Arctic Update Header
March 17, 2015

  

capitalToday's Congressional Action:  

The House and Senate are in session. The Senate is not expected to consider Arctic legislation. The House is expected to consider a number of legislative items including H.R. 1029 - EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2015, Rules Committee Print (Structured Rule) (Sponsored by Rep. Frank Lucas / Science, Space, and Technology Committee).

 

Media  

 

Supply Barge Adrift in Arctic for Months. A Canadian company's supply barge which has been floating loose around the Arctic since last October is now just off Russia's northeast coast after drifting from the Northwest Territories across the Yukon coast, across the Alaska coast and now near the Russian coast. The barge is owned by Northern Transportation Company Ltd. (NTCL) and was on its way back to Tuktoyaktuk, in the Northwest Territories after delivering supplies to a remote site along the coast when it broke its tow under unexpectedly heavy seas that featured 13-foot waves and 43-mile-an-hour winds. Alaska Dispatch News

 

A Fearless Fight Against Historical Trauma, the Yup'ik Way. They were building the young man's coffin in the front yard when we arrived. Portable construction lights harshly illuminated the scene as men worked in the shadowy dawn that lasts almost until noon out here on the tundra. The men worked steadily and quietly in a manner that suggested front-yard coffin construction was a routine task. I soon learned that it was. We arrived about 30 minutes earlier via a shaky nine-seat bush plane, the only way in and out of most villages here on the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta east of Bethel, Alaska. There are over 50 Yup'ik villages on this great frozen sponge of a place, where the great flat expanse of land leading to the Bering Sea is actually just permafrost and thus, constantly shifting. Indian Country

 

Murmansk, Russia: Transport Hub Trouble, Again. The development of the Murmansk Transport Hub might be in jeopardy as costs swell and a key private investor seeks way out of the project. The company Kuzbassrazrezugol (KRU) planned to construct a coal terminal with an 18 million-ton capacity on the western shore of the Kola Bay. But now the company is reconsidering. According to sources close to company owners Iskandar Makhmud and Andrey Bokarev, the current economic situation in the country has made the project unprofitable. Alaska Dispatch News

 

ING Robotic Aviation Tests UAV Ice Monitoring in the Arctic. Navigating ice-covered waters isn't an easy task. Even ice-breaking cargo ships like Fednav's MV Arctic can end up stuck for days at a time as the captain tries to find a way around the built-up ice blocking the ship's path. The trick is finding open spaces in the ice, either through satellite-based solutions or spotlights that help these captains see their way through the ice at night. Companies like Enfotec provide ice prediction and ice plotting to help these cargo ships navigate through the Arctic, but imagine how much easier that job would be if they could provide a view from the sky. Inside Unmanned Systems

 

New Rules for Alaska's Aleutian Island. IMO has approved protective buffer zones ("Areas to be Avoided") around Alaska's Aleutian Islands, approximately ten years after a massive shipping disaster occurred off its coasts. In December 2004, the M/V Selendang Ayu foundered off the Aleutians amidst severe weather and was blown to shore, eventually breaking into two pieces. The accident caused more than 300,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil to spill into pristine marine waters and resulted in the deaths of six crew members. The Maritime Executive

 

Subsistence Mapping Project Nears Completion. After four years, nearly $2 million, and countless hours of interviews, field studies and research, the Northwest Arctic Borough's Subsistence Mapping Project is nearly ready for unveiling. The project will produce a nearly 600-page atlas documenting subsistence-use areas (where people hunt, fish and gather by season) and important ecological areas (places where animals feed, breed, raise young and migrate) in seven of the region's coastal communities -- Kivalina, Noatak, Selawik, Noorvik, Deering, Buckland and Kotzebue. Alaska Dispatch News

 

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

No Arctic legislation was formally considered yesterday.

Future Events

 

Polar Shelves and Shelf Break Exchange in Times of Rapid Climate Warming, March 15-20, 2015 (Lucca, Italy). The GRCs provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies. The guiding principle of a GRC is to encourage communication and discussion of ideas and new unpublished results at the very frontier of a particular field of research, by bringing together outstanding scientists from academia, industry, and government, ranging from senior experts to Ph.D. students. With the increasing impacts of reduced sea ice and warming seawater conditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic, this conference can act as a forum for potentially transformative discussions for interdisciplinary, international and compare/contrast evaluation of polar sciences. In addition, the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) will precede the GRC to provide a forum for graduate students and post-docs to present and exchange new data and cutting edge ideas with experts in the different polar fields of science.

  

Coast and Ocean Film Festival, March 28, 2015 (Anchorage, Alaska, USA) In celebration of its 10th Anniversary, the Alaska Ocean Observing System and Alaska Geographic are co-hosting a Coast & Ocean Film Festival at the Bear Tooth on Saturday, March 28th!  The festival will showcase fantastic short films that highlight an array of ocean-related topics. This event promotes ocean conservation, raises awareness about issues facing marine habitats, and celebrates Alaska's unique coast and ocean environments!

