Witness the Arctic | Volume 17, Number 2 - Spring

The first Arctic Observing Summit (AOS2013), held 30 April–2 May 2013 in Vancouver, BC, Canada, brought together a cross-section of the arctic community to deliberate on the design, implementation, coordination, and sustained long-term (decades) operation of an international network of arctic observing systems. The AOS is a task of the Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) process, which is led jointly by the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). The International Study of Arctic Change (ISAC) is responsible for leading the AOS task.

The Eighth Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council was held 15 May 2013 in Kiruna, Sweden. Ministerial meetings are held every two years, marking the culmination of the Council's work under the current Chair and transition to new leadership. At the 2013 meeting the chair passed from Sweden to Canada, which will lead the Council through May 2015.

"Times they are a-changing" would make a good theme song for the Arctic during the mid-twenty-first century. Changes, driven by global physical processes, have enormous political, social, and economic consequences within the arctic region. Until quite recently there was little interest in the Arctic. It was out there, perhaps exotic, perhaps worth studying for its own sake, but apart from strategic cold war considerations, not too important. One example of attitudes towards Alaskan studies was a review comment on a proposal submitted under NSF's Research for National Needs program

ARCUS reaches a milestone this year with the retirement of Vera Alexander as President of the Board of Directors, a position she's held with distinction for the past ten years. A founding member of the organization, Vera's vision for and dedication to ARCUS and its mission in support of arctic research is unsurpassed.

A data-sharing agreement signed in August 2011 between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and three oil companies (Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Statoil) has laid the groundwork for the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) to provide public access to a wealth of oceanographic and environmental data collected between 2008 and 2012 in the Chukchi Sea.

By: Molly McCammon, Excutive Director, Alaska Ocean Observing System

The Advanced Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (ACADIS) team continued to expand data management planning, sharing, and preservation support for all projects funded by the Arctic Sciences Section in NSF's Division of Polar Programs (POL). ACADIS, a joint effort by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), is entering the third year of a four-year continuing grant awarded by NSF in July 2011.

The international and multidisciplinary project "Negotiating Pathways to Adulthood" explored the indigenous adolescent experience at the critical time of transition from adolescence to young adulthood among Alaskan Yup'ik, Alaskan Inupiat, Canadian Inuit, Norwegian Sami, and Siberian Eveny. Funded by NSF, this collaborative and multi-sited study examined the challenges these adolescents face and the resources and strategies they use to cope with hardship and adversity.

Mobility is central to the livelihoods of the diverse reindeer-herding, hunting/gathering, and pastoralist peoples inhabiting the circumpolar north. Like their circumpolar neighbors, today the livelihoods of Russia's indigenous peoples are challenged by the local effects of climate change and by other changes including industrial contamination, economic transformations, globalization and modernity, and alienation of their youth.

A Conversation between Carl Benson, Professor Emeritus at University Alaska Fairbanks, and Gifford Wong, PhD Candidate at Dartmouth College

Fran Ulmer, appointed Chair of the Commission by President Obama, released the report on 21 March 2013 at USARC's 100th meeting held in Bethel, Alaska, the hometown of fellow Commissioner Mary Ciuniq Pete, who was recently reappointed to another four-year term on the USARC. The meeting included presentations by University of Alaska researchers and by arctic residents from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region of Alaska.

The NSF Arctic Research Support and Logistics (RSL) program is hosting a workshop on strategies and recommendations for arctic research support and logistics. The workshop is planned for 2.5 days, 7-9 October 2013 in the Washington, D.C. area and will be organized by the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS).

Having transitioned in January 2013 from being a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center to a Program Director for NSF's Arctic System Science program (ARCSS), I thought it might be useful to share my initial impressions while they are still fresh on my mind. My dominant impression is one of respect for my new colleagues at NSF. They are all smart, hard working, and dedicated to funding the best science. They are also all scientists and they care deeply about scientific progress.

