US Arctic Research Commission
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July 25, 2011

Today's Eventstodaysevents 

 

 

The House is in session to consider several legislative provisions including the Interior-Environment Appropriations bill. The Senate will consider a judicial nomination. Behind the scenes, House and Senate leaders continue negotiations with the President on increasing the debt limit. 

 

Holocene Glacier Variability from the Tropics to the Poles, July 20-27, 2011. Glaciers respond sensitively to climate change. Recent (Holocene) glacier fluctuations are a valuable proxy for terrestrial interglacial paleoclimate conditions. A main challenge for interpreting paleoclimate from past mountain glacier extents is distinguishing local and regional patterns from global signals. Reconstructing Holocene glacier extents involves many disciplines including terrestrial and marine geology, geochronology and glaciology. Organizers hope to facilitate an inter-hemispheric comparison of glacier records including locations in the Tropics, European Alps, American Cordillera, Southern Alps of New Zealand, Himalaya and Polar Regions and to identify future research questions and directions. For additional information contact: Meredith Kelly.

 


Media Reviewtodaysevents    

 

 

The Week Ahead: Chambers Crafting Separate Debt Deals. House Republicans and Senate Democrats are crafting individual proposals on how to deal with the debt limit as Congress enters its last full week of negotiations before the Aug. 2nd deadline. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) plans to have a proposal ready for Monday's 2 p.m. GOP conference meeting, leadership aides told The Hill this weekend. The legislative text would be posted Monday night, which could set up a vote on a yet-to-be-seen proposal by Wednesday. The Hill  

 

Appropriations This Week. The Interior-Environment Appropriations bill will be considered in the House. Democrats are expected to target dozens of Republican policy riders currently in the bill. The State-Foreign Operations bill will be marked up by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations. Appropriators are expected to cut the spending by 18% over last year's level. Congressional Quarterly

 

Toxins Locked in Arctic Deep Freeze Released by Melting Ice. Environmentresearch on ice Canada sleuths have found that toxins such as PCBs that have been locked in an Arctic deep freeze are being "remobilized" as the climate warms. In a report published Sunday, they say that persistent organic pollutants, known as POPs, which were banned decades ago, are being released in the Arctic as sea ice retreats and temperatures rise. Vancouver Sun

 

Godfather of Polar Bear Science: Renowned Edmonton Research Ian Stirling has written a reference book and memoir that laments the threat facing the majestic creature. Edmonton scientist Ian Stirling's new book on polar bears wasn't even in bookstores this summer when a venerable American wildlife magazine posted a gushing review. "A delight to view and to read," wrote biologist Sterling Miller, who noted in his National Wildlife review that he's long benefited from similarities in their names. Describing Stirling as the "Godfather" of polar bear science, Miller couldn't say enough good things about the book and about Stirling. Edmonton Journal

 

Why Indigenous Peoples Need to be Heard in the Global Debate on the Arctic.inuit children Alona Yefimenko is descended from Chukchi and Even reindeer herders in Ayanka, Kamchatka, Russia. National Geographic met up with her earlier this summer in Iceland, where she participated in the Seventh International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS VII), organized by the International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA). More than 400 delegates gathered for ICASS VII, between them presenting some 300 papers and joining the discussions in dozens of workshops. The National Geographic recently published a video of Yefimenko explaining her role as representative of the Indigenous Peoples' Secretariat of the Arctic Council, and how Arctic indigenous peoples are participating in international forums to talk about not only their issues of concern, but also their language, culture, health, and traditional knowledge. National Geographic

 

EPA Releases 2 Draft Air Quality Permits for Offshore Projects. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released draft air quality permits necessary for exploratory drilling projects in Alaska's Arctic waters to proceed. On Friday, the agency released for public comment permits for drilling work proposed by Shell Oil Co., in the Beaufort Sea, and for Conoco Phillips Co., in the Chukchi Sea. Permits are needed for the drill rigs and fleets of supporting icebreakers, oil response vessels and supply ships in the Arctic for the 2012 drilling season, in the case of Shell, and 2013 for Conoco Phillips. Anchorage Daily News

 

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

No Arctic legislation was formally considered yesterday.

Future Events                    

      

13th Arctic Ungulates Conference (AUC), August 22-26, 2011. The theme of the conference will be "Challenges of Managing Northern Ungulates." The theme addresses the difficulties of managing ungulate populations that are faced with the unpredictable effects of climate change and an ever-increasing human presence on the land. The conference will also focus on the challenges associated with developing recovery actions for declining caribou and reindeer populations that are an integral part of Aboriginal cultures and ways of life.

 

9th International Symposium on Permafrost Engineering, September 3-7, 2011. The Melnikov Permafrost Institute (Yakutsk, Russia), the Institute of Northern Mining (Yakutsk, Russia), the Cold and Arid Regions Engineering and Environmental Research Institute (Lanzhou, China), and the Heilongjiang Institute of Cold Region Engineering (Harbin, China) will host the Ninth International Symposium on Permafrost Engineering to be held in Mirny, Yakutia. The aim of the Symposium is to provide a forum for discussion of permafrost engineering issues, as well as for exchanging practical experience in construction and maintenance of engineering structures on frozen ground. For additional information, please contact Lilia Prokopieva. 

