The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife will hold a hybrid oversight hearing titled, “Examining the President’s Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Proposal for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” 

Markup of the Proposed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022 by the US Senate Committee on Armed Services.

The US House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will hold a hearing to review the fiscal year 2022 Budget Request for the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Programs.

Over 1 bn rubles ($13.8 mn) will be assigned to the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring Rosgidromet to complete the construction of the Arctic platform “Severny Polyus” (North Pole) in accordance with a governmental decree signed by RF Premier Mikhail Mishustin on June 17. The new platform to be used as a floating weather monitoring and research station can operate both in clear water and in ice conditions. It will make it possible to resume long drifting polar expeditions that were suspended due to the climate change in the Arctic in the early 2000s.

Around the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, rhodoliths made up of coralline red algae provide ecological niches for a wide variety of organisms. A team of researchers from FAU, the University of Bayreuth and Senckenberg Research Institute in Wilhelmshaven has recently discovered a large quantity of microplastics in this ecosystem.

The U.S. Coast Guard participated in the Danish Joint Arctic Command's annual joint large-scale Exercise Argus in Southern Greenland, June 21- 25. Deployed forces demonstrated U.S. Coast Guard capabilities to build partner capacity and expertise in search and rescue, incident management, and marine environmental response. These efforts solidify key strategic relationships while achieving mutual Danish, Greenlandic, and U.S. goals in the North American Atlantic Arctic and Northwest Atlantic Ocean.

The increasing of wildfires areas in the Arctic zone, including in Yakutia, is associated with the climate changes and forest management problems, a senior researcher at the Permafrost Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the North-Eastern Federal University, Nikita Tananaev, told TASS.

Markup of the Proposed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022 by the US Senate Committee on Armed Services.

The Department of the Air Force released its first Arctic Strategy on July 21, 2020. Signed by the Secretary of the Air Force, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and Chief of Staff of the Space Force, the Strategy noted that the “Arctic is among the most strategically significant regions of the world today.” Over the past year, the Department of the Air Force has worked to optimize air and space capabilities throughout the Arctic region in support of Department of Defense objectives. What progress has been made? Which obstacles and opportunities have arisen? The Wilson Center’s Polar Institute will host this event to facilitate a roundtable discussion with distinguished Department of the Air Force leaders and explore paths forward in implementation of the Arctic Strategy.

The Government of Nunavut is hosting a leadership forum in August to build capacity among Nunavummiut women. The GN’s department of Family Services is hosting the four-day event with funding provided through the federal government’s Women and Gender Equality Canada department. The forum aims to empower Nunavut’s women and girls using traditional knowledge, skills, and their roles as natural leaders.

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. 

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.

The Maritime Risk Symposium is an annual three-day conference in which government and maritime industry leaders, port representatives, researchers, and solution providers convene to examine current and emerging threats to maritime security. Government agencies, commercial entities, institutions of research, and higher education come together to discuss various threats, challenges, and risks to international and domestic maritime sectors.

The New England Arctic Network (NEAN) will host its 2021 meeting at the University of New England in Portland, Maine. Additional information will be published soon. 

Arctic Symposium 2021 continues momentum in Arctic defense and security collaboration established in prior ALCOM-hosted events. AAS21 seeks to address the challenges faced by the U.S. military and our allies and partners in understanding and responding to our respective national interests. AAS21 is planned and organized by the Arctic Domain Awareness Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) in support and in compliance to guidance from Alaskan Command (ALCOM) Staff and Commander. More information available soon.

Hosted entirely online the ArcticNet Virtual Annual Scientific Meeting 2021 (ASM2021) is a hub for Arctic research in Canada. The ASM2021 brings together researchers from the natural, health, and social sciences to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing Arctic region, shaped by climate change and modernization. This conference will push the boundaries of our collective understanding of the Arctic and strengthen our ability to address the Arctic issues of today and tomorrow.

The National Academies’ Polar Research Board is convening the following session at the Fall AGU meeting (Dec. 2021), and we welcome proposals for presentations in this session.  Abstract submission deadline is August 4, 2021.  Submissions to this session can be made at: AGU Fall Meeting 2021 (confex.com), and general submission instructions at: Abstracts | AGU Fall Meeting 2021.

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.