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No Arctic-science event is scheduled for today.
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( American Meteorological Society, August 2020). State of the Climate in 2019. This is the 30th issuance of the annual assessment now known as State of the Climate, published in the Bulletin since 1996. As a supplement to the Bulletin, its foremost function is to document the status and trajectory of many components of the climate system. However, as a series, the report also documents the status and trajectory of our capacity and commitment to observe the climate system.
( Nature Climate Change, July 2020). Past Perspectives on the Present Era of Abrupt Arctic Climate Change. Abrupt climate change is a striking feature of many climate records, particularly the warming events in Greenland ice cores. These abrupt and high-amplitude events were tightly coupled to rapid sea-ice retreat in the North Atlantic and Nordic Seas, and observational evidence shows they had global repercussions. In the present-day Arctic, sea-ice loss is also key to ongoing warming. This Perspective uses observations and climate models to place contemporary Arctic change into the context of past abrupt Greenland warmings. We find that warming rates similar to or higher than modern trends have only occurred during past abrupt glacial episodes. We argue that the Arctic is currently experiencing an abrupt climate change event, and that climate models underestimate this ongoing warming. In recent decades, the Arctic has warmed at over twice the global rate. This Perspective places these trends into the context of abrupt Dansgaard-Oeschger warming events in the palaeoclimate record, arguing that the contemporary Arctic is undergoing comparably abrupt climate change.
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Media
White House R&D Priorities include Arctic research. The  August 14, 2020 memo to the executive branch from the OMB and OSTP Directors, for fiscal year 2022, includes the following text, "Arctic: The United States is an Arctic nation, and the rapidly changing conditions in the Arctic have national security, commerce, and transportation implications that other nations are already addressing. Departments and agencies should prioritize research investments that enhance our ability to observe, understand, and predict the physical, biological, and socio-economic processes of the Arctic to protect and advance American interests." WH R&D Memo
Record Arctic Blazes May Herald New 'Fire Regime' Decades Sooner Than Anticipated. The Arctic summer of 2019 was supposed to be an outlier. Featuring massive blazes in Siberia, including what scientists strongly suspected were smoldering fires beneath the peat in the carbon-rich soils of the transition zone between the tundra and Arctic taiga, last year set records for emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases via wildfires. Many scientists thought it might be a one-off, considering that computer model projections tend to show that the emergence of such extreme fire years won't happen until mid-century. The Washington Post
 Pools of Water Atop Sea Ice in the Arctic May Lead it to Melt Away Sooner Than Expected. The thickening atmospheric stew of greenhouse gases is punching holes in Arctic sea ice, leading it to crumble at a rapidly increasing rate. Last spring, ponds of meltwater on the ice sped the melting of the glossy shield that reflects incoming heat from the sun back to space. By July, the ice had dwindled to a record low extent for that month. It could disappear as soon as 2035, scientists said this week, as they released a study showing how the formation of melt ponds on the surface of the sea ice drove it to completely melt away about 130,000 years ago in an era called the Last Interglacial-probably the last time the Arctic Ocean was ice-free during summer. Inside Climate News
Greenland's Ice Has Shrunk Beyond Return, a New Study Finds. Greenland's ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with the ice likely to melt away no matter how quickly the world reduces climate-warming emissions, new research suggests. Scientists studied data on 234 glaciers across the Arctic territory spanning 34 years through 2018 and found that annual snowfall was no longer enough to replenish the snow and ice being lost to glaciers by summertime melting. Arctic Today
 COVID-19 Has Worsened the Ocean Plastic Pollution Problem. Eight million metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans every year. This equates to one garbage truck's worth of plastic being dumped into our oceans every minute. The total weight is the equivalent of 90 aircraft carriers. On top of that, models project that by 2050, there will be more plastic by weight than fish in the oceans. This is tragic for many reasons. Whales, fish, seabirds, turtles and many other animals are eating the plastic and dying en masse. There are many studies in process exploring the relationship between human health problems and consuming fish that contain microplastics (bottles and other single-use items that have broken down). Oceanic ecosystems around the world have been ravaged by plastic waste.Scientific American
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Future Events
Whale Acoustics Webinar From the Gulf of Alaska, 2 pm EDT August 18, 2020 (Virtual). Learn how high school students use long-term acoustic recordings to monitor marine mammals and anthropogenic activities in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic in this webinar. Presented by students from the Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska, this webinar will highlight the important contributions to marine mammal research through an internship and technology training program, called SeaTech. This webinar is a good opportunity for anyone interested in the Arctic, marine mammals, acoustics, or exploring collaborative approaches to science-based education and outreach. Migration In Harmony is a network of Arctic migration researchers funded by the National Science Foundation. Learn more and sign up.
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.
3rd Arctic Science Ministerial, May 8-9, 2021 (Toyko, Japan). The Japanese and Icelandic organizers of this ministerial continue to plan for an in-person ministerial, in Tokyo, but have moved the dates from November 21-22, 2020 to May 8-9, 2021 because of Covid-19. Since the last Arctic Science Ministerial in 2018, changes in the Arctic ecosystem and the resulting impacts locally and globally have been severely felt. 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. ASM3 will be co-hosted by Iceland and Japan.
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