 

Northern Research Forum 6th Open Assembly, September 4-6, 2011."Our Ice Dependent World," organized by the Northern Research Forum and its partners as the Northern Research Forum 6th Open Assembly, will be hosted by the University of Akureyri in the town of Hveragerđi, Iceland. Addressing the three 'poles' - the Arctic, the Antarctic and the Himalayan region- the sub-themes represent different  perspectives for viewing the subject of natural ice and evaluating its importance.  The event will consider implications of ice melt on humanity, communities, minds, perceptions and knowledge on ice; International law, 'soft law' and governance on ice.

 

4th International Sea Duck Conference, seaduckconferencelogoSeptember 12-16, 2011. The Sea Duck Joint Venture has helped sponsor a North American Sea Duck Conference once every three years since 2002. These conferences provide opportunities for researchers and managers to share information and research results, conduct workshops on specific issues, and to hold related meetings. The 4th conference will officially be an international conference and will be held in Seward, Alaska, 12-16 September, 2011, with participants from the U.S., Canada, Russia and Europe, focusing on sea ducks in the North and the Arctic. It will be held at the Windsong Lodge, with three days of presentations and workshops, and there will be a chartered boat trip the last day into the Kenai Fjords to watch sea ducks. Registration is available on the website for the conference and the excursion.

 

Lowell Wakefield International Fisheries Symposium, September 14-17, 2011.The 27th Lowell Wakefield International Fisheries Symposium, entitled "Fishing People of the North: Cultures, Economies, and Management Responding to Change," will be held in Anchorage, Alaska. This international symposium will provide a forum for scholars, fishery managers, fishing families, and others to explore the human dimensions of fishery systems and growing need to include social science research in policy processes. The conference is part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Sea Grant program.    

 

Advanced Workshop on Oil Spills In Sea Ice: Past, Present and Future Fermo

September 20-23, 2011. A technical workshop, organized by Dr. Peter Wadhams, on the physical problems associated with oil spills and blowouts in sea ice will be held at the Istituto Geografico Polare "Silvio Zavatti," Fermo, Italy. Scientists, engineers and policy makers are invited to address the questions of how oil is emitted from a blowout or spill, how the oil and gas are incorporated in the under-ice surface, how the oil layer evolves, how the oil is transported by the ice, and how and where eventual release occurs. The aim is to incorporate the experience of those scientists who worked in this field in the 1970s-1990s, when large-scale field experiments involving oil release were possible, and to relate this to the needs of present researchers who are seeking solutions to the problem of a sustainable Arctic oil spill management system. Registration forms are available here

 

Murmansk Arctic Forum, October 1-2, 2011.  Hosted by the Russian Geographic Society, the forum will host discussion on Arctic navigation, development of the Northern Sea Route, railway extensions, and construction of a deep-water port in Arkhangelsk.  The official website is in Russian.

 

The Arctic in Transition: Regional Issues and Geopolitics, October 3-4, 2011. The conference is organized by the Center for Geopolitical Studies of the Raoul Dandurand Chair, in collaboration with the Centre Jacques Cartier (France), ArcticNet (Universite Laval, Quebec), and the Northern Research Forum (University of the Arctic; University of Lapland, Finland). This high-level international meeting reunites political scientists, lawyers, geographers, historians and practitioners to discuss, first, the socio-economic, political and security issues of developed or developing Arctic regions, and, second, to look at the evolving relationships between these spaces, their peoples, and global affairs. The meeting mainly seeks to adress security issue(s) of the various region(s) that make up the circumpolar world. Three Arctic regions will be highlighted: a) the North-American Arctic (United States (Alaska); Canada (Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavut, Nunavik) and Greenland; b) the North Pacific Rim (Alaska, Russian Far East, Beaufort Sea/Chukchi); c) the Barents Euro-Arctic Region (Nordic countries - Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland - and Russia).

 

The Tenth International Conference on Permafrost, June 2012. The conference will be held in Tyumen, Russia, and is organized and hosted by Russia. The last conference was held in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2008. Details to follow.   

 

15th International Congress on Circumpolar Heath, August 5-10, 2012. This kivalina girlevent is sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Society for Circumpolar Health, and the International Union for Circumpolar Health.  The forum will consider community participatory research and indigenous research; women's health, family health, and well-being; food security and nutrition; social determinants of health; environmental and occupational health; infectious and chronic diseases; climate change-health impacts; health service delivery and infrastructure; and, behavioral health.

   

Arctic/Inuit/Connections: Learning from the Top of the World, October 24-28, 2012.  The 18th Inuit Studies Conference, hosted by the Smithsonian Institution, will be held in Washington, DC. The conference will consider heritage museums and the North; globalization: an Arctic story; power, governance and politics in the North; the '"new" Arctic: social, cultural and climate change; and Inuit education, health, language, and literature. For more information, please email Lauren Marr.

 

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