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March 5, 2015

  

US Arctic Research Commission's 103rd Meeting, March 4-5, 2015 (Washington, DC, USA) (yes, the meeting is happening, despite snow in DC. How could we not?). U.S. Arctic Research Commission will hold its 103rd meeting in Washington, District of Columbia, on March 4-5, 2015. The business sessions, open to the public, will convene at 9:00 a.m. The focus of the meeting will be on Arctic policy issues, and on programs and research projects affecting the Arctic. The agenda is available here.


 

4th Annual North American Arctic Leaders Forum, March 5, 2015 (Washington, D.C at the Russell Senate Office Building Room 485 from 12:45 - 3:30 pm). This high-level forum will focus on US and Canadian cooperation on Arctic economic development, research, marine safety issues, and Alaska's priorities in the Arctic. The forum will provide an opportunity for Canadian and U.S. policy makers to have a dialogue with Alaska state leaders, and Canadian territorial leaders about their priorities for the Arctic and to learn more about the recently released Alaska Arctic Policy Commission (AAPC) Report recommendations.  The forum is informal and will include an opportunity for all attendees to be part of a roundtable discussion. 


 

United States Arctic Opportunities Hearing, March 5, 2015 (Washington, D.C., USA). The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to evaluate opportunities for the United States to build on its status as an Arctic nation for the betterment of the nation and those who live in the Arctic. 
 

 

capitalToday's Congressional Action:  

The House and Senate are not in session.

 

Media  

 

Shell in Chukchi US to Decide on Shell Request for Extra Time on Arctic. The Obama administration will decide soon whether to sign off on Shell's request for extra time to hunt for oil in Arctic waters, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Wednesday. Without action, Shell's oil and gas leases in the Beaufort Sea will begin expiring in 2017, followed by its drilling rights in the neighboring Chukchi Sea two years later. Alaska Dispatch News

 

EPA Administrator Races to Finish Landmark Climate Rules. Gina McCarthy is locked in a race against time to complete landmark climate change regulations before President Obama leaves office. With just 22 months left in Obama's presidency, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator and her team are burning the midnight oil to enshrine emissions regulations for power plants in federal law. The Hill

 

Making Waves: The Navy's Arctic Ambition Revealed. For the Royal Canadian Navy, it's been seven stormy years since Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the construction of the Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS). There has been criticism of the program on many fronts: how delays prevented a 2013 first-ship delivery; how projected costs jumped $400-million; why the Nanisivik Arctic naval base on Baffin Island was downgraded to a refuelling station; and how the ships - originally planned to be eight, but now only five or possibly six - would be slow-moving "slushbreakers," as opposed to icebreakers. The Globe and Mail

 

Arctic Sea Ice 'Thinning Dramatically,' Study Finds. Arctic sea ice - the ice that freezes and floats on Arctic waters - is thinning at a steadier and faster rate than researchers previously thought, a new study finds. Using modern and historic measurements, the researchers got an extensive view of how the thickness of Arctic sea ice has changed over the past few decades. According to measurements from multiple sources, the ice in the central Arctic Ocean thinned 65 percent between 1975 and 2012, from 11.7 feet (3.59 meters) to 4.1 feet (1.25 m). Live Science

 

'Arctic Social Indicators (ASI II): Implementation' Report Available. ASI II is a follow-up to the 2010 ASI-I and the 2004 Arctic Human Development Report. The objective of this new volume isto present and discuss the findings of the work on measuring the set of recommended ASI indicators; to conduct a series of regional case studies to illustrate and test the strength and applicability of these indicators; to identify and describe data challenges for the Arctic region specifically in relation to these Arctic specific indicators and to draw conclusions about the ability of ASI to track changes in human development; and to formulate policy relevant conclusions for the long-term monitoring of Arctic human development. The core content of ASI-II is a set of five carefully selected case studies, which form the basis for drawing conclusions about the applicability of the ASI indicators and for formulating policy relevant conclusions. This report was edited by Joan Nymand Larsen, Peter Schweitzer, and Andrey Petrov. It is available for download here.

