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December 29, 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 and Senate have adjourned for this Congress. 

Media  

 

Can Carter Make a Defense Difference? Ash Carter faces a double-barreled challenge if he's the next Defense secretary: leading a Pentagon handicapped by a Congress unwilling to go along with military-proposed spending reforms and working within the Obama administration that's notorious for managing military affairs from the White House. Carter, expected to be easily confirmed by the Senate early next year to succeed Chuck Hagel, will also face the likely return of sequestration in the new fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 - and one of his top challenges will be persuading Congress and the administration to strike a deal to avert the automatic spending caps. Politico

 

Study: Finland's Temperature Rising Twice as Fast as Global Average. A study from the University of Eastern Finland finds that Finland's mean temperature has risen by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past 166 years.  Temperatures are rising there twice as fast as anywhere else in the world. Finland's average temperature has risen faster than anywhere else in the world, according to a study conducted by the University of Eastern Finland and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The mean temperature has risen by more than two degrees Celsius in the past 166 years. Anchorage Daily News

 

Some States See Budgets at Risk as Oil Price Falls. States dependent on oil and gas revenue are bracing for layoffs, slashing agency budgets and growing increasingly anxious about the ripple effect that falling oil prices may have on their local economies. The concerns are cutting across traditional oil states like Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alaska as well as those like North Dakota that are benefiting from the nation's latest energy boom. New York Times

 

UAF Students Win Engineering Competition for North Slope Heavy Oil Ideas. A team that includes two University of Alaska Fairbanks students has won an engineering competition for its ideas for extracting North Slope heavy oil. UAF students Max Martell and Stephen Nemethy III, along with Sally Ann Keyes of Purdue University, claimed the 2014 Petroleum Engineering Challenge. The students will claim a $2,000 prize from UAF eLearning and Distance Education for the victory. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

 

caribou Declining Western Arctic Caribou Herd Worries Hunters, Biologists. The harvestable surplus of caribou in the giant Western Arctic Herd is rapidly disappearing, and stakeholders across the Arctic are figuring out how to react. The animals in one of North America's largest caribou herds are an important resource for subsistence hunters and their families throughout the northern regions of Alaska, and they provide a source of income for guides and outfitters who bring hunters up from the Lower 48 to get their fill. But something's got to give. Alaska Dispatch News

 

russian flag New Russian Military Doctrine Labels NATO as Main Threat. The Kremlin on Friday branded the expansion of NATO as a fundamental threat to Russia in a revised military doctrine that dramatically reflects deteriorating relations with the West. The new document, approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, decries the "reinforcement of NATO's offensive capacities directly on Russia's borders, and measures taken to deploy a global anti-missile defense system" in Central Europe. Among the principal duties listed in the doctrine for the country's armed forces during times of peace is the protection "of Russia's national interests in the Arctic," a strategic region in Russia's future energy development to which the United States and Canada also lay claim. Defense News

 

Russian Police Could Soon be Using Reindeer to Help Fight Crime. Izvestia reports that police from the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District have been asking for a fleet of reindeer since 2012, and it looks like they are finally getting their wish. Officials say the reindeer are a more reliable form of transport than high-tech snowmobiles, with their hooves that can run through deep snow, and cut through ice. The Weather Network

 

Wilkes University Scientists Head North of the Arctic Circle to Study How Climate Change Affects Plants. A Wilkes University scientist and several students will travel a long way this summer to find out if a changing climate is having an impact on plants. Thanks to a $1 million grant, a team from Wilkes will head 170 miles north of the Arctic Circle to spend June and July at the Toolik Lake Field Station. The $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation was awarded to a research team consisting of scientists from Wilkes, University of Texas at El Paso and the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory at Massachusetts. Wilkes' share of the three-year grant is $285,737. Ned Fetcher, scientist and coordinator of the Institute for Environmental Science and Sustainability at Wilkes University, is the principal investigator on a research team. The Times Leader

 

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

No Arctic legislation was formally considered last week.

 

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.

 

International Symposium on Northern Development, February 25-27, 2015 (Quebec, Canada). The Québec government, in collaboration with Université Laval, will co-chair with the Nordic Council of Ministers the International Symposium on Northern Development. The event will allow for the pooling of knowledge, experience and perspectives in the realm of northern development. It will assemble representatives of the northern countries, the universities and local populations, including the Aboriginal nations, and businesspeople and enterprises. The key themes will be the North as a living environment; the North as a physical territory; the North as a hub of economic development; and, the North as a hub of knowledge training and research.

 

 US Arctic Research Commission's 103rd Meeting, March 4-5, 2015 (Washington, DC, USA). More information to come. 

 

Arctic Summit 2015, March 12, 2014 (Oslo, Norway) The Economist is hosting the Arctic Summit 2015 where discussions will focus on whether commercial interest in the Arctic is a bubble about to burst. There are discounted registration fees are available for NGOs, government, academics, charities and students. There are also discounts for groups of 3 or more people.

 

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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