The House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies will markup the Fiscal Year 2022 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee Appropriations Bill.

The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) has formally commissioned its first Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS), HMCS Harry DeWolf, the first vessel delivered under Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy. The Harry DeWolf-class is intended to bolster the RCN’s presence in the Arctic and increase its ability to operate globally. Specifically designed to patrol Canada’s northernmost regions and offshore waters, the class is at the core of Canada's plans for an enhanced Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Arctic presence.

An international agreement temporarily prohibiting commercial fishing in the international waters of the Central Arctic Ocean took effect on Friday. Ten signatories, including Arctic and non-Arctic nations as well as the European Union, vowed not to fish commercially in the region until the ecosystem is better understood and sustainable regulations are in place. The treaty will remain in force for 16 years, with options to extend it every five years.

As the Arctic warms, plants will sprout and flower earlier and hold their leaves longer, expanding the growing season. That is the consistent pattern emerging from experimental sites around the Arctic and at high-altitude sites well south of the Arctic and detailed in a new study published in the journal Nature Communications. The sites, ranging geographically from High Arctic tundra to high-altitude points in the Rocky Mountains and Alps, give some clues to ecosystems of the future.

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.

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.