 

'Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR): Regional Processes and Global Linkages' Report Available. AHDR is the second volume of AHDR. This goals of this volume are to provide an update to the first AHDR (2004) in terms of an assessment of the state of Arctic human development; to highlight the major trends and changes unfolding related to the various issues and thematic areas of human development in the Arctic over the past decade; and, based on this assessment, to identify policy relevant conclusions and key gaps in knowledge, new and emerging Arctic success stories. AHDR-II moves beyond the baseline assessment to make valuable comparisons and contrasts across a decade of persistent and rapid change in the North. It addresses critical issues and emerging challenges in Arctic living conditions, quality of life in the North, global change impacts and adaptation, and Indigenous livelihoods. It is available for download here.

 

Arctic Council Leaders Want More Indigenous Representation. Housing, mental health and the high costs of living in the North are a few items on the agenda of Arctic Council meetings underway in Whitehorse.  The event brings together senior leaders from circumpolar regions including the Scandinavian countries, the Russian Federation, Alaska and Canada. Joe Linklater, chair of the Gwich'in Council International, a member organization, says he wants to see more involvement of indigenous people at future meetings. He says that that will help the council tackle the problems faced by indigenous people. CBC News

 

Arctic Research Vessel Sikuliaq Prepares for Final Trials. A floating Arctic laboratory four decades in the making has arrived at its home port and stands poised to begin unlocking mysteries of one of the wildest places on Earth. The 261-foot Sikuliaq (pronounced see-KOO'-lee-ak) will leave Seward this month, sail around the Aleutian Islands and tuck into sea ice in the Bering Sea. The voyage will be the final trial for its reinforced hull, propulsion system and array of cranes and booms that will deploy instruments ranging from small submarines and plankton nets to buoys that weigh a ton. Alaska Journal

 

Cold-Weather Training Critical as Race for Arctic's Natural Resources Heats Up. Alaska was known as Russian America before the Russian Empire sold it to the U.S. government in 1867. The Russians built their North American colonies to tap into a rich fur-seal trade. When they sold the land for $7.2 million - after more than a century of occupation - the Russians were under financial duress and in fear of losing the territory in a future conflict with the British, with whom they fought the Crimean War in 1853-56. Stars and Stripes

 

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

No Arctic legislation was formally considered yesterday.

Future Events

 

Arctic Ambitions IV: Trade, Commerce, Investment. March 10-11, 2015 (Anchorage, Alaska, USA). This unique international event brings together corporate executives and senior government officials from around the Arctic region and the world. It focuses on trade, commerce and investment and serves as an excellent networking venue to promote your business interests in the region. Speakers include US Arctic Research Chair Fran Ulmer. 

 

Arctic Summit 2015, March 12, 2014 (Oslo, Norway) The Economist is hosting the Arctic Summit 2015 where discussions will focus on whether commercial interest in the Arctic is a bubble about to burst. There are discounted registration fees are available for NGOs, government, academics, charities and students. There are also discounts for groups of 3 or more people.

 

Polar Shelves and Shelf Break Exchange in Times of Rapid Climate Warming, March 15-20, 2015 (Lucca, Italy). The GRCs provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies. The guiding principle of a GRC is to encourage communication and discussion of ideas and new unpublished results at the very frontier of a particular field of research, by bringing together outstanding scientists from academia, industry, and government, ranging from senior experts to Ph.D. students. With the increasing impacts of reduced sea ice and warming seawater conditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic, this conference can act as a forum for potentially transformative discussions for interdisciplinary, international and compare/contrast evaluation of polar sciences. In addition, the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) will precede the GRC to provide a forum for graduate students and post-docs to present and exchange new data and cutting edge ideas with experts in the different polar fields of science.

 

Sweden-U.S. Planning Workshop on Joint Arctic Research Using the I/B Oden, March 30- April 1, 2015 (Stockholm, Sweden). The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Arctic Section is supporting a 'Planning Workshop on joint Arctic Research using the Swedish Class 1A Icebreaker Oden.' This workshop is held in collaboration with the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) and the Swedish Research Council (Formas and VR). The US delegation will be led by Drs. Patricia Matrai (Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences) and Peter Minnett (RSMAS, U. Miami), as workshop co-organizers with Dr. Caroline Leck (Stockholm U.). This workshop will bring together those with research and operational/ logistical interests in the Arctic and will discuss a baseline for establishing a new, longer-term collaborative relationship among U.S. and Swedish scientists for Oden-based research in the Arctic Ocean. 

