Arctic Update Header
May 20, 2014

 

Cumulative Impacts and Landscape Initiatives: A sustainability Check During Climate Change, May 18-22, 2014 (Anchorage, Alaska). US-IALE fosters landscape ecology in the United States, providing a link among practitioners in landscape ecology in the U.S. and the international community, and promoting interdisciplinary research and communication among scientists, planners, and other professionals concerned with landscape ecology. Program highlights will include plenary sessions with featured speakers, symposia and contributed papers, in-depth workshops on key topics, field trips, and networking events.

 

capital Today's Congressional Action:   

The House and Senate are in session and expected to consider non-Arctic legislation.

 

 

Media 

 

US Unfocused in Arctic, Says GAO Report. The U.S. Department of State and other government agencies responsible for Arctic issues need to sharpen their focus and tighten their procedures to prepare for U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council, says a new report released Monday by the General Accountability Office. Lack of clear procedures to set priorities and track progress means that many worthy Arctic policy goals, though articulated, are not being accomplished, the GAO report said. That is the case at the Arctic Council as well, the GAO report said. State Department officials interviewed for the report said the council "has produced valuable work, but the recommendations have not historically produced actions leading to measurable results in addressing Arctic issues, " the report said. Anchorage Daily News

 

Link to GAO report: here.

 

Kerry Helping the Arctic Council Find Its True North: Priorities for Secretary Kerry as He Prepares to Take on the Chairmanship of the Arctic Council. For millennia, the Arctic has lain beneath a blanket of ice and snow-an ocean locked out of all interaction with the rest of the world, save subsea currents and icebreaking marine mammals. Yet in recent decades, rapid declines in ice coverage due to global climate change have begun to unlock what may be the world's last undisturbed vault of natural resources, potentially opening trade routes dreamt of by explorers since the late 15th century. The opening of the Arctic has already begun to stimulate economic development, and the changes at the top of the world present massive global challenges. In the Arctic, which is warming two times faster than any other region on Earth, the effects of climate change are staggering. Arctic sea-ice volume has shrunk by 75 percent since the 1980s, and we are very likely to see ice-free summers by midcentury. These and other rapid changes directly affect the livelihoods, infrastructure, and health of the 4 million people who live in the region and have economic, environmental, geostrategic, and national security implications for the United States and the world. Center for American Progress

 

russian flag Russian Prime Minister Warns of Second Cold War. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday warned the United States and Russia are approaching "a second Cold War." Medvedev also said President Obama is to blame for the deteriorating relations. "Basically, we are slowly but surely approaching a second Cold War that nobody needs. Why am I saying this? Because a competent politician knows how to make reserved, careful, subtle, wise and intelligent decisions, which, I believe, Mr. Obama succeeded at for a while," Medvedev told Bloomberg News. The Hill

 

Washington's Folly. Last April, Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, announced his country's intention to construct a series of naval bases along its Arctic coast, as well as the construction of state-of-the-art icebreakers that could protect the country's economic and security interests in the region. Norway, too, is ramping up its naval capacity to prepare for an Arctic conflict, in part by planning to build a $125 million port facility that would make it possible to move Nato personnel in and out of the region. Arctic Journal

 

Soot, Heat Combined to Create Rare Melt in Greenland. The 10,521-foot summit of Greenland's desolate ice sheet was the site of a rare phenomenon in 2012 -- the top layer of dry snow at that high elevation melted. Ninety-seven percent of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet melted that summer, including the rarely changed, remote, cold summit. Such an event is noticeable on the white expanse, said one witness. "The surface gets kind of slushy," said Kaitlin Keegan, a doctoral student at Dartmouth who was there at time. "You can definitely see that the snow is wet." Anchorage Daily News

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

No Arctic legislation was formally considered yesterday.

Future Events

 

International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences, May 22-24, 2014. ICASS is held every three years, bringing together people from all over the world to share ideas about social science research in the Arctic. ICASS VII, held in Akureyri in June 2011, attracted 450 participants from 30 different countries. ICASS VIII's theme is Northern Sustainabilities. By using the plural, ICASS underscores both that 'sustainability' has social, cultural, economic, political and environmental dimensions, and that definitions of the concept vary. Yet, while debating specific definitions, most would agree that working toward sustainable ways of living in the North and on approaches to sustainable engagement with the North, are critical both to the North's and to the world's future. Community sustainability in the North, whether for small settlements or large urban conglomerations, requires new models of food and energy security, and of access to employment, health care and social and cultural services for residents.

