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Arctic Reading for the Quarantine:
This week's newly shared reports and publicans.
(Strategic Studies Quarterly). Three-Way Power Dynamics in the Arctic (February 2020).
The Arctic is an emerging region of great significance to US-China-Russia great power competition. This is due to the concentration of natural resources in the Arctic, as well as its future use as a transportation corridor between the Pacific and Atlantic. Russia's dominant position in the Arctic complicates the US-China dyad. While most high-level US security strategies and discourse identify the return of great power competition as the dominant current security paradigm, China and Russia are generally treated in isolation from each other. However, when it comes to the Arctic, China-Russia cooperation is a crucial factor to consider when formulating US strategy. This article places Chinese ambitions in the Arctic in the context of Chinese grand strategy and assesses the basis of, and prospects for, Chinese-Russian Arctic cooperation. It also advances a three-track framework for understanding Chinese-Russian cooperation in the Arctic-economic, military, and political-in which issues of control and trust are contested.
(The Coordination Office for Polar Prediction). Polar Prediction News #14 (April 2020). The 14th issue of the Year of Polar Prediction newsletter provides latest updates on activities within the polar prediction community and features an art-and-science project that evolved from the MOSAiC expedition. But it's not all about MOSAiC. Read the interview with the Norwegian marine ecologist Marit Reigstad, PI of the YOPP-endorsed Nansen Legacy project. Learn about new sea ice and ocean variables in the S2S Forecast Database and find a how-to on publishing YOPP Datasets. Just before traveling has been strongly reduced for much of the remainder of the year, the YOPP Science Workshop and the twelfth PPP Steering Group meeting took place in February. Meeting updates due to the corona pandemic - with two sessions on polar prediction the EGU 2020: Sharing Geoscience Online definitely sticks out as one of the online highlights this year.
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 Researchers Find Evidence of Bowheads Altering Their Normal Migration Patterns. Bowhead whales on their way to Canada for the summer months, and whaling communities in the Bering Strait region have reported a successful spring hunting season. Despite these annual events continuing as normal, researchers have recently found some bowheads deviating from their usual movements.
KNOM
The Arctic is Transforming... Can We? As the world rightfully frets about the impacts of a changing climate, the term climate change does not accurately describe what is happening in the Arctic. Snow cover is diminished; mile-thick ice caps are melting at an extraordinary rate; summer sea ice-including the last of the multiyear sea ice-could be gone in fifteen years; permafrost, the frozen earth that is the physical underpinning of nearly one quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, is quickly thawing and buckling; massive wildfires are burning both boreal forests and tundra; and the entire region is changing color - from white to green and blue. As scientists warn of the catastrophic implications of warming in excess of 1.5° C worldwide, the Arctic is already locked into an estimated 4-5° of warming by mid-century.
Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service
SpaceX Could Fill the US Military's Secure Arctic Satellite Communications (SATCOM) Gap by This Year. The U.S. Defense Department relies on a mixture of military and commercial satellites to connect its war fighters all over the world. And while users can complain that terminals are too bulky or that they should have the roaming capability exhibited in commercial cellphone technology, the system largely works.But that's not the case in the Arctic. "Very simple things become hard when you're in the Arctic, not the least of which is communication. When you are above about 65 degrees north, satellite communication starts to diminish, and above about 70 degrees north it becomes extremely limited except for some of our more exquisite capability - submarines, for example," said U.S. Northern Command spokesman Maj. Mark Lazane.
C4ISRNet
Extinct Sea Reptile Swam in Seas From England to Russia to the Arctic According to Baylor University Researcher. A paleontologist visiting London's Natural History Museum took a picture of an extinct aquatic reptile with selfie stick.The images revealed that the creature, whose bones were unearthed more than a century ago on a coast in southern England, seemed very similar to a genus of ichthyosaurs he recognized from Russian collections.He emailed the photos of the dolphin-like ichthyosaur to fellow paleontologist Megan L. Jacobs, a Baylor University doctoral candidate in geosciences.
Heritage Daily
 Most Large Ships Transiting Arctic Use New Routes That Help Protect Environment and Communities. Sea ice in the Bering Sea and Bering Strait region has been forming later in the year and melting earlier for the past decade. The resulting longer window of open water around the Arctic, combined with other variables such as increasing trade and resource development, has led to a growth in vessel traffic. Indigenous peoples, maritime experts, and conservationists have voiced concern that the increased traffic could have an adverse impact on ecosystems, wildlife, and communities. Now a new study shows that measures implemented to prevent such damage and disruption are working, at least to an extent.
Pew Charitable Trusts
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Future Events
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.
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.
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