Polar and Alpine Community News

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shown that global challenges require global responses, which most often seem impossible to agree upon given our world’s heterogeneities and the significant discrepancies in the understanding of human values that once more, the tragic war in Ukraine revealed. Also in pandemic times and in times of war, however, climate change remains the biggest global challenge that humanity is facing and urban development is an important lever of climate change albeit most often not considered a priority area.

The German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), in partnership with Ecologic Institute and the Maria-Curie Sklodowska University, is organising an interdisciplinary hybrid expert workshop online and in Bonn on 25.05.2022. The workshop is dedicated to bring experts from Arctic and non-Arctic research projects together.

As an Arctic nation, Canada should be a global leader in Arctic and northern research. In this role, Canada can advance key national priority areas through scientific excellence, co-development, self-determination, evidence-based decision-making, and reconciliation. As we move into a new future of ongoing climate warming, geopolitical tensions, and development pressures, it is critical that the Canadian Arctic research community works together to co-develop a science strategy that is equitable, diverse, and inclusive of all ways of knowing.

In order to identify research and science priorities that will support our collective community in establishing such a strategy that can best position Canada as a global leader in science, self-determined, and inclusive Arctic research, we invite you to complete the following short survey (estimated time: 5-10 minutes) by May 13, 2022.

PSECCO is Officially Launched!

The Polar Science Early Career Community Office (PSECCO) is officially launched(see linked press release)! PSECCO is a community-building and community-support organization for polar early career scientists based in the US. Its mission is to empower and elevate early career scientists in the Polar Sciences, support a vibrant community, provide opportunities and resources, offer skill training and work together towards a more just, inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible polar science environment. 

The office will be building partnerships and offering support to early career organizations already doing great work, working to build community, and offering unique professional development and funding opportunities of its own. Help us to shape and evolve the office to best support polar early career scientists by attending a community meeting on May 3^rdMay 3rd at 11am AK/1pm MT/3pm ET or June 9^thJune 9th, 9am AK/11am MT/1pm ET. Learn more about the office and sign up for our mailing lists at psecco.org, or join us on Twitter @polarsecco. 

In January 2022, the new Joint Body on the "Status of Mountain Snow Cover (JB-SMSC)" was launched. This Joint Body is a joint activity of the International Association for Cryospheric Sciences (IACS), the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), aiming to significantly improve the knowledge of the status and changes of the snow cover in mountain regions of the world. In addition to an in-depth analysis of snow changes and the underlying processes, the provision of data sets on snow cover in mountain regions is also a key objective. The JB is divided into four work packages, as follows:

• WP1: Mountain snow data quality control and homogenization for use in climatology and hydrology
• WP2: Status of snow cover: multi-decadal changes in mountain regions of the world
• WP3: Snow accumulation processes in mountain regions
• WP4: Snow ablation processes - research gaps in mountain snow modelling

The annual Festival is an open and free event that brings together people of diverse backgrounds that are interested in, and work on, engagement of citizens in science, policymaking and deliberative democracy in Europe (and globally). These include EU countries, EU institutions, civil society organisations, research and academia, and artists. The programme each year features a variety of events including open conversations, interactive sessions, artwork, and an exhibition of participatory and/or deliberative democracy projects. The Festival is also the principal annual networking event for the Community of Practice of the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy. In 2020, the Festival was held entirely online. In 2022, however, it will be a hybrid event where participants will be able to attend and interact either in person – in Ispra, Italy, or Brussels, Belgium - and/or online.

Date: 20-21 October 2022

Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) is organizing a week-long training course on AI applications in Svalbard (AI4Svalbard) during 5-9 Sept. 2022, in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. You can find more information regarding this training course here. The application deadline is on 15^th May 2022.

The course is intended for scientists, master/Ph.D. students, engineers and technicians with no or modest experience with AI and machine learning in their research. Basic knowledge of programming languages (python) is preferable.

Looking for early career scientist to join the editorial board for the fifth State of Environmental Science in Svalbard report

Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) is a consortium of international institutions with research infrastructure in and around Svalbard. SIOS is building an integrated observing system for long-term measurements addressing Earth System questions.

SIOS publishes an annual State of Environmental Science in Svalbard (SESS) report. The first issue was released in January 2019. The report summarises the state of current knowledge of key Earth System Science parameters and analyses how these parameters influence one another. The SESS report outlines work conducted within the SIOS cooperation to optimise the observing system and recommends research priorities for the following year(s).

The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP), the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO), and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) launched their 2022 Antarctic-related Fellowships for early-career researchers.

COMNAP, IAATO and SCAR work together to support talented early-career researchers, scientists, engineers, environmental managers, and other professionals. The purpose is to strengthen international capacity and cooperation in fields such as climate, biodiversity, conservation, humanities and astrophysics research by providing annual funding opportunities.