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December 15, 2014
  

PHOTO CONTEST: The U.S. Arctic Research Commission (USARC) is holding a photo contest titled "Observing the Arctic" to identify compelling Arctic images to be included in USARC's publication "Report of the Goals and Objectives for Arctic Research 2015- 2016." This report, to the President and Congress, outlines scientific research goals and objectives for the Arctic.

 

We invite you to submit original photos of Alaska and the greater Arctic region in the following categories:

  • Environmental Change
  • Human Health
  • Natural Resources
  • Civil Infrastructure
  • Indigenous Cultures and Identities
  • Nature
One overall winner and six runners up will be selected. Consistent with U.S. Federal Government Challenge.gov regulations, the winner will receive a prize of $400.00, and the winning photo will be prominently exhibited in USARC's Alaskan and Washington offices, displayed on the USARC website, and published on the cover of USARC's 2015-2016 Goals Report. The six runners up will receive prizes of $150.00 each, and will also have their photos displayed on the USARC website and published in the report. For details, click here. 

 

capitalToday's Congressional Action:  

The House is not in session. The Senate is expected to consider several appointments.

Media  

 

capital US Senate Considers $1.1 Trillion Spending Bill. The Senate is still considering a $1.1 trillion bill to fund the government through next fall. Among its Alaska items are $50 million for the missile defense system housed at Fort Greely and $3 million for the Kodiak spaceport. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says is she pleased the bill properly reimburses tribal health care providers for contract supports costs. It also has $10 million for sanitation in rural Alaska and another $10 million for the Denali Commission. It does not buy any new icebreakers, but it has $25 million for sonar mapping of the U.S. coastline, with emphasis on the Bering Straits and the Arctic. Alaska Public Radio

 

Update: Senate Avoids Shutdown, Passes "Cromnibus" in Bipartisan Vote. Roll Call

 

10 Years On, Selendang Ayu Spill's Legacy Still Evolving. It was the biggest shipping disaster in the Aleutians' recent history - and its impacts are still evolving today. Name a maritime disaster in the Aleutian Islands, and Dan Magone has probably helped clean it up. He's been salvaging shipwrecks since long before a real spill response system was in place. Alaska Public Radio

 

New Norwegian Spy Vessel to Keep Track of 'Unpredictable' Russia. Norway's Intelligence Service will soon get a new Marjata vessel to operate in the Barents Sea. The vessel will be the world's most advanced of its kind and will secure Norway's need for information in the High North for the next 30 years. Prime Minister Erna Solberg on Dec. 6 christened the Norwegian Intelligence Service's (NIS) at the Vard Landsten shipyard on the west coast of the country. The vessel, which will be operational from 2016, will be the world's most advanced surveillance ship of its kind, the Armed Forces say on their website. Alaska Dispatch News

 

russia/norway flags Norway Suspends Military Cooperation With Russia Until End of 2015. The Norwegian government has decided to continue the suspension of all bilateral military activities with Russia until the end of 2015. Military bilateral cooperation between Norway and Russia has been suspended since March 2014, following Russia's annexation of the Crimea and use of armed force in Ukraine. The suspension was expanded in May to last until the end of 2014. Now the government has considered the issue again and decided to continue the suspension of all bilateral military activities until the end of 2015, the government's website says. Alaska Dispatch News

 

Seismic Mapping of Russian Arctic Will Continue - Rosneft. The state-owned oil company in 2015 intends to conduct seismic mapping of seven fields in the Pechora Sea. During a public hearing in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug this week, representatives of Rosneft confirmed that a total of 630.5 linear miles of so-called electrical exploration will be conducted in the nearby Pechora Sea in the summer of 2015. The license blocks included in the studies are the Pomorsky, the Russky, Severo-Pomorsky-1, Severo-Pomorsky-1, Yuzhny-Russky, Zapadno-Matveevsky and Yuzhno-Prinovozemelsky, a press release from the company reads. The total licenses area amount to about 8,690 square miles and the preliminary resource potential is estimated to 465,113 tons of oil and 99.7 billion cubic meters of gas. Alaska Dispatch News  

 

Dr. Éric Dewailly, Arctic Expert, Honored at Conference in Ottawa. A renowned northern researcher has been honoured with an award at a major Arctic conference in Ottawa this week. At the Arctic Change 2014 conference, an event that brings together more than 1,000 people to talk about the opportunities and challenges of the Arctic today, delegates honoured Dr. Éric Dewailly with the Mentor Award. CBC News

 

