Witness the Arctic | Volume 20, Number 1 - Winter

This update on the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) program includes recent news highlights from each of SEARCH's three Action Teams as well as reports from the Sea Ice Prediction Network and the Arctic Observing Open Science meeting.

During the SEARCH annual planning meeting that convened 19-20 November 2015 following the Arctic Observing Science Meeting, a shared knowledge-to-action framework was developed to encourage greater coordination and integration across each of SEARCH's three action teams (See: Figure 1).

The framework emphasizes meaningful exchanges across disciplines, significant interactions between researchers and stakeholders, and encourages the cultivation of new scientific knowledge, understanding, and critical observational capabilities.

Using the framework as a guide, Action Team leaders are now sharing what they have learned after their first year of activities with one another. Together, they are identifying new opportunities to increase each Action Team's overall capacity to address SEARCH's five-year science goals and to provide a stronger foundation for Arctic change science and research.

In March, the third biennial Arctic Observing Summit (AOS 2016) will be held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), in conjunction with the Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) and the Arctic Council's Senior Arctic Officials Meeting. Collectively, these events are being convened in hopes of advancing a cohesive agenda for the national and international Arctic research and policy communities. The Arctic Observing Summit is being convened to provide community-driven, science-based guidance for the design, implementation, coordination and sustained long-term (decades) operation of an international network of Arctic observing systems.

Scientists, indigenous people, government officials and other people interested in the Arctic are invited to participate in the first International Arctic Assembly at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) on Tuesday, 15 March 2016. The one-day event will be held at the UAF Davis Concert Hall and streamed online. It will harness the expertise of high-level officials attending the Arctic Science Summit Week, Arctic Observing Summit, and the Arctic Council's Senior Arctic Officials Meeting to examine how the research community, the people of the Arctic, and the policy community can work together to better respond to a rapidly changing Arctic.

The Polar Research Board's "Arctic Matters" initiative is a multifaceted public engagement effort timed to coincide with the U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council (April 2015-April 2017). The initiative aims to increase public understanding of changes affecting the Arctic region and the many potential impacts of such changes on people and places around the world.

As part of that initiative, the Polar Research Board (PRB) held a free public event, "Arctic Matters Day," on 14 January in Washington, D.C. The program included six keynote presentations, a variety of panel discussions, and a set of ten interactive exhibits. Throughout the day, the focus was on layman-friendly demonstrations and discussions about how we all affect and are affected by the dramatic environmental changes happening in the Arctic region.

In December 2015, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability released the Biennial Report of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC). The report covers Arctic research activities carried out by 16 Federal agencies under the IARPC 5-Year Arctic Research Plan issued by the White House in February 2013. An excerpt from a White House blog post written by Tamara Dickinson and Mike Kuperberg at the time of the Biennial Report's release is provided below, followed by information about the process by which IARPC will update the current 5-Year plan.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released the 2015 Arctic Report Card on 15 December 2015 during a press conference associated with the Fall Meetings of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California. The report was presented by Report Card co-Editors, Martin Jeffries (Office of Naval Research) and Jackie Richter-Menge (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory), along with contributor Kit Kovacs (Norsk Polarinstitutt/Norwegian Polar Institute) and NOAA Chief Scientist Rick Spinrad.

PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating), a professional development program that brings together K-12 teachers from around the United States and polar researchers through an innovative teacher research experience is one of ARCUS' signature programs. For over a decade, ARCUS has placed over 150 teachers with scientists in the Arctic and Antarctic to increase their knowledge about polar science and become better teachers. Working within the research teams, the teachers serve as research technicians, laborers, educators, or observers. They also act as public outreach officers, making contact with the public through web-based presentations, journals, and photos of their experiences. Once home, participants integrate their experiences into classroom instruction and continue public outreach, making the experience a part of their ongoing professional career development. In 2016-2017, fifteen teachers will be heading out to the polar regions for their teacher research experiences. More information about their experiences can be found on the Virtual Base Camp.

Arctic Horizons has planned a series of five workshops in 2016 that engage a diverse group of approximately 150 western and indigenous scholars to discuss the state-of-the-art in Arctic Social Sciences. Each workshop is structured around a set of core questions, which will be circulated to attendees in advance. The full schedule of workshops and information on joining is available here. In addition, the Arctic Horizons Steering Committee will hold town hall meetings at 2016 Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW2016), the Alaskan Anthropological Association 2016 Conference, and the Association of American Geographers 2016 Conference to broaden input from the scientific community.

Greetings from ARCUS headquarters in snow-covered Fairbanks!

The Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS) is dedicated to connecting Arctic research across boundaries, and has been for more than 25 years. We work to support communication, coordination, and collaboration between researchers, among institutions, spanning disciplines, bridging sectors, and connecting nations. Witness the Arctic is one of many offerings we provide.

Since I last wrote, ARCUS has been very busy. We convened the Arctic Observing Open Science Meeting in November that brought a wide range of researchers and funders to Seattle. We kicked off the eleventh year of PolarTREC, enabling teachers from around the country to become a part of an Arctic or Antarctic research expedition and inspire their teaching and that of their colleagues. We inaugurated the Arctic Research D.C. Seminar/Webinar Series, which allows some of the leading Arctic researchers to meet with Washington policymakers and others to discuss the latest discoveries.