Polar and Alpine Community News

This autumn SIOS will offer a training course “Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles in Svalbard (UAV4Svalbard)” to teach the effective use of UAVs in Svalbard research. 

Explore an Arctic research facility first excavated in the 1960s, including features such as ice wedges as tall as houses, green grass from thousands of years ago, and bison bones embedded in permafrost. Some features are up to 40,000 years old! Learn about current research and rapid changes happening to permafrost. Be one of the first to experience this guided virtual reality tour of a facility seldom open to the public. 

The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and the SCAR invite nominations of qualified individuals to serve on the SOOS Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), for terms beginning on 1 August 2023. 

SOOS SSC members are selected for their scientific excellence and standing in a field of Southern Ocean science that is relevant to at least one of the SOOS Science Themes or Foundational Capabilities in the SOOS Science and Implementation Plan (2021-2025), and connection to, and representation of a SOOS-relevant community or program. The SOOS objectives are multidisciplinary and integrated, thus SSC members need to have interests in developing and planning of system-scale implementation strategies, beyond their core scientific interests. The SSC membership strives to maintain diversity through disciplinary, nationality, gender and career-stage balance. Information on current SOOS SSC members is available here. Membership on the SSC is for a three-year period, with the potential for renewal for an additional three years, on approval of the SOOS Executive Committee, SCAR and SCOR.

Announcing open applications for NNA-CO Early Career Fellows and Experienced Co-leads for new Convergence Working Groups!

In 2022, the US National Science Foundation, via the Ice Drilling Program, funded a workshop for US early-career researchers to become more involved in the ice-core community. The Ice Core Early Career Researchers Workshop (ICECReW) was held January 5-8, 2022, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and online. Participants met with established researchers to better understand outcomes of and resources available from past ice core projects, learn about opportunities to engage with future efforts, and connect with potential collaborators. Participants also produced the following series of articles, published in Past Global Changes Magazine (https://doi.org/10.22498/pages.30.2), to help communicate ice core science to undergraduate students and ice core-adjacent researchers:

• The Arctic Snow School offers a high-level transdisciplinary training to better understand the dynamic processes of Arctic snow, its relationship with climate and wildlife, and its importance to northern communities in a changing North.

• The school will be held April 1-8, 2023 at the Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay), Nunavut.

• Graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from all disciplines with a strong interest in snow are invited to apply before January 15, 2023.

Please join us for a workshop on Race and Systemic Bias in Arctic Sciences, held during Arctic Science Summit Week in Vienna 17-24 February 2023.

Register now for the next GRS on Polar Marine Science, a meeting specifically designed for early career scientists!

The Climate & Cryosphere (CliC) Core Project of the World Climate Research Program provides grants that aim at increasing the engagement of Early Career Scientists in CliC. The project strives for gender balance and geographical diversity so submissions from regions currently under represented in CliC, such as Asia and Africa, are particularly encouraged.