Sessions

Sarah Strand (APECS International Directorate) - Address by Chief Guest - APECS Executive Director

Co-chaired by Nicolas Champollion and Vivek Kumar

Polar regions are known to be both fragile environmental and social ecosystems, and areas where climate change is amplified. In addition, some natural components of those regions are crucial for the Earth climate system and its evolution. Since a few decades, important changes at various scales have been observed in the biosphere, the cryosphere, the atmosphere, the ocean but also in human societies. In this context, this transdisciplinary session investigates the environmental changes in polar regions, their impacts and consequences, and to what extent humans themselves contribute to these changes. It seeks a better understanding of the impact of human activities on Polar regions (e.g, increased tourism, resources exploitation, transport, urbanization) in the age of the Anthropocene and how human societies respond to this changing world. Sustainable approaches to adapt or mitigate climate change in polar regions are encouraged.

Keynote speaker:
Chandan Sarangi (Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India) - Impact of light absorbing particles on snow albedo and regional climate

Sub-topic: How human activities modify their environment, and conversely environmental change affects global health?
Ana Stella Ebbersmeyer (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) - Arctic shipping and the regulation of black carbon
Iulia I. Nita (National Committee of Antarctic Research/Romanian Academy, Romania) - Melting of polar ice: A threat for human health
Hayat Nasirova (Germany) - CryosLOSS (Artwork)
Lina Madaj (The Netherlands) - Mindfulness Coffee Break with APECS Mental Health Resources Project Group

Sub-topic: Natural processes 
Saule Akhmetkaliyeva (Manchester Metropolitan University, United-Kingdom) - Quantifying and characterizing organic carbon in newly-developed soils following glacier retreat in northern latitudes
Mikhail Latonin (Saint Petersburg State University, Russia) - Dipole pattern of meridional atmospheric internal energy transport across the Arctic gate
Dmitry Nowhisky (Russia) - Traveling around White Sea (Artwork)
Nazlı Baris (Turkey) - Investigation of Researches on Invasive Species Identified in Antarctica by Document Analysis

Co-chaired by Divyesh Varade and Nicolas Champollion

This session aims to understand the natural processes of the cryosphere: solid precipitation, permafrost, glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets, snow, and sea, river and lake-ice. It invites submissions drawing on a variety of techniques and engineering, and from all cryospheric-related fields of natural sciences. Dedicated to advances in the study of the cryosphere, this session aims to enlarge the scope of snow and ice by multidisciplinary works that attempt to document complex interactions between the cryosphere and other components of the Earth system. Snow research is for example a place for multidisciplinary collaborations and innovations. As recently shown, the snowpack constitutes a significant driver of change in terrestrial ecosystems so presentations that attempt to build bridges with disciplines outside the cryospheric sciences are also appreciated. Finally, approaches that include remote sensing techniques, lab experiments, fieldwork and modeling are encouraged.

Sub-topic: Glacier evolution
Aleksandra Osika (University of Silesia, Poland) - Fluctuations of Hansbreen (Hornsund, Svalbard) in the Holocene
Ruby Panwar (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India) - Glacier Zones Classification using Multi-temporal Sentinel-1 SAR Data
Sara Pasqualetto (Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany) and Sergi González-Herrero (Spanish Meteorological Agency, Spain) - Stations & Stripes (Artwork)
Mikis van Boeckel (NGU, Norway) - Segla (Artwork)

Sub-topic: Remote Sensing of glaciers and snow
Surendar Manickam (Vellore Institute of Technology, India) - Microwave remote sensing of snow
Hemant Singh (Indian Institute of Technology, Jammu, India) - Snow cover Variability to climate change in Hindu Kush Himalayas Using Google Earth engine
Kamil Kachniarz (University of Silesia, Poland) - Thermal structure of Hansbreen (S Spitsbergen) in 2007-2021 based on repeated radio echo sounding

Sub-topic: Periglacial processes
Katarzyna Stachniak (University of Silesia, Poland) - How to catch and recognise a groundwater drainage system in a glacier’s forefield? – hydrogeological modeling as a tool for exploring hard-to-reach Arctic regions

Keynote speaker:
Dr. Chris Derksen (Climate Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada) - Assessment of a changing cryosphere in the IPCC Sixth Assessment cycle

Co-chaired by Sophie A. Duveau and Nicolas Champollion

The purpose of this session is twofold. First, it showcases the daily lives of people through perceptions and ways of inhabiting the environment whilst also exploring knowledge, practices and places of indigenous groups. This session also invites submissions that document any form of life experiences and trajectories of individuals or social groups who live, work and visit the polar regions, on various temporalities, whatever their statuses and social milieu. Second, this session interrogates the place of people in the global world taking, for instance, the perspectives of geopolitics, economics, mass media and cultural products. One specific example of topics includes the imaginaries and narratives on Polar and Alpine regions. Submissions from researchers in the social sciences, humanities and arts as well as residents of Polar regions that combine various scales of analysis and attempt to join the Local and the Global are highly encouraged.