 

Sweden-U.S. Planning Workshop on Joint Arctic Research Using the I/B Oden, March 30- April 1, 2015 (Stockholm, Sweden). The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Arctic Section is supporting a 'Planning Workshop on joint Arctic Research using the Swedish Class 1A. Icebreaker Oden.' This workshop 
is held in collaboration with the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) and the Swedish Research Council (Formas and VR). The US delegation will be led by Drs. Patricia Matrai (Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences) and Peter Minnett (RSMAS, U. Miami), as workshop co-organizers with Dr. Caroline Leck (Stockholm U.). This workshop will bring together those with research and operational/ logistical interests in the Arctic and will discuss a baseline for establishing a new, longer-term collaborative relationship among U.S. and Swedish scientists for Oden-based research in the Arctic Ocean. 

 

Leadership, Diplomacy and Science: Resolving the Arctic Paradox" April 13-14, 2015, (Medford, MA, USA). The 4th annual Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy International Inquiry on the Warming Arctic will convene high-level decision makers from diplomatic and security circles, cutting-edge energy and science researchers, and social, environmental and business stakeholders to investigate solutions to the Arctic Paradox and promote a sustainable future for Arctic inhabitants within a "High North, Low Tension" policy framework.  Special appearance: the North American debut of the Arctic Circle Assembly's panel "Rising Stars: Young Arctic Energy Researchers".  For more information: WarmingArctic@Tufts.edu

 

Arctic States Symposium, April 17-19, 2015 (Charlottesville, VA, USA).

ARCTIC STATES, a three-day symposium at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, brings together an international consortium of leading designers and colleagues from allied disciplines to posit the role of design in the rapidly transforming region, and generate critical discussions by sharing recent work that will trace, critique and speculate on its past, present, and future. 

 

Arctic Science Summit Week, April 23-30, 2015 (Toyama, Japan). The Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) is the annual gathering of the international organizations engaged in supporting and facilitating Arctic research. The purpose of the summit is to provide opportunities for coordination, collaboration and cooperation in all areas of Arctic science. The summit attracts scientists, students, policy makers and other professionals from all over the world. 


The Polar Geography and Cryosphere, April 21-25, 2015 (Chicago, IL, USA). The Polar Geography and Cryosphere Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers will host its annual meeting in Chicago to consider: current topics in human-environment interactions; current topics in politics, resource geographies, and extractive industries; current topics in Antarctic research; advances in cryosphere research; high latitude environments in a changing climate; an mountain ice and snow.
 

The European Union and Arctic (2015 EU-Arctic Conference), May 29, 2015 (Dundee, UK). The School of Law, University of Dundee, UK and the K. G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea, University of Tromsų, Norway are pleased to announce the registration open for "The European Union and the Arctic" (2015 EU-Arctic Conference). This conference will bring together academics and practitioners from relevant disciplines such as international law, international relations, political science and marine biology, NGOs, representatives from EU institutions and international organizations to discuss the EU's potential contribution to enhance Arctic governance. A roadmap for increasing the effectiveness of the EU's action in the Arctic will be drawn at the end of the conference.

 

6th Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval and Maritime Operations, July 14-16, 2015 (Washington, DC, USA). Program in development...check back soon. To see the programs from prior symposia, click here
 

2015 ESSAS Annual Science Meeting, June 15-17, 2015 (Seattle, WA, USA). This symposium, to be held at the University of Washington, is intended for interdisciplinary scholars who will be prepared to discuss their research in the sub-arctic North Atlantic, sub-arctic North Pacific, and the Arctic Ocean that bears on the issue of how changes in sea ice are likely to affect these marine ecosystems. The symposium will also consider the people who depend upon these ecosystems and how they may be able to cope with the changes in the ecosystem goods and services that are coming. These goods and services include the availability of transportation corridors, the availability of subsistence foods, and the opportunity for commercial fishing. To put the present day in a longer perspective, the symposium will include a session on the paleo-ecology of people in sub-arctic and arctic regions that were forced to adjust to changing sea-ice conditions in the past.

 
Polar Law Symposium (8th) will be held in Alaska (Sept. 23-24, UAF; Sept. 25-26, UAA). It's sponsored by UAF, UAA (and ISER), UAA Justice Center, UW Law School. Abstracts due 3/15/15. This year's conference theme is, "The Science, Scholarship, and Practice of Polar Law: Strengthening Arctic Peoples and Places."

2015 Arctic Energy Summit, September 28-30, 2015 (Fairbanks, Alaska, USA).The Institute of the North's 2015 Arctic Energy Summit builds on our legacy efforts to address energy as a fundamental element of the sustainable development of the Arctic as a lasting frontier.Central to this concept is a focus on providing pathways for affordable energy development in the Arctic and for Arctic communities.

The Call for Presentations ends this Friday.
 
The Polar Oceans and Global Climate Change, November 3-6, 2015 (La Jolla, California USA.)  The American Polar Society will host this Symposium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  A flyer with a partial list of presenters is available on the Society's website (americanpolar.org) and from the Society's Membership Chairman by email.

  

11th International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP 2016), June 20-24, 2016 (Potsdam, Germany). The Alfred Wegener Institute has teamed up with UP Transfer GmbH and the University of Potsdam to organize a great conference for you, permafrost researchers. The conference aims at covering all relevant aspects of permafrost research, engineering and outreach on a global and regional level.

  

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