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No Arctic-science events are scheduled for today.
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Arctic Reading for the Quarantine:
Newly shared reports this week.
(Ikaarvik Youth ScIQ Summit) ScIQ: Science and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit: Research and Meaningful Engagement of Northern Indigenous Communities, 2018. While there is a lot of research conducted in the North, Arctic research agendas, questions and methodologies are often determined in the South. Arctic communities are often not meaningfully engaged, consulted or informed. What counts as meaningful engagement and effective incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge into research is often left to individual researchers to interpret. The Ikaarvik youth who wrote these recommendations would like to make it easier for researchers to understand what meaningful engagement and incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge into research means at the community level in Nunavut. We are a group of youth from different Nunavut communities who are all interested in improving relationships between researchers and northern communities, and seeing more meaningful incorporation of IQ into research. We have been working on this for four years and came together in Cambridge Bay, NU November 19-23, 2018 to create these recommendations.
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Media
American Robins Head North Sooner Due to Arctic Snow Melting Earlier. Climate change threatens to shake up the lifestyles of many animals around the world and a new study has revealed that for the American robin these wheels are already very much in motion. Scientists tagged the songbirds with GPS units to track their migration patterns and found that they are embarking on their annual Arctic-bound journey earlier each decade, with a shift in snow melt conditions a big part of the reason why.
New Atlas
New Hope for Migratory Shorebirds... In recent years, when WCS scientists became gravely concerned about diminishing bird populations returning to the nesting grounds in the Arctic, they traced the likely impacts to losses along their migration route. In 2016, Guatemala's Pacific coast was identified as a gap in our knowledge about migratory stopovers, and thus the international collaboration started.
Scientific American
 What the Caribou Taught Me About Being Together, and Apart. Over the past week, as each thread of our ordinary existence unravels and travel feels like something we used to do, I've been holding tight to a single mental image. The deep brown gaze of a caribou calf as it passed inches from my face. The whites of its eyes as it glanced at me in surprise. The animal's fear of the unknown dwarfed by its clarity of purpose. On St. Patrick's Day, 2012, my husband and I had set out on a 4,000-mile, human-powered journey from Bellingham, Wash., in the Pacific Northwest to Kotzebue, Alaska, far above the Arctic Circle.
New York Times
The 1,400-Year-Old Red Aurora Mystery Has Finally Been Solved. 1,400 years ago, Japanese historians noted the presence of a "red sign," a fan of scarlet light which was cast across the sky. At the time, witnesses remarked that the bright red curls of light resembled the tail feathers of a pheasant. "It is the oldest Japanese astronomical record of a 'red sign,'" said Ryuho Kataoka, a researcher with the National Institute of Polar Research and the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Sokendai, Japan, said in a statement. "It could be a red aurora produced during magnetic storms. However, convincing reasons have not been provided, although the description has been very famous among Japanese people for a long time."
Popular Mechanics
Northern Peatlands Will Lose Some of Their CO2 Sink Capacity Under a Warmer Climate. A study sheds new light on the role of northern peatlands in regulating the regional climate. According to the researchers, peatlands will remain carbon sinks until the end of this century, but their sink capacity will be substantially reduced after 2050, if the climate warms significantly.
Science Daily
 Hidden Source of Carbon Found on the Arctic Coast. A previously unknown, significant source of carbon discovered in the Arctic has National Science Foundation-funded scientists surprised - and concerned about what it may mean in an era of climate change. In a Nature Communications paper, chemists and hydrologists from The University of Texas at Austin and other institutions present evidence of significant concentrations of dissolved organic matter entering Arctic coastal waters from the groundwater atop frozen permafrost. This water moves unseen from land to sea, but researchers now believe it carries significant concentrations of carbon and other nutrients to Arctic coastal food webs.
Alaska Native News
Floating Patches of Soil Nutrients in Soil Help Explain Arctic Thawing. The Arctic is warming at a rate that outstrips any other region of the planet, and the rapidly thawing permafrost houses an estimated 1,400 gigatons of carbon, which is nearly triple the total amount of carbon circulating in the atmosphere. Understanding soil dynamics and their feedbacks is vital to understanding how Earth's climate will change in the future. To understand what will happen as permafrost continues to thaw, scientists look to Arctic environments where the soils already undergo regular freeze-thaw cycles. About a quarter of the Arctic is made up of High Arctic polar deserts.
EOS
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Future Events
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.
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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