Sub-topic: Post-colonial and ecofeminist views
Laetitia Marc (Université Laval, Canada) - The Environmental Engagement of Indigenous Women of the Circumpolar North: The Case of Inuit and Sámi Women
Tatiana Batova (Arctic design lab, Russia) - Fish Fur (Artwork)

Keynote speaker:
Dr. Igor Krupnik (Smithsonian Institution, USA) - Partners in Knowledge. What are we learning from Arctic communities for our common sustainable future?

Sub-topic: Narratives and imaginaries
Anastasia Deyko (Peru) - Connecting Polar Art and Science with the APECS Art PG
Anastasia Deyko (Peru) - One Arctic-Thousand Cameras: International collaboration of creative youth to archive changes in the Arctic
Mindy Jewell Price (UC Berkeley, USA) - Agriculture in motion. Lifecycles of the North-West Territories agricultural frontier

Sub-topic: Living in the Arctic: Trajectories from Greenland and Svalbard
Patrycja Nowosad (Poland) - In the Arctic (Artwork)
Rósa Sigrún Jónsdóttir (Iceland) - Modern Life (Artwork)
Round table chaired by Sophie A. Duveau 'What is it like to be remote?' with P. Nowosad and R. S. Jónsdóttir

Sub-topic: Inverted Perspectives
Mohit Phulara (University of Silesia, Poland) - Experiences from living in the Polar regions
Mariama Dryak (PSECCO, USA) - PSECCO: A New Community Office for Supporting Early Career Scientists and Advancing Equity and Inclusion in the Polar Sciences
Discussion animated by Nicolas Champollion 'Inclusion in the polar sciences, what does it mean?' with M. Phulra and M. Dryak

Co-chaired by Akin Kuye, Divyesh Varade and Sophie Duveau

This transdisciplinary session sheds light on innovative and alternative ways to do polar research. Studying either natural processes or social phenomena in the Polar regions can be challenging and can lead to the development of novel approaches such as those that combine in-situ and remote sensing data. Drawing on collective feedback, reflections and fieldwork experiences, this session addresses methodological and ethical problems that can be encountered by researchers from multiple disciplines at all stages of the scientific process. As examples, the delimitation of field sites are of particular interest, especially for some research areas that seek for special conditions (e.g, clean sky in astrophysics), as well as the scales of analysis. Submissions on the societal and the environmental impact of polar research are also welcome so as to enrich the methodological discussions. This session will thus explore how interdisciplinarity, instrument development and methodologies can shape sustainable ways of conducting research.

Keynote speaker:
Dr. Kim Holmen (Norwegian Polar Institute and UiT) - Can we make sustainability research sustainable?

Sub-topic: Know-How in the Natural and Social Sciences
Ícaro Souza Vieira (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil) - Brazil in the Cryosphere: A bibliometric-spatial study of Brazilian pedological research in Antarctica
Barbara Olga Horyn (University of Iceland) - When the guide becomes the researcher, and the community becomes the guide for the research

Sub-topic: Remote Sensing Applications
Adeeb Hashim (Manipal Institute of Technology, India) - Deep Learning Methods for Mapping Glacier Facies in Svalbard
William Harcourt (University of St Andrews, United-Kingdom) - Development of the APECS Polar Remote Sensing Database

Sub-topic: Stories of Ethics in Polar Research
Nicolas Champollion (Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement, France) - Initiatives to imagine sustainable low-carbon research: should we continue performing field missions in polar regions?
Jumanah Hamdi (Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, USA) - New Beginnings and Bringing Green Chemistry to the Arctic

Co-chaired by Daniela Walch and Gwenaëlle Gremion

Polar oceans are of great importance for the Earth system and humans, but remain largely unknown to us. In light of the UN ocean decade, this session aims to gather speakers willing to explore the multiple facets of the polar oceans and coastal regions, thereby contributing to our understanding of physical properties and dynamics of the ocean, marine ecosystem functioning and investigating the anthropogenic nature of changes to the oceans and coasts of the polar regions, as, for instance, pollution and climate change effects. This transdisciplinary session welcomes studies and oral accounts from a variety of Ocean beneficiaries that depend on the same - not only for their research but also for their living and other ocean-related activities. Submissions that draw on the notion of “marine resources” and provide insights on livelihoods, ocean-related conflicts and tensions as well as governance are also encouraged.

Sub-topic: Physical processes
Chloe Nunn (IOC-UNESCO) - The UN Ocean Decade - an Introduction
Emma White - Ocean Circulation and Ice Shelf Melting in the Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica

Keynote speaker:
Irene Schloss (CONICET, Argentina) - Marine plankton stories in high-latitude ecosystems

Sub-topic: Ocean governance in Arctic and Antarctica
Marco Volpe (University of Lapland, Finland) - The Northern Sea Route within the Sino-Russian alignment framework in the Arctic
Caspar de Gelmini (Germany) - Life in the Future (Artwork)

Sub-topic: Marine ecosystems and biology
Florea Andra (Université du Québec à Rimouski, Canada) - Biological characterization of Icelandic scallops (Chlamys islandica) and modeling of their occurrence using Inuit traditional knowledge in the Belcher Islands, Nunavut

Co-chaired by Daniela Walch and Gwenaëlle Gremion

Tatiana Poplevina (Russia) - Venets (Artwork)

Daniela Walch - Address for Awards and Awardees