The Claim Game. The Kingdom of Denmark is claiming a total of 895,000 square kilometres of ocean floor in the Arctic Ocean, far more than expected. The governments in Denmark and Greenland, which are jointly submitting the claim, have chosen to exploit their options in the ocean to the greatest extent possible. Their claim to the ocean floor, which will be presented to the UN on Monday, extends not only to the North Pole and across to the Russian side of the pole, as was expected, but all the way to Russia's maritime border, only 200 nautical miles from the Russian coast. Overlap between the Danish-Greenlandic claim and Russia's own forthcoming claim was expected, but the size of what is now likely to be the overlap is hundreds of thousands of square kilometres larger than previously projected. Arctic Journal

 

Global Tug-of-War Over Arctic Resources. On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned that Russia and the West are headed toward another Cold War. He has a strong case. Russian provocations are on the rise both in the West, where Russia threatens the sovereignty of several Eastern European nations, and in the East, where Russian President Vladimir Putin is using his energy resources to shore up relations with China. Washington Examiner

 

Arctic Conference Sees Growing Focus on Traditional Inuit Knowledge. When you ask Sanikiliuaq hunter Lucassie Arragutainaq about the health of the eider duck population around his community, he'll tell you that in recent years, it's been sustainable. But that's not based on a survey count. "Our knowledge comes from here," he says, tapping his heart. Nunatisaq Online

 

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

H.R. 3979, the Carl Levin and Howard P. "Buck" McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (Resolving differences between the House and Senate)

 

H.R. 83, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 (Resolving differences between the House and Senate)

 

S. 2482, the North Pacific Fisheries Convention Implementation Act (Introduced by Senator Mark Begich)

 

S. 2444, the Howard Coble Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act (Presented to the President)

 

Future Events

   

"Arctic Modeling: Improving Models and Predictions in the Arctic" January 13, 2015. (Remote access, see here). The Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) program will host this webinar. Additional information will be released soon.

 

AGU Fall Meeting, December 15-19, 2014 (San Francisco, CA, USA). With nearly 24,000 attendees, the AGU Fall Meeting is the largest Earth and space science meeting in the world. The AGU Fall Meeting brings together the entire Earth and space sciences community for discussions of emerging trends and the latest research. The technical program includes presentations on new and cutting-edge science, much of which has not yet been published.

 

Arctic Frontiers: Climate and Energy, January 18-23, 2015. The earth is in the midst of major climate changes. The Arctic is experiencing the impact of these changes more and faster than other parts of the globe. Processes starting in the Arctic may have deep and profound impacts on other parts of the globe. At the same time the Earth's population is rising and with it the global energy demand. New and greener energy sources are gaining market shares, but still the energy mix of the foreseeable future will have a substantial fossil component. The Arctic is expected to hold major oil and gas resources, while the regions green energy potentials are less explored. The Arctic Frontiers conference is a central arena for discussions of Arctic issues. The conference brings together representatives from science, politics, and civil society to share perspectives on how upcoming challenges in the Arctic may be addressed to ensure sustainable development. Arctic Frontiers is composed of a policy section and a scientific section. 

  

Alaska Marine Science Symposium, January 19-23, 2015 (Anchorage, Alaska, USA). The symposium will feature a session on the Communicating Ocean Sciences, keynote addresses, poster sessions, and workshops. As in past years, the main content of the symposium is organized by large marine ecosystem. The 2015 schedule will be: Tuesday, January 20 - Gulf of Alaska; Wednesday, January 21 - Bering Sea; and Thursday, January 22 - Arctic Ocean. The details of the 2015 Alaska Marine Science Symposium program will be available in mid-November.

 

Symposium on Law and Governance in the Arctic, UCI LAW, January 30-31, 2015 (Irvine, California, USA).  The symposium will explore the effectiveness of existing governance in the Arctic region, strategies for improving effective implementation, and possible alternative governance regimes. A segment of the presented papers will be published in the UCI Law Review as a symposium. Presenters include: Betsy Baker, Michael Byers, Joseph DiMento, Tore Henriksen, Brian Israel, Timo Koivurova, Tullio Scovazzi, and Oran Young. 

 

Arctic Encounter Symposium 2015: Charting a Path to US Leadership in the Far North, January 30-31, 2015 (Seattle, Washington, USA). The second annual Arctic Encounter Symposium will focus on the role of the U.S. as an Arctic nation and the challenges it will confront in its upcoming chairmanship of the Arctic Council, including: climate change, natural resources, investment opportunities, and international relations. The goal of the 2015 Arctic Encounter is to facilitate a creative environment for the development of a proactive agenda, short and long-term domestic and international priorities, and a strategic execution plan.The two-day program will take place at the University of Washington with a dinner reception on January 30, 2015 at the Museum of History and Industry.

 

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.


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.

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