Today's Events 

The Senate is in session to consider a judicial nomination and surface transportation legislation. The House will consider a shale oil bill. 

Media 

The longest non-stop migratory flight. Early on Bob Gill, Research Wildlife Biologist with the U.S. Geographic Survey in Alaska (USGS), thought Bar-tailed Godwits' journey from Alaska to New Zealand was a non-stop flight. Faced with skepticism from his colleagues, but armed with satellite technology, Gill tagged a female Godwit he named E-7.  By tracking E-7 in 2007, Gill was able to prove that Godwits are airborne from Alaska to New Zealand for a week or more-the longest non-stop migratory flight for any bird. Frontier Scientists  

Will Increased Arctic Shipping Traffic be Harmful to Whales? New research suggests that increased shipping in the North could pose a serious threat to whales. Scientists in the United States found that underwater noise from ships can cause stress in whales. It's believed that stress makes them more susceptible to disease and less likely to reproduce. Researcher Scott Kraus of the New England Aquarium was studying whales in the Bay of Fundy on Sept. 11, 2001. On that day, planes and ship traffic in the Eastern Seabord area ground to a halt as the United States government responded to the terror attacks on New York City. "There was nothing, nobody else out there. And there was no shipping traffic," he said. Alaska Dispatch  

Unmanned Aerial Drones the Future of Arctic Reconnaissance? Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, often referred to as "drones," don't get a lot of good press. Usually, when a drone makes the news, it's just completed an airstrike somewhere across the world, likely in the Middle East, taking out a structure thought to contain Al Qaeda militants. But there's a softer, friendlier side to UAVs  -- they're not all the terrifying, death-from-above variety popularized in media. UAVs, thanks to their small size and ability to be controlled remotely, have been finding their niche doing jobs that are too messy, dangerous, or downright impossible for manned aircraft to perform. Alaska Dispatch 

How Arctic Oscillation Contributed to Weird US Winter. Last year, many scientists blamed the winter storms that blasted the Northeastern United States and Europe on the negative mode of a weather pattern called the Arctic Oscillation. This winter, the Arctic Oscillation started out in the opposite mode, which scientists connect to the warmer-than-average temperatures and unusually low snowfall over much of the U.S. The swings of the Arctic Oscillation also help control how sea ice moves in the Arctic Ocean, which is of great interest to climate scientists. Readers often write in to ask us about this powerful but mysterious climate phenomenon, and how it affects weather where they live. What is the Arctic Oscillation, and how does it affect Arctic sea ice and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere? Alaska Dispatch  

Cuts at Environment Canada Puts Treaties in Jeopardy. A group of American scientists fear that recent job cuts at Environment Canada are curtailing research into the ozone layer and atmospheric pollution - and are also keeping Canada from meeting its international monitoring commitments. The scientists, who work at US universities and NASA, published their commentary in the current issue of EOS. By losing these "gold standard" monitoring programs, "the world stands to lose an enormous amount of data necessary for our understanding of the environment," they said in a press release.  "It is unthinkable that data collection is beginning to shut down," said co-author Anne Thompson, a meteorologist at the Pennsylvania State University in State College. Nature 

Legislative Action  

No Arctic legislation was considered yesterday.

Future Events                                   

Arctic Workshop, March 7-9, 2012. The Workshop is hosted by the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. The meeting is open to all interested in the Arctic, and will consist of a series of talks and poster sessions covering all aspects of high-latitude environments. Previous Arctic Workshops have included presentations on arctic and antarctic climate, archeology, environmental geochemistry, geomorphology, hydrology, glaciology, soils, ecology, oceanography, Quaternary history, and more. A traditional strength of the Workshop has been Arctic paleoenvironments. Click here. 

Arctic Science Summit Week 2012, April 20-22, 2012. The summit will provide opportunities for international coordination, collaboration, and cooperation in all areas of arctic science. Side meetings organized by stakeholders in arctic science and policy are also expected. More information here. 

From Knowledge to Action, April 22-27, 2012. The conference will bring together over 2,000 arctic and antarctic researchers, policy and decision-makers, and a broad range of interested parties from academia, industry, non-government, education and circumpolar communities including indigenous peoples. The conference is hosted by the Canadian IPY Program Office, in partnership with the National Research Council of Canada, among other groups. Each day of the conference will feature a program of keynote speakers, plenary panel discussions, parallel science sessions, as well as dedicated poster sessions. The conference-wide plenaries will explore themes related to topics of polar change, global linkages, communities and health, ecosystem services, infrastructure, resources and security. Other sessions will provide the opportunity to present and discuss the application of research findings, policy implications and how to take polar knowledge to action. Click here. 

USARC Commission Meeting, April 27-28, 2012. The 97th meeting of the USARC will be held in Montreal, Canada, in conjunction with the "From Knowledge to  

Action" IPY meeting referred to above. The Commission will meet on April 27-28, and will meet jointly with the Canadian Polar Commission on the afternoon of the 27th, to discuss common interests in Arctic Research. Details to follow. 

Arctic Forum 2012, April 30-May 1, 2012. The Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. will host the forum in conjunction with their 24th annual meeting. Both events will be in Washington, D.C. The Arctic Forum is part of the American Geophysical Union's Science Policy Conference, which will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. The Conference will focus on the science that helps inform policymakers' decisions. Within the Science Policy Conference, the Arctic Forum will assess gaps and priority needs for arctic scientific information to inform decision makers in policy

formation for three key themes:

                - Governance and Security in the Arctic;

                - Transportation and Energy Development; and

                - Changing Arctic Ecosystems.

The Forum will examine the current state of policymaker and public understanding of the issues. An important goal will be to foster an increased capacity for dialogue and action on arctic science-policy issues.

American Polar Society 75th Anniversary Meeting and Symposium, "The Polar Regions in the 21st Century: Globalization, Climate Change and Geopolitics", May 2-4, 2012, The Explorers Club, NYC. For 75 years, the American Polar Society has both documented and communicated polar activities to the interested world. This meeting will bring together the current leaders in science, government, commerce, and diplomacy for a state-of-the-art forecast of the next seventy-five years in a world influenced more than ever before by the destiny of the Arctic and Antarctic. Click here.  

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. Click here.  

15th International Congress on Circumpolar Health, August 5-10, 2012. This event 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. Click here. 

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, click here.