Change. This is perhaps the key word that describes the trajectory of the arctic system. It also applies to the Arctic System Science program (ARCSS), as it continually adapts to the changing conditions in the Arctic, in the research community, and at NSF. One recent change is that ARCSS has welcomed a new Program Director, Robert 'Max' Holmes from the Woods Hole Research Center, who will work alongside Neil Swanberg in managing ARCSS over the coming year or so (see accompanying article). Max has a long history studying the rivers in the U.S., Canadian, and Russian Arctic, as well as other large rivers globally. He is particularly interested in how climate change is impacting the discharge and chemistry of arctic rivers, what these changes tell us about their watersheds, and how these changes impact the receiving ocean waters. He is excited to be part of the NSF arctic team and looks forward to working with the research community to help shape and achieve ARCSS research priorities.

Prediction of when the Arctic Ocean will be nearly ice-free in summer is of interest to arctic and non-arctic science and resource management communities, since large shifts in the arctic environment represent indicators of global climate change. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientist James Overland, of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, and Muyin Wang, of the NOAA Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington, recently investigated a range of methods for

On 18 April the Division of Polar Programs issued a Dear Colleague Letter (NSF 13-086) to announce the suspension of postdoctoral fellowships in the Polar Regions research program.

The Arctic has been home to Indigenous peoples for many generations. Out of the frozen landscape in which they dwell, Indigenous peoples have carved a productive, vital culture. From the learned experience and skills it is their local observations and knowledge that tell the story of drastic changes to the arctic climate—changes that have a global impact. Until recently, Indigenous local observations, knowledge, and involvement have been largely overlooked by science. Today, Indigenous peoples are acknowledged as investigators, partners, and collaborators. Their local knowledge and observations are being documented, collected, and preserved for use in arctic research, but this is not without its challenges, such as the preservation and transfer of knowledge.

After gathering additional input from meetings and a Town Hall at the 2012 AGU Fall meeting, the SEARCH Science Steering Committee and the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) submitted a proposal to NSF and other SEARCH Interagency Program Management Committee agencies in support of a new organizational structure and framework to translate the SEARCH vision into concrete tasks.

Public outreach is an important part of the mission of scientific agencies such as NSF and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). While scientists are usually enthusiastic about their research they typically don't think about how to present it to general audiences and they may lack the time or confidence to seek out such opportunities. Partnerships with informal science education institutions offer scientists the chance to reach large public audiences and to develop the skills to communicate with them. The institutions benefit from the new content presented by the scientists that engages their visitors in face-to-face interactions. One such model is the Polar Science Weekend at Pacific Science Center.

NSF selected five high-school students from as many states nationwide to deploy to the Arctic this summer as part of a science-education and cultural-exchange program with their peers from Denmark and Greenland.

The students will participate in a three-week field experience in Greenland as part of the multinational Joint Science Education Project (JSEP). The U.S. students were selected in a competitive process that drew 375 applications from all 50 states as well as Department of Defense schools abroad.

The unique partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC) yields critical data for the assessment of climate change effects in the Yukon River Basin (YRB). The YRITWC is an international, Indigenous, nonprofit organization, created in 1997 with the mission of monitoring, preserving, and protecting the YRB. Today, the YRITWC is guided by an Inter-Tribal accord, which has been signed by seventy of the Indigenous governments of the YRB in Canada and Alaska.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has developed a new accelerated approach to climate change research called Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE). This strategy seeks to provide Earth System Models (ESMs) with improved representation of climatically sensitive and globally important ecosystem processes. Supported by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science program within DOE's Office of Biological and Environmental Research, NGEEs connect modeling and field studies in an iterative approach so that model needs are considered in

Background

The Arctic Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA®) is a web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) tool that assists emergency responders and environmental resource managers in dealing with incidents that may adversely impact the arctic environment. Arctic ERMA integrates various real-time and static datasets into a single interactive map to provide a visualization of the situation and improve communication and coordination among responders and stakeholders.