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** New this week **
Gender in Polar Research: Gendered Field Work Conditions, Epistemologies and Legacies, March 30, 2020 (via Zoom). This workshop is organized by Joachim Gertrude Saxinger, Otto Habeck, Stephan Dudeck, and Katariina Kyrölä-International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA) Working Group on Gender in the Arctic. The workshop will combine three strands of debate that have thus far not been discussed systematically: (1) Doing science in the 21st century in a way that departs from but also pays careful attention to the history of exploration and colonial endeavors as "heroic" and masculine activities- while a masculine image still seems to dominate the methodologies and practices of Arctic and polar research. (2) The still existing gender gap when it comes to female researchers in hard sciences, their career prospects, and their sometimes difficult working conditions as women in the field. Critiques of the gender gap and gendered research work have thus far neglected the diversity aspects of queer and gender minority (LGBTQI) researchers. They face particular challenges while working in a still largely heteronormative research environment as it is described for research stations, vessels, or tundra/ taiga camps. (3) The gendered composition of researchers as actors and the gendered spaces of conducting research, including the field sites, have an important impact on research interests, research design, research ethics, and epistemology. The gender bias affects the research subjects and methodology, and polar research can learn from and communicate with other fields of science about how to ensure a high standard of equality, sensitivity to issues of marginalization, and ethical production of science.
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Arctic Reading for the Quarantine:
(State of Alaska and Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium) Healthy Alaskans 2030: State Health Assessment, 2019. The State of Alaska, Department of Health and Social Services, in equal partnership with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, leads the state health improvement plan (SHIP), Healthy Alaskans 2020 (HA2020). Healthy Alaskans 2020 is composed of 25 leading health indicators, or priorities, each with established targets to achieve by 2020. Through a comprehensive and inclusive process, organizations and communities of all levels have agreed to the HA2020 indicators and targets for the past decade. HA2020 is aimed at improving the health of all Alaskans and has a vision of Healthy Alaskans in Healthy Communities. To support this vision, HA2020 provides a framework supporting the work of partners and stakeholders statewide who are actively engaged in improving the health of Alaskans. To build this framework, specific steps have been followed, including the completion of a statewide health assessment, the prioritization of health objectives and targets for the decade for Alaska, and the identification of strategies and actions to reach those targets.
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Rare Ozone Hole Opens Over Arctic- and It's Big. A vast ozone hole - likely the biggest on record in the north - has opened in the skies above the Arctic. It rivals the better-known Antarctic ozone hole that forms in the southern hemisphere each year. Record-low ozone levels currently stretch across much of the central Arctic, covering an area about three times the size of Greenland (see 'Arctic opening'). The hole doesn't threaten people's health, and will probably break apart in the coming weeks.
Nature
Seafloor of Fram Strait is a Sink for Microplastic from Arctic and North Atlantic Ocean. Working in the Arctic Fram Strait, scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have found microplastic throughout the water column with particularly high concentrations at the ocean floor. Using model-based simulations, they have also found an explanation for this high level of pollution. According to their findings, the two main ocean currents in Fram Strait transport the microscopically small plastic particles into the region between Greenland and Spitsbergen from both the Arctic and the North Atlantic. While passing through the Strait, many particles eventually drift to the seafloor, where they accumulate. The experts report on this phenomenon in a study just released in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Science Daily
100 Scientists are Stranded on a Research Ship in the Arctic After the Coronavirus Pandemic Causes Countries Shut Their Borders.
A group scientists in the Arctic are stranded on a research ship after worldwide shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic have prevented them from returning home. The scientists were taking part in a project called the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of the Arctic Climate, or MOSAiC.
Daily Mail
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Future Events
** Updated **
Ice Core Science Community Planning Workshop 2020, April 2-3, 2020 (Virtual Meeting Only).
Please note, this event is meeting virtually only now. Scientific discoveries achieved in the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets and temperate glaciers are critical to society today, but they are not achieved without significant advance planning. The U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP) will sponsor an interdisciplinary ice community workshop to identify science driving future Arctic and Antarctic ice coring sites, the ice drilling technology that will be needed, and the timeline over the coming decade for advancing ice core science on multiple frontiers. The outcome of the workshop will be white papers describing community endeavors with associated timelines that will become part of the updated U.S. Ice Drilling Program Long Range Science Plan.
NOAA Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Program Webinar Series, April 16, 2020 (Webinar). Deep-sea coral and sponge communities in the Aleutian Islands are important habitat features for many life stages of commercially important fish targets, including Atka mackerel, Pacific cod, and rockfish. The effects of commercial fishing activities on deep-sea corals and sponges has been difficult to quantify due to a lack of spatially-explicit fishery data, bottom contact by different gear types, undetermined location of corals and sponges, and the susceptibility and recovery dynamics these structure-forming invertebrates (SFI). To address these challenges, a fishing effects model was developed in the North Pacific to integrate spatially explicit VMS data with target-specific gear configurations for over 40,000 bottom trawls since 2003. Fishery observer coverage for Aleutian Island trawl fisheries is nearly 100 percent and records catch species composition. Species distribution models provide presence data for coral, sponge, Primnoidae, and Stylasteridae.
** Updated **
Securing S&T Success for the Coming Arctic, April 22-23, 2020 (Washington, DC USA).
The Arctic Domain Awareness Center hosts this annual meeting. The meeting will review the Center's current research and discuss better leveraging ADAC. The agenda includes discussions regarding the transition of ADAC's mature research and the initiation of new research associated with ADAC's recently awarded projects from ADAC's Arctic Incidence of National Significance 2019 workshop.
Cancelled
ICESAT-2 Cryospheric Science Hackweek, June 15-19, 2020 (Seattle, Washington USA). ICESat-2 Cryospheric Science Hackweek is a 5-day hackweek to be held at the University of Washington. Participants will learn about technologies used to access and process ICESat-2 data with a focus on the cryosphere. Mornings will consist of interactive lectures, and afternoon sessions will involve facilitated exploration of datasets and hands-on software development.
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.
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.
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