 

Leadership, Diplomacy and Science: Resolving the Arctic Paradox" April 13-14, 2015, (Medford, MA, USA). The 4th annual Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy International Inquiry on the Warming Arctic will convene high-level decision makers from diplomatic and security circles, cutting-edge energy and science researchers, and social, environmental and business stakeholders to investigate solutions to the Arctic Paradox and promote a sustainable future for Arctic inhabitants within a "High North, Low Tension" policy framework.  Special appearance: the North American debut of the Arctic Circle Assembly's panel "Rising Stars: Young Arctic Energy Researchers".  For more information: WarmingArctic@Tufts.edu

 

Arctic States Symposium, April 17-19, 2015 (Charlottesville, VA, USA).

ARCTIC STATES, a three-day symposium at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, brings together an international consortium of leading designers and colleagues from allied disciplines to posit the role of design in the rapidly transforming region, and generate critical discussions by sharing recent work that will trace, critique and speculate on its past, present, and future.  

 

Arctic Science Summit Week, April 23-30, 2015 (Toyama, Japan). The Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) is the annual gathering of the international organizations engaged in supporting and facilitating Arctic research. The purpose of the summit is to provide opportunities for coordination, collaboration and cooperation in all areas of Arctic science. The summit attracts scientists, students, policy makers and other professionals from all over the world. 


The Polar Geography and Cryosphere, April 21-25, 2015 (Chicago, IL, USA). The Polar Geography and Cryosphere Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers will host its annual meeting in Chicago to consider: current topics in human-environment interactions; current topics in politics, resource geographies, and extractive industries; current topics in Antarctic research; advances in cryosphere research; high latitude environments in a changing climate; an mountain ice and snow.

6th Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval and Maritime Operations, July 14-16, 2015 (Washington, DC, USA). Program in development...check back soon. To see the programs from prior symposia, click here
 

2015 ESSAS Annual Science Meeting, June 15-17, 2015 (Seattle, WA, USA). This symposium, to be held at the University of Washington, is intended for interdisciplinary scholars who will be prepared to discuss their research in the sub-arctic North Atlantic, sub-arctic North Pacific, and the Arctic Ocean that bears on the issue of how changes in sea ice are likely to affect these marine ecosystems. The symposium will also consider the people who depend upon these ecosystems and how they may be able to cope with the changes in the ecosystem goods and services that are coming. These goods and services include the availability of transportation corridors, the availability of subsistence foods, and the opportunity for commercial fishing. To put the present day in a longer perspective, the symposium will include a session on the paleo-ecology of people in sub-arctic and arctic regions that were forced to adjust to changing sea-ice conditions in the past.

 
Polar Law Symposium (8th) will be held in Alaska ( Sept. 23-24, UAF; Sept. 25-26, UAA). It's sponsored by UAF, UAA (and ISER), UAA Justice Center, UW Law School. Abstracts due 3/15/15. This year's conference theme is, "The Science, Scholarship, and Practice of Polar Law: Strengthening Arctic Peoples and Places."

2015 Arctic Energy Summit, September 28-30, 2015 (Fairbanks, Alaska, USA).The Institute of the North's 2015 Arctic Energy Summit builds on our legacy efforts to address energy as a fundamental element of the sustainable development of the Arctic as a lasting frontier.Central to this concept is a focus on providing pathways for affordable energy development in the Arctic and for Arctic communities.

The Call for Presentations ends this Friday.
 
The Polar Oceans and Global Climate Change, November 3-6, 2015  (La Jolla, California USA.)  The American Polar Society will host this Symposium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  A flyer with a partial list of presenters is available on the Society's website ( americanpolar.org ) and from the Society's Membership Chairman by email.

  

11th International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP 2016), June 20-24, 2016 (Potsdam, Germany). The Alfred Wegener Institute has teamed up with UP Transfer GmbH and the University of Potsdam to organize a great conference for you, permafrost researchers. The conference aims at covering all relevant aspects of permafrost research, engineering and outreach on a global and regional level.

  

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