The NSF Office of Polar Programs (OPP) is providing funds to support participation of U.S. scientists in the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Open Science Conference. The conference will be convened 16-19 July 2012 in Portland, Oregon.

The Open Science Conference is an international and interdisciplinary meeting that brings together scientists of all ages from around the world with interests in Antarctica and the southern ocean. Funds are intended primarily to support early-career researchers, graduate students, and individuals who would increase the diversity of the polar science community. Current OPP Investigators with meeting travel funds included in their awards are not eligible for this travel support.

To apply for travel funds, download the application form from the SCAR web site:  http://usscar.tamu.edu/. Applications are due by 15 March 2012. Submit the completed application form together with your submitted  conference abstract to Terry Wilson (wilson.43@osu.edu).

Application deadline: 15 March 2012.

To apply, download the application at: http://usscar.tamu.edu/.

For more information on the conference, please go to: http://scar2012.geol.pdx.edu.

MS or PhD? Which is Right for Me?
Tuesday 28th February 2012 1500h-1600h EDT (2000h-2100h UTC)

Before you jump into any degree program, you need to have a goal. What kind of career do you desire? Do you want to work in academia or industry? Do you prefer research or public policy, teaching or outreach, or something else? In this webinar, we will discuss the multitude of career tracks that can be accessed by pursuing either an MS and a PhD in geosciences and related subjects. We will address which degree is needed for which career paths, and what benefits are provided by obtaining one degree over the other. We will also discuss whether a research career in particular can be achieved with an MS, and in what arenas this can be pursued.

Register here for AGU Career Center's next webinar.



The lastest International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) has been published, featuring their involvement at From Knowledge to Action- IPY Montreal, Medal awards and information on side meetings. You can find the Newsletter here.

http://www.iasc.info/files/News/IASC_at_IPYMontreal2012_Newsletter.pdf

ARCTIC MARINE BIOLOGY

A workshop celebrating two decades of cooperation between Murmansk Marine Biological Institute and Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research

Proceedings edited by Gotthilf Hempel, Karin Lochte, Gennady Matishov and are freely available per download (open access) under the following persistent identifier:

http://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.38666.d001

Two Antarctic organisations have joined forces to launch Fellowships for early career researchers.  The Fellowships are worth up to $US15,000 each and up to five (4 SCAR and 1 COMNAP Fellowships) are on offer for 2012. The Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) has been offering scientific fellowships to early career scientists since 2005.  Such fellowships have enabled Antarctic and Southern Ocean scientists to participate in a range of significant research including using ice cores to determine proxies for the Southern Annular Mode, a molecular study of Antarctic ostracods, and investigating particulate carbon and biogenic silica in sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Since 2005, twenty-five SCAR Fellowships have been awarded. Up to four awards are being offered by SCAR in this round.  In 2011, the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) launched its own Antarctic Research Fellowship Scheme, offering one fellowship for an early career person in order to carry out research within a COMNAP National Antarctic Program. The two schemes were announced together today and are being jointly promoted by both organisations.  The excitement generated during the recent International Polar Year (2007-2008), has created an enthusiastic group of early career Antarctic researchers, many of whom would benefit from the opportunities the Fellowships provide. This supports the scientific goals of SCAR and the international cooperation goal of COMNAP to develop and promote best practice in managing the support to Antarctic science. The fellowships enable the early career researchers to join a project team from another country, opening up new opportunities and often creating research partnerships that last many years and over many Antarctic research seasons. The deadline for applications is 13 June 2012.

For more information, visit the SCAR website at: http://www.scar.org/awards/fellowships/applicationdetails.html

or the COMNAP website at: https://www.comnap.aq/SitePages/fellowships.aspx

We invite you to submit an abstract to the IGC YES Symposium "Overcoming geoscience challenges in the 21st Century by developing the skills of early-career geoscientists" (Theme 36, Symposium 36.7).

You should note that this symposium is a part of the main IGC program and therefore abstract submission for this will be governed by the same 'rules' as other IGC abstracts.  This means that:

-Abstracts must be submitted via the IGC abstract portal (http://www.34igc.org/submit-abstracts.php; this involves a cost).
-Presenters may only give one oral presentation; they can however have both a talk and a poster (separate abstracts need to be submitted for each).
-Abstracts are due by 17 February 2012 Australian time!
-Abstracts must be submitted using the correct template or they may be rejected outright.

We recommend that you do not leave your abstract submission until the last minute as many people do that, and the servers can get overloaded which would prevent upload of your abstract.

Finally, if you do have any problems submitting your abstract, please contact the conference organizers (abstract@34igc.org), NOT the YES President.

Regards, YES Communications Team

Anchorage, AK, January 26 - The US Arctic Research Commission continues to address the Arctic's most critical research issues in its Report on the Goals and Objectives for Arctic Research 2011-2012, a copy of which may be found here.