 

Arctic in the Athropocene. June 23-July 2, 2014 (Potsdam, Germany). Under the overarching theme "Arctic in the Anthropocene", this two-week interdisciplinary and interactive event will be the first in a series of Potsdam Summer Schools to be held annually. The goal is to bring together early-career scientists and young professionals from research departments, governmental and non-governmental agencies and organizations, as well as the private sector from all around the world. Participants will deal with global challenges and address urgent questions on how to shape sustainable futures in the Arctic and beyond from a scientific and socioeconomic point of view. 

 

Alaska Policy Commission. August 26-27, 2014 (Kotzebue-Nome, Alaska). The Alaska Arctic Policy Commission (AAPC) has more important work to do in 2014. The Commission will strive to gather public input and engage with Alaskan communities, state agencies, federal partners, and the international organizations working in the Arctic. In order to meet our goals AAPC will convene three in-person meetings over the course of 2014 and focus on implementation and final recommendations. 

 

2014 Week of the Arctic, October 6-11, 2014 (Nome, Kotzebue and Barrow, Alaska, USA). The Institute of the North will host the 2014 Week of the Arctic. The 2014 Week of the Arctic is a platform for community leaders, subject matter experts and interested stakeholders to learn about the Arctic while contributing to a growing list of priorities and perspectives. Presentations, roundtable discussions and workshops will be held in Nome, Kotzebue and Barrow. Throughout the week, presentations and interviews will be captured on video for distribution through social media and web-based sharing.

 

2014 FAMOS School and Workshop #3, October 21-24, 2014 (Woods Hole, MA). The Forum for Arctic Ocean Modeling and Observational Synthesis (FAMOS) is an international effort to focus on enhancing collaboration and coordination among Arctic marine and sea ice modelers, theoreticians and observationalists synthesize major results from the field studies and coordinated numerical experiments. The major themes of workshop include but not limited by studies focused on: predictions; Arctic observational and modeling initiatives; fate of sea ice in models and observations; atmospheric, sea ice and ocean dynamics; process studies and parameterizations; model validation and calibration; numerical improvements and algorithms; ecosystems, biological issues, and geochemistry.

 

Arctic Circle, October 31-November 2, 2014 (Reyjavik, Iceland).

The Arctic Circle is nonprofit and nonpartisan. Organizations, forums, think tanks, corporations and public associations around the world are invited to hold meetings within the Arctic Circle platform to advance their own missions and the broader goal of increasing collaborative decision-making without surrendering their institutional independence. The Arctic Circle will organize sessions on a variety of issues, such as: Sea ice melt and extreme weather; Polar law: treaties and agreements; The role and rights of indigenous peoples; Security in the Arctic; Shipping and transportation infrastructure; The prospects and risks of oil and gas drilling; Clean energy achievements and sustainable development; Arctic resources; Business cooperation in the Arctic; The role of Asian and European countries in the Arctic; Greenland in the new Arctic; Fisheries and ecosystem management; The science of ice: global research cooperation; Arctic tourism; The ice-dependent world: the Arctic and the Himalayas. 

 

Alaska Policy Commission. November 13-14, 2014 (Anchorage, Alaska). The Alaska Arctic Policy Commission (AAPC) has more important work to do in 2014. The Commission will strive to gather public input and engage with Alaskan communities, state agencies, federal partners, and the international organizations working in the Arctic. In order to meet our goals AAPC will convene three in-person meetings over the course of 2014 and focus on implementation and final recommendations. 

 

The Arctic Biodiversity Congress, December 2-4, 2014. (Trondheim, Norway). The Arctic Biodiversity Congress will present and discuss the main scientific findings of the ABA; facilitate inter-disciplinary discussion, action and status updates on the policy recommendations in the ABA; provide scientific, policy, management, NGO, academia, Indigenous peoples and industry audiences the opportunity to collaborate around the themes of the ABA; advise CAFF on national and international implementation of the ABA recommendations and on the development of an ABA Implementation Plan for the Arctic Council; highlight the work of CAFF and the Arctic Council on circumpolar biodiversity conservation and sustainable development; and, contribute to mainstreaming of biodiversity and ecosystem services, ensuring that the recommendations of the ABA are implemented by not just governments, but many organizations and people across disciplines.

 

Arctic Change 2014, December 8-12, 2014 (Ottawa, Canada). The international Arctic Change 2014 conference aims to stimulate discussion and foster collaborations among people with a vested interest in the Arctic and its peoples. Coinciding with the pinnacle of Canada's chairmanship of the Arctic Council and marking ArcticNet's 10th anniversary, Arctic Change 2014 welcomes researchers, students, Northerners, policy makers, and stakeholders from all fields of Arctic research and all countries to address the numerous environmental, social, economical and political challenges and opportunities that are emerging from climate change and modernization in the Arctic. With over 1000 participants expected to attend, Arctic Change 2014 will be one of the largest trans-sectoral international Arctic research conferences ever held in Canada. 

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