“The United States is an Arctic nation because of Alaska, and it is more important than ever that the United States is well-positioned to maintain security and stability in the region. This starts with strong leadership, which is why we need a U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Arctic Affairs.” The comment was made in a recent press release by Congressman Don Young (R) who, along with Rick Larsen (D-WA), Brian Mast (R-FL), and Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to establish a permanent United States Ambassador-at-Large for Arctic Affairs.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has reaffirmed its commitment to data archiving and sharing in the Arctic by investing $6 million to continue funding of the Arctic Data Center for another five years. This partnership, led by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at UC Santa Barbara, preserves and curates Arctic research data as well as other related research products such as media, documents, software and metadata.

Key stakeholders have decided to freeze the construction of the Arctic Connect subsea fiber cable, Finnish company Cinia Alliance states in a press release. In collaboration with Russian telecom operator MegaFon, Cinia has been working on the development phase for the communication line project. “Arctic Connect is a real international opportunity and Cinia clearly foresee the increasing need for additional capacity and route diversity between Europe and Asia in international telecom networks.

ADAC will conduct the Center's Program Year 7 Annual meeting to focus on U.S. Coast Guard Project Champions, key stakeholders and the community of Arctic science and technology researchers. Included in the Program Year 7 Annual meeting are planned guest speakers from HQ U.S. Coast Guard, DHS S&T and senior Arctic Research leadership in Washington D.C.

IARPC has released a draft of the next five-year Arctic Research Plan, which will span from 2022-2026. We are now asking the public to comment on the draft plan by June 11, 2021. To provide additional information about the draft plan contents and development, the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee is hosting a series of one-hour information sessions.

Join IARPC on Thursday, June 3 at 9am AKT / 1pm ET for a webinar with Dr. Sarah Aarons, Assistant Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Aarons will provide a brief introduction to the historical context of colonialism in the Arctic, focused on Alaska, and its relationship to climate change impacts on Arctic Indigenous Peoples. For researchers working in the Arctic, this webinar will provide insight into the ways that relationships, resource extraction, compensation, and infrastructure building have been predominantly one-sided, and how climate change is now impacting Indigenous communities.

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.