Even though modern ice charts are made, to a large extent, using advanced satellite imagery, the process of actually compiling them still requires a human touch: All those pictures beamed back to Earth must be analyzed by meteorologists, and the charts that mariners will eventually use must be drawn up manually. The process can be time consuming, and, in the between the time the image was received and the time it winds up in the hands of a mariner, the conditions at sea may have changed, with ice either diminishing or appearing in areas where it wasn’t previously.

In a rapidly changing Arctic, one area might serve as a refuge -- a place that could continue to harbor ice-dependent wildlife when conditions in nearby areas become inhospitable. This region north of Greenland and the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago has been termed the "Last Ice Area." Research led by the University of Washington suggests that parts of the area are already showing a decline in summer sea ice. Last August, sea ice north of Greenland was vulnerable to the long-term effects of climate change, according to a US National Science Foundation -funded study published in Communications Earth & Environment.

Wargames have become one of the Air Force’s key tools for implementing its year-old Arctic Strategy, with four separate series — each “with a different flavor” — being used to test new concepts and technology, says Lt. Gen. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements. “We had been spending a lot of wargaming bandwidth on countering Great Powers, specifically in Europe and in the Asia Pacific. And one of the things that we felt like we did not understand as well [was] how that competition would spill over into the Arctic; how our competitors could use the Arctic in a way of doing something strategically bad for the United States and for our allies and partners,” Hinote explained during a panel sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute.

The Sukachev Institute of Forest (the Krasnoyarsk scientific center of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch) offers new methods to assess emissions of carbon and greenhouse gases in wildfires in Siberia, including in the Arctic zone, the institute’s representative Evgeny Ponomarev told TASS. The assessment of direct emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in wildfires is used to estimate carbon’s balance in forests.

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 European Commission and the European External Action Service will organize a high-level EU Arctic Forum and the Annual Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Dialogue. The EU Arctic Forum will bring together key Arctic players and stakeholders to assess recent developments in the region and discuss challenges ahead. The event will provide a strategic outlook for the updated EU Arctic policy and delve into topics that are of particular significance for the Arctic’s inhabitants.

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.