The Arctic Science Summit Week 2010 was held from in Nuuk (Greenland) this year - and in Copenhagen - from April 15 - 18, 2010 (plus a week thanks to Iceland's volcano!). APECS Director Jenny Baeseman and President Gerlis Fugmann both attended the event in Nuuk.
The programme contained three days of meetings by the International Arctic Sciences Committee (IASC), Arctic Ocean Sciences Board (AOSB), European Polar Board (EPB), Pacific Arctic Group (PAG) and Forum of Arctic Research Operators (FARO), as well as one Common Day with scientific presentations and a boat excursion. However, the volcanic eruption in Iceland turned this into an unusual event for all participants. Only half of the delegates were able to travel to Nuuk (before the eruption) and the rest was stuck in Copenhagen. Therefore, meetings had to be held either with a reduced number of participants in Nuuk or via video conference with the rest of the delegates in Copenhagen.
As air traffic from Greenland to Europe was shut down for almost a week, all participants in Greenland were able to hang out with each other for a few extra days. While the North American and Asian delegates were able to leave Nuuk on charter flights (Thanks to the genius of Marty Bergman!) after a day, the European stayed for an extra week to enjoy every corner of Nuuk (thanks Air Greenland for the hotel and meal tickets!) until regular flights resumed. The amazing local organizing team was a big help in this situation (THANK YOU!!), by keeping us all updated on the flight situation and organizing a little entertainment program with excursions, where our director became a true Norwegian by catching loads of fish, including a cod (Jenny our fish queen!).
We especially want to thank all of our fellow ASSW participants for the wonderful mentoring they provided for us three "young" researchers while being stuck in Nuuk. This was a very memorable time and we enjoyed every bit of it. We managed to pass the time by contributing quite a bit to the long list of acronyms already out there in polar sciences!
SYIS 2011 - See you in Seoul 2011!
