The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will host a hearing on: The State of Federal Wildland Fire Science: Examining Opportunities for Further Research & Coordination.

The heat is on, and it is hitting the Arctic with detrimental consequence. Global warming is now leading to quick and irreversible change in the North. And Russia is among the ones worst affected. This week, the temperatures in the Russian north again beat records. In Saskylah, a small community in the Arctic Circle, the air temperature reached 31.9 C, the highest measurement since 1936. According to Roshydromet, the Russian meteorology institute, average temperatures along parts of the Russian Arctic coast have since 1998 increased with as much as 4.95 C degrees. 

The Medvezhyi Islands, or the Bear Islands, are six wisps of surface in the East Siberian Sea, at the western end of the Kolyma Gulf. The rocky islands, covered with moss and deer moss, attract polar bears, which come there in search for food and to bring their little ones to remain there over winter - their maternity dams are located on those islands. For more than 20 years, Ruslan Sleptsov has been watching and studying polar bears on the islands, named after them.

Newly released data suggest more than three-quarters of Nunavimmiut have faced some form of adverse childhood trauma, including violence, neglect, exposure, household dysfunction or stress. The 2017 Qanuilirpitaa? health survey — which translates as How are we doing now? — focuses on social and cultural practices, mental health and wellness among Nunavimmiut. New information from the survey was released earlier this month at a Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services meeting.

The House Subcommittee on Appropriations will mark up the Fiscal Year 2022 Defense Subcommittee Appropriations Bill.

The House Subcommittee on the Department of Homeland Security will markup the Fiscal Year 2022 Homeland Security Subcommittee Appropriations Bill.

The House Appropriations Committee will markup the FY2022 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies and Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bills.

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.

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.