Estonia's bid to become an observer on the Arctic Council was unsuccessful after all members of the council failed to reach a unified decision. The eight members of the Arctic Council are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States discussed the matter at a meeting in Iceland at the end of May. 

The Norwegian government has decided to initiate the process of exploring opportunities for a new management scheme for state-owned land in Nordland and the former Troms county, aiming to secure more influence and involvement in outland management from local communities and indigenous stakeholders.

The election was organized at the annual ICASS conference, which this year was delivered digitally by IASSA in Arkhangelsk, Russia. The newly elected organization president argues that this will be good for Bodø and for Norway. “Our motto is ‘From visibility to leadership’. We are to take the lead in how social sciences in the Arctic are formed, included, and funded.

An international team of researchers has now dated the oldest known permafrost in Siberia. The permafrost layer, located near the eastern Siberian village of Batagay, has been frozen in a depth of ca. 50 meters for the past 650,000 years – a record. The team, which included German, Russian and English researchers and was led by Prof Julian Murton from the University of Sussex.

Robert Mason, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut, shared his findings live from the R/V Sikuliaq in a presentation hosted by UAF Northwest Campus and UAF SeaGrant. Mason started his presentation by explaining that mercury is not a naturally occurring substance in ocean waters. Most of it comes from mining and coal burning in other parts of the world.

The Council on Strategic Risks’ Converging Risks Lab and the Woodwell Climate Research Center released a new report on June 21. Temperatures and Tensions Rise: Security and Climate Risks in the Arctic includes groundbreaking new analysis on the implications of thawing permafrost across the Arctic region for security infrastructure, as well as modeling of the potential security implications of rapid changes in ice loss, temperature change, and growing regional activity. 

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.