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December 11, 2012

Today's Eventstodaysevents 

   

 

The Senate will consider Federal Deposit Insurance legislation. The House will consider the National Defense Authorization Act.

 

99th USARC Meeting, December 10-11, 2012. The US Arctic Research Commission hosts its 99th meeting in Vancouver, BC. This meeting is jointly held with the Canadian Polar Commission.

 

Marine Mammal Commission meeting on Tribal Consultation, December 10-12, 2012. The Commission plans to meet with representatives of other federal agencies, Alaska Native organizations, the Environmental Law Institute, and other interested parties to review and seek ways to improve consultations between federal agencies and Alaska Native Tribes. The focus will be on the consultation process and will include, but not be limited to, matters involving marine mammals. In the course of the meeting, the Commission expects to discuss issues related to the authorities for Alaska Native consultations, the role of the Indigenous People's Council for Marine Mammals (IPCoMM) in consultations, the relationship between consultation and co-management, and lessons learned from conflict avoidance agreements. 

Media 

 

Tundra fireUS Climatologist: Arctic Circle Should Be No-Fly Zone. A climatologist in the United States says the Arctic Circle should be a no-fly zone for major commercial flights. In a new report, Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil engineering at Stanford University in California, says black soot from commercial jets is attracting heat from the sun. Airlines first started flying over the Arctic in 1998, when Russia agreed to allow other countries to fly planes in its airspace. Alaska Dispatch

  

Climate Change Creates Grizzly Conflicts in Arctic: Lack of hunting restrictions a concern for bear conservationists. Climate change is pushing tundra grizzlies into Arctic communities where they would not normally be seen, raising issues about human safety and conservation of the bears. Vincent L'Hérault, a biologist and PhD student at the University of Quebec in Rimouski, said grizzlies are expanding their range in a northeasterly direction, showing up in communities such as Arviat, Baker Lake, Rankin Inlet and Chesterfield Inlet. Calgary Herald

 

Denmark: Who Owns the Arctic? The far north of our planet is presumed to have abundant mineral resources. And as the Arctic ice sheet has been shrinking in the past number of years, greed has been growing. The bordering countries are scrambling to secure themselves ownership rights - with competing claims from Denmark, Russia, Norway and Canada. Danish researchers are now looking for evidence that the ocean floor in the far north is an extension of Greenland's land mass and thus belongs to the kingdom of Denmark. Deutsche Welle

 

arctic shippingArctic Shipping is Disaster Waiting to Happen, Safety Group Warns. Ferrying a load of soybeans from Seattle to China in 2004, the engine of Malaysian freighter Selendang Ayu lost power and the vessel broke in half on rocks off Unalaska Island in the middle of the Alaskan archipelago. A ferocious Bering Sea storm thwarted rescue efforts, resulting in the loss of six crew members, and the vessel spilled 350,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil. The oozing fuel killed thousands of seabirds, closed local fishing and contaminated miles of shoreline -- all inside the sensitive habitat of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Los Angeles Times

 

Delegation Seeks Delay in More Fishery Observers. Alaska's congressional delegation wants changes in federal plans to put observers on more commercial halibut fishing boats.The observer program has been around since 1990 for large catcher and catcher-processor vessels in Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska fisheries. The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced plans to add part-time observers to vessels that are less than 60 feet but more than 40 feet. Anchorage Daily News

 

Subsistence Board Cancels Work Session. The Federal Subsistence Board has canceled a work session scheduled this Friday on the memorandum of understanding to allow additional time for state fish and game advisory committees to meet and provide comments. The board has been in the process of accepting comments on the memorandum of understanding through the winter subsistence regional advisory council and state fish and game advisory committee public meetings. However, not all the advisory committees have held their winter meetings. The board will reschedule the work session at a later date. The goal is to have revisions finalized by May of 2013. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

 

AK Native family drawingFresh, New Generation of Leaders Grab Reins at Alaska Native Corporations. A second generation is starting to run Alaska's Native corporations. "There's been a passing of the torch," said Jason Metrokin, president of Bristol Bay Native Corporation and himself one of a group of younger Native CEOs who are bringing advanced degrees and business experience to the running of the corporations. Metrokin said the second generation owes everything to the first generation of leaders, who founded the corporations after passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. But after 40 years of corporate experience, the time has come for the passing of the torch to the next generation. Michelle Anderson with Ahtna also mentioned. Alaska Dispatch

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

No Arctic legislation was formally considered yesterday.

Future Events                      

         

Marine Mammal Commission Meeting on Research and Management Priorities, December 14, 2012. The Commission plans to meet with regional management and scientific officials in each of the National Marine Fisheries Service's six regions to identify the most pressing marine mammal research and management needs. The Commission will use these meetings to develop a set of national priorities for guiding federal conservation efforts for marine mammals. Members of the public are invited to attend these meetings and to provide comments concerning priority issues.

 

**Abstract submission period EXTENDED through December 15th**

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.  

 

Alaska Marine Science Symposium, January 21-25, 2013. Since 2002, scientists from Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond have come to the Symposium to communicate research activities in the marine regions off Alaska. Researchers and students in marine science re-connect with old colleagues and meet new ones. Plenary and poster sessions feature a broad spectrum of ocean science. Hear the latest in the fields of climate, oceanography, lower trophic levels, the benthos, fishes and invertebrates, seabirds, marine mammals, local and traditional knowledge, and socioeconomic research. The Symposium also features compelling keynote speakers, workshops and special sessions.

  

Alaska Forum on the Environment, February 4-8, 2013. Hosted by The Alaska Forum, Inc. the 2013 Alaska Forum on the Environment will follow up on previous forums by offering training and information, includes plenary sessions, on: climate change, emergency response, environmental regulations, fish and wildlife populations, rural issues, energy, military issues, business issues, solid waste, contaminants, contaminated site cleanup, mining and others.  For 2013, the forum will expand forum content to provide information to help better understand issues surrounding coastal communities. This will include tsunami impacts, marine debris, and coastal erosion.

  

Arctic Observing Summit 2013, April 30- May 2, 2013. The Arctic Observing Summit is led by the International Study of Arctic Change (ISAC). It is a Sustaining Arctic Observing Network (SAON) task and part of the broader SAON implementation process, which is led by the Arctic Council jointly with the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). AOS is a high-level, biennial summit that aims to provide community-driven, science-based guidance for the design, implementation, coordination and sustained long term (decades) operation of an international network of arctic observing systems. The AOS will provide a platform to address urgent and broadly recognized needs of arctic observing across all components of the arctic system, including the human component. It will foster international communication and coordination of long-term observations aimed at improving understanding and responding to system-scale arctic change. The AOS will be an international forum for optimizing resource allocation through coordination and exchange among researchers, funding agencies, and others involved or interested in long term observing activities, while minimizing duplication and gaps.

Go to ISCA Town Hall meeting, at the American Geophysical Union meeting, Moscone West Room 2010, right after SEARCH meeting that ends at 7:15 pm. 

 

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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