The Department of the Air Force released its first Arctic Strategy on July 21, 2020. Signed by the Secretary of the Air Force, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and Chief of Staff of the Space Force, the Strategy noted that the “Arctic is among the most strategically significant regions of the world today.” Over the past year, the Department of the Air Force has worked to optimize air and space capabilities throughout the Arctic region in support of Department of Defense objectives. What progress has been made? Which obstacles and opportunities have arisen? The Wilson Center’s Polar Institute will host this event to facilitate a roundtable discussion with distinguished Department of the Air Force leaders and explore paths forward in implementation of the Arctic Strategy.

Known as ‘forever’ chemicals due to the fact they do not break down in the environment, poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are used in a wide range of products and processes from fire proofing to stain resistant surfaces. The Lancaster University study has found them in the surface seawater close to melting Arctic ice floes at concentrations of up to two times higher than levels observed in the North Sea, even though the region of the Barents Sea under investigation was thousands of kilometers from populated parts of Europe.

Students will have the opportunity to explore the Arctic virtually, thanks to a partnership that includes a University of Arizona researcher. They will be able to see polar environments and learn about Permafrost using a new virtual reality teaching tool called Polar Explorer: A Virtual Learning Environment for Polar Science Education.

Raising awareness about the impacts of Arctic climate change will be among her priorities as Governor General of Canada, Mary Simon said during her installation ceremony in Ottawa on Monday. “The twin global crises of nature disruption and climate change are undoubtedly the challenge of our time,” Simon said. “For evidence, we need only look at the Arctic and what has happened this past month across the country. The devastating impacts of forest fires, prolonged fires, prolonged droughts, record heat waves.”

The eight recognized Arctic states—Canada, Denmark (via Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States—have long cooperated in the Arctic region, even when their respective interests, especially those between Russia and the United States, have clashed on other matters. They have done so because each state perceives that it benefits from the current state of cooperation, which occurs through a set of international, regional, and subregional governance mechanisms. But conditions in the Arctic are evolving—driven by such factors as climate change, economics, and geopolitics—and thus its governance mechanisms must also evolve in order to mitigate new risks before they potentially escalate into conflict. What are these risks? How should existing governance mechanisms evolve to mitigate those risks? In this report, researchers propose and implement an adaptive, four-stage approach to identify potential Arctic conflict catalysts; determine, confirm, and prioritize the catalysts that cannot be solved through existing Arctic governance mechanisms; and identify potential governance mechanisms that can evolve to mitigate identified risks. 

The westward journey of the mighty Yukon River takes it from its headwaters in Canada’s British Columbia straight across Alaska. The river has many stories to tell, of generations of Indigenous people hunting on its banks and fishing in its waters, of paddle-wheeled boats and gold panning and pipelines. Where it meets the Bering Sea, the river fans out into an intricate delta resembling cauliflower lobes of river channels and ponds. The delta has a story to tell, too — that of an increasingly green Arctic.

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.