Record-high temperatures from Canada to Scandinavia and intense wildfires flaring up from California to Russia’s Far East are adding to extreme weather events recorded at the start of the summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Temperatures in several towns in the north of the Nordic peninsula reached record highs over the weekend, according to local meteorological agencies. At the same time, unusual smoke and heat intensity from blazes in eastern Russia, the western U.S. and British Columbia are being monitored by Europe’s Copernicus agency.

In the Arctic, where global warming is progressing at the fastest rate on Earth, there has been a decline in sea ice in recent years. This has led to an increasing usage of Arctic Ocean shipping routes and increased exploitation of underground resources. The United States, Russia, and China are engaged in an intense battle for control as they attempt to secure their interests. In response, Japan has devised a strategy to exert influence using its greatest asset — scientific capability.

The ecology damage level in the Murmansk Region has shrunk over recent two years, Governor Andrei Chibis said on Monday. "We have a big industrial sector. <…> It is most important to have old industrial facilities, which do not answer modern requirements, upgraded," he said during a presentation of the Clean Arctic project at the Public Chamber. "Over only two recent years we have cut greatly the ecology damage, when jointly with Nornickel we shut down the smelting shop, which had caused ecology damage since the 1930s."

Conducting science in polar regions is no easy feat. Researchers often spend years planning fieldwork, acquiring funding and permits, and recruiting resources and staff members, including boats and experienced helicopter pilots. Even when a plan is in place, extreme weather frequently prevents them from accessing their field sites.

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 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.