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No Arctic-science event is scheduled for today.
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Media
Haavisto-Lavrov Discussed Cooperation Between Arctic and Barents Structures. While Russia takes over the Chair of the Arctic Council next year, Finland will have the responsibility of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council in the same two-year period, 2021-2023. On the initiative of the Finnish Foreign Ministry, the phone conversation took place between Sergey Lavrov and Pekka Haavisto on August 12. The ministers agreed on close cooperation as the two countries will be in charge of the two multilateral formats of northern cooperation, the Arctic and the European Barents Region. The Barents Observer
 World's Largest Reindeer Herd Targeted by Poachers for Antler Velvet. The scene was carnage. Dozens of reindeer carcasses were sprawled on the sandy shore of the Khatanga River or floating in the current toward the Arctic Ocean, as if the animals had drowned in mid-stream. The story of what actually befell these reindeer on the Taymyr Peninsula, in Russia's Krasnoyarsk region, however, was far more grisly. In a video filmed by hunters in 2017 and shared on a Russian public interest YouTube channel, two men can be seen bending over the side of an aluminum boat. Soon after, a reindeer with a knobby head frantically swims away from them. Later, one of the men, smoking a cigarette, reaches into the bow and pulls out a saw-and two fuzzy brown antlers. National Geographic
New Study Warns of Abrupt Arctic Warming as Canadian Ice Shelf Collapses. A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change says that existing climate models underestimate how rapidly the Arctic is currently warming. The new research concludes that today's rate of temperature increase - about one degree Celsius per decade - is similar to the rate of warming that occurred during periods of abrupt warming during the last ice age when temperatures could increase as much as 10-15 degrees during a few decades. High North News
 Ottawa to Spend $305M on Pandemic Assistance to Indigenous Communities. The federal government will spend an additional $305 million to help Indigenous communities-including Inuit communities-cope with the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller announced today in Ottawa. The new money will go into a special program called the Indigenous Community Support Fund, which the federal government announced this past March 18. Their initial contribution at that time was also worth $305 million. Nunatsiaq Online
McGill University to Develop Inuit Health Module. Inuit have long felt underserved and detached from Canada's health-care system, but a new Inuk professor at McGill University hopes to change that. The Montreal university's Department of Family Medicine is building an Inuit-focused health module into its curriculum. The module is being developed by Richard Budgell, McGill's new associate professor of Inuit and northern health promotion. Nunatsiaq Online
Canada Announces $72M in Broadband Internet Improvements for Northern Communities. According to a press release from the CRTC Wednesday, the projects are designed to improve broadband internet service for about 10,100 households in 51 communities. The money is part of a plan by the federal government to make up to $6 billion worth of improvements to broadband services in rural and remote communities over the next ten years. Many communities in the North rely on slower satellite data connections for internet service. Radio Canada International
 Arctic Scientific Lab Building to Open in Arkhuangelsk This Fall. The opening of the only specialized scientific lab building in the Arctic at the Laverov Federal Center for Integrated Arctic Research of the Ural branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FCIARctic) is scheduled for early November 2020. The building will have unique equipment and also a botanic garden. It is expected that the conference Global Problems of the Arctic and Antarctic and the unveiling of a monument to Nikolai Laverov on the square in front of the building will be timed to coincide with the opening of the building. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the scientist's birth. According to FCIARctic's website, the conference is scheduled for November 2-5, 2020. The Arctic
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Future Events
** New this week ** 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.
** POSTPONED ** 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.
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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