The report was released at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, and features five broad Arctic research goals:

* Observe, understand and respond to environmental change in the Arctic, Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea

* Improve Arctic human health

* Assess natural resources

* Advance civil infrastructure research

* Assess indigenous languages, identities, and cultural research needs.

A "Goals Report" is prepared biennially for the President, Congress, and the general public, and reflects the advice and opinions of Arctic residents, the general public and many others who actively engage in Arctic research locally, nationally, and internationally.

The report is used by the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) for a five-year US Arctic Research Program Plan, required by law, that guides federal agencies in developing and implementing their Arctic research programs. The plan is currently being prepared and will be released in early 2012.

Media Contact: John Farrell, 703-525-0113, jfarrell@arctic.gov

The Abstract deadline for the SCAR Open Science Conference is the 15th of February 2012.

For a full list of sessions and to submit an abstract please see: http://scar2012.geol.pdx.edu/themes.php. 
Just to remind you that the first 200 accepted student abstracts will receive free registration.

Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics (ICED) is an international multidisciplinary programme launched in response to the increasing need to develop integrated circumpolar analyses of Southern Ocean climate and ecosystem dynamics. ICED has been developed in conjunction with the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), through joint support from the Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) and Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) programmes.

The ICED vision is to develop a coordinated circumpolar approach to better understand climate interactions in the Southern Ocean, the implications for ecosystem dynamics, the impacts on biogeochemical cycles, and the development of sustainable management procedures. This vision is being implemented through three major areas of activity; data synthesis, fieldwork coordination and modelling. For more information about the ICED programme please visit our website (www.iced@ac.uk).

ICED is committed to engaging and promoting opportunities to early career scientists through its Education and Outreach Programme (E&O), which links with the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and many other international organisations including the Institute of Marine Research (Portugal), the Education and Outreach sub-committee of the International Polar Year (E&O - IPY), the Portuguese Committee for the International Polar Year (PT-IPY), the Capacity Building, Education and Training of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR-CBET) and the International Program Office of the IPY (IPO-IPY). Together, we have developed key E&O events that promoted ICED research. This has been important in delivering the ICED vision and strategy at an international level, as it has been useful to bring other dimensions on how E&O should be carried out. For example, bringing in the Arctic colleagues through APECS. ICED is linked to APECS through Jose Xavier, who is on the ICED Scientific Steering Committee and has developed our Education and Outreach Programme (http://www.iced.ac.uk/news/education_and_outreach.htm), and Angelika Renner who is on the APECS 2011-2012 Executive Committee and has helped with ICED activities in the past.  

To implement our vision, ICED is currently creating a network of EU polar scientists to make collaborative research efforts in fieldwork more easily accessible. This, together with a coordinated approach to fieldwork, will help to realise the full potential of planned field effort and will allow targeting of future circumpolar research across all relevant disciplines including ecology, physics and biogeochemistry. ICED is also developing a series of interactive maps representing past and present Southern Ocean research, which will provide a central focus for fieldwork planning and coordination of activities across all disciplines.

To become involved with ICED, we encourage you to join our EU Polar Scientist Network by completing our online form, stating your name, institution, email address and area of expertise (https://secure.antarctica.ac.uk/contact/iced/). There are many benefits of joining this network, including access to all current and updated information on meetings and workshops, ability to discuss collaborative fieldwork and links to the EUR-OCEANS Consortium (www.eur-oceans.eu). Please also send us any details of your publications on the Southern Ocean to iced@bas.ac.uk. If you have previously been or have planned involvement in any fieldwork in the Southern Ocean, then please complete a short online form with the details of the cruise(s) by following this link (http://www.iced.ac.uk/science/fieldworkmap.htm). 

U.S. Researchers Can Apply for Travel Funds, SCAR Open Science Conference, Portland, Oregon, July 16-19, 2012

The NSF Office of Polar Programs is providing funds to support participation of U.S. scientists in the 5^th biennial SCAR Open Science Conference (meeting website:  http://scar2012.geol.pdx.edu/).  The Open Science Conference is an international and interdisciplinary meeting that brings together scientists of all ages from around the world with interests in Antarctica and the southern ocean. Funds are intended primarily to support early-career researchers, graduate students and individuals who would increase the diversity of the polar science community.  Current OPP Investigators with meeting travel funds included in their awards are not eligible for this travel support.

To apply for travel funds, download the application form from the U.S. SCAR web site:  http://usscar.tamu.edu/. Submit the completed application form together with your submitted OSC abstract to Terry Wilson (wilson.43@osu.edu) by March 15^th, 2012.

The Abstract Deadline for the OSC is February 15^th, 2012 – Submit soon!