmony Research Coordination Network. In 2021, a coalition of organizations including The Arctic Institute, Women in Polar Sciences, and Women of the Arctic are organizing a webinar series, Breaking the Ice Ceiling, that aims to illuminate polar research and achievements (past and present) by those who identify as women and to foster discussion on systemic change in polar sciences (Indigenous, natural, and social sciences) to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. In this webinar, you will learn from Director Romani Makkik and Producer Dr. Shari Fox about strengths-based research and transforming the research process through critical reflection and new expression.

With alarm bells ringing about the rapid demise of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, satellite data have revealed how the intrusion of warmer Atlantic waters is reducing ice regrowth in the winter. In addition, with seasonal ice more unpredictable than ever, ESA's SMOS and CryoSat satellites are being used to improve sea-ice forecasts, which are critical for shipping, fisheries and indigenous communities, for example.

The Arctic has warmed three times more quickly than the planet as a whole, and faster than previously thought, a report warned on Thursday. Arctic sea ice looks set to be an early victims of rising temperatures, with each fraction of a degree making a big difference: the chance of it disappearing entirely in summer is 10 times greater if Earth warms by 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels compared to 1.5C, the goal set by the 2015 Paris Accord.

“Well, thank you very much, and I recognize that we’re the only thing standing between us and the signing ceremony, so we’ll try to be brief. Foreign ministers, permanent participant heads of delegation, working group representatives, Arctic Council observers and guests, it really is an honor to join you for this meeting of the Arctic Council. And I’m especially pleased to be here today with Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, a longstanding leader and expert on Arctic issues.”

Representatives from the world’s circumpolar nations reaffirmed their “commitment to maintain peace, stability and constructive cooperation in the Arctic” during the Arctic Council’s biennial ministerial meeting Thursday in Iceland. But differing views on precisely how this can take place surfaced during the ministerial meeting at the Harpa meeting hall in Reykjavik, with Russia making a suggestion to revitalize annual meetings among top military staffs of the eight-member nations.

The Arctic, whose bordering countries met in Reykjavik on Thursday, is on the frontlines of global warming and is increasingly coveted for its natural resources and strategic location. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land, unlike the Antarctic at the other end of the world, which is a continent surrounded by water.

The warming of the Arctic region is opening a host of new diplomatic challenges and opportunities. What does this mean for U.S. diplomacy and for our Foreign Service? This latest event in AFSA's Inside Diplomacy series will feature guest James DeHart, U.S. Coordinator for the Arctic Region, for a discussion about the increased need for U.S. diplomacy and leadership in a region that is seeing significant climate and geopolitical changes. Hosted by AFSA President Ambassador Rubin.

ADAC will conduct the Center's Program Year 7 Annual meeting to focus on U.S. Coast Guard Project Champions, key stakeholders and the community of Arctic science and technology researchers. Included in the Program Year 7 Annual meeting are planned guest speakers from HQ U.S. Coast Guard, DHS S&T and senior Arctic Research leadership in Washington D.C.

IARPC has released a draft of the next five-year Arctic Research Plan, which will span from 2022-2026. We are now asking the public to comment on the draft plan by June 11, 2021. To provide additional information about the draft plan contents and development, the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee is hosting a series of one-hour information sessions.

Join IARPC on Thursday, June 3 at 9am AKT / 1pm ET for a webinar with Dr. Sarah Aarons, Assistant Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Aarons will provide a brief introduction to the historical context of colonialism in the Arctic, focused on Alaska, and its relationship to climate change impacts on Arctic Indigenous Peoples. For researchers working in the Arctic, this webinar will provide insight into the ways that relationships, resource extraction, compensation, and infrastructure building have been predominantly one-sided, and how climate change is now impacting Indigenous communities.

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.

Organizers announce, that due to the coronavirus outbreak, the 2nd Symposium on Polar Microbes and Viruses has been postponed to 2022. 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.