Arctic Update Header
October 24, 2012

Today's Eventstodaysevents 

    

The House and Senate are not in session. 

 

inuitconferencelogoArctic/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.  

MediaMedia 

  

antifreeze fish100th Council Meeting Explores ICES Role in the Arctic. During the two-day meeting the ICES Council will discuss new initiatives including sustainable aquaculture. A special session will be held to explore how ICES can contribute to current and future research activities in Arctic waters. The Council will also consider how ICES can support its member countries in implementing the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), and how ICES can become involved with integrated ecosystem monitoring proposals. The Action Plan for the EU Maritime Strategy for the Atlantic Ocean is also on the agenda. World Fishing & Aquaculture

 

NOAANOAA, National Archives Team Up With Citizen-Scientists to Reconstruct Historical Climate of the Arctic. Before there were satellites, weather data transmitters, or computer databases, there were the ship's logs of Arctic sea voyages, where sailors dutifully recording weather observations. Now, a new crowdsourcing effort could soon make the weather data from these ship logs, some more than 150 years old, available to climate scientists worldwide. NOAA, National Archives and Records Administration, Zooniverse - a citizen science web portal - and other partners are seeking volunteers to transcribe a newly digitized set of ship logs dating to 1850. The ship logs, preserved by NARA, are from U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Revenue Cutter voyages in the Arctic between 1850 and the World War II era. NOAA 

  

Arctic Ocean Pollution Double in 10 Years. The seabed in the arctic deep ocean is increasingly strewn with litter and plastic waste, a German researcher says, with twice as much debris as ten years ago. Marine biologist Melanie Bergmann of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven examined some 2,100 seafloor photographs taken near a deep-sea observatory in the arctic's eastern Fram Strait between Greenland and the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. UPI

 

NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries Preserving and Protecting Oceans' Natural Treasures. For 40 years, NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary System has preserved and protected some of the most spectacular and treasured resources in the world's oceans. The system, consisting of a network of underwater parks consisting of more than 150,000 square miles of America's oceans, includes beautiful coral reefs, lush kelp forests, whale migration routes and underwater archaeological sites. "Over the past four decades, NOAA's sanctuaries have protected our Nation's most vital and iconic coastal marine resources so that future generations can enjoy and learn from them," said Daniel J. Basta, director of NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. "Through active research, management and public engagement, sanctuaries sustain healthy environments that are the foundation for thriving communities and stable economies." NOAA

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

No Arctic legislation was formally considered yesterday.

Future Events                      

   

 

Climate Change: The Arctic as an Emerging Market, October 29, 2012. As part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Science and Society: Global Challenges series, Jed Hamilton, senior Arctic consultant with Exxon Mobil; Dr. Julieanne Stroeve of the National Snow and Ice Date Center; and Dr. John Farrell of the US Arctic Research Commission will discuss the Arctic as an emerging market.

  

Foreign Policy Panel Debate: "Is the Law of the Sea Treaty in the United States' Best Interests?" October 30, 2012. The American Academy of Diplomacy and the World Affairs Council cosponsor a panel discussion on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.  

 

U.S.-Canada Northern Oil and Gas Research Forum (2012) Northern Oil and Gas Research Forum 2012, November 13-15, 2012. The Northern Oil and Gas Research Forum is a biannual event with representation from government, industry, academia, Aboriginal groups, and northerners from both Canada and the United States. The forum provides an opportunity for United States and Canadian decision makers, regulators, Aboriginals, industry members, non-governmental organizations and scientists to discuss current scientific research and future directions for northern oil and gas activities. The focus is on technical, scientific, and engineering research that can be applied to support management and regulatory processes related to oil and gas exploration and development in the North. The North Slope Science Initiative and the U.S. Department of the Interior is hosting, in partnership with our counterparts in Canada and the United States, the third United States - Canada Northern Oil and Gas Research Forum from November 13 to 15, 2012, at the Hilton Hotel, Anchorage, Alaska. The Forum will showcase the value of Northern scientific research in support of sound decision-making for oil and gas management. 

 

Arctic Transportation Infrastructure: Response Capacity and Sustainable Development in the Arctic, December 3-6, 2012. The Arctic Council's Sustainable Development Working Group approved a project during the Swedish Chairmanship (co-led by the United States and Iceland) to assess transportation infrastructure. The Arctic Marine and Aviation Transportation Infrastructure Initiative (AMATII) seeks to evaluate Northern infrastructure -ports, airports, and response capability - by inventorying maritime and aviation assets in the Arctic. As part of this project, the Institute of the North is hosting an Arctic transportation infrastructure conference 3-6 December at the Icelandair Hotel Natura in Reykjavik, Iceland. The conference theme is "Response Capacity and Sustainable Development in the Arctic." Participants will include policy makers and government officials; aviation and marine subject matter experts from the private, public, independent and academic sectors; as well as community leaders and Permanent Participants.

 

Wakefield28th Wakefield Symposium: Responses of Arctic Marine Ecosystems to Climate Change, March 26-29, 2013. This symposium seeks to advance our understanding of responses of arctic marine ecosystems to climate change at all trophic levels, by documenting and forecasting changes in environmental processes

and species responses to those changes. Presentations will focus on collaborative approaches to understanding and managing living marine resources in a changing Arctic, and to managing human responses to changing arctic marine ecosystems. Hosted by Alaska Sea Grant and sponsors.

 

International Conference on Arctic Ocean Acidification, May 6-8, 2013. The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), the Institute of Marine Research, the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, and the University of British Columbia, Canada, host a conference to consider Arctic Ocean acidification. Topics will include response of Arctic Ocean to increasing CO2 and related changes in the global carbon cycle, social and policy challenges, Arctic Ocean acidification and ecological and biogeochemical coupling, implications of changing Arctic Ocean acidification for northern (commercial and subsistence) fisheries, and future developments.

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