SAON News
"IceBridge, a six-year NASA mission, is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown. It will yield an unprecedented three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice. These flights will provide a yearly, multi-instrument look at the behavior of the rapidly changing features of the Greenland and Antarctic ice.
Data collected during IceBridge will help scientists bridge the gap in polar observations between NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) -- in orbit since 2003 -- and ICESat-2, planned for 2018. ICESat stopped collecting science data in 2009, making IceBridge critical for ensuring a continuous series of observations.
IceBridge will use airborne instruments to map Arctic and Antarctic areas once a year. IceBridge flights are conducted in March-May over Greenland and in October-November over Antarctica. Other smaller airborne surveys around the world are also part of the IceBridge campaign.."
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/video-gallery/index.html
An important purpose of meeting was to discuss the strategic framework for SAON. Minutes are available here.
Each year IASC reports on its activities and highlights international Arctic science initiatives in its Bulletin. The 2017 Bulletin is now available for download on the IASC website. A printed copy was distributed at the ASSW 2017 in Prague, Czech Republic. A limited amount of printed copies is available upon request.
EU-PolarNet and a group of 50 polar experts and stakeholders are working together to develop a set of polar white papers. These white papers will provide a state of the art for a range of societal relevant polar issues and outline possible approaches on how to address these. We now would like to invite you to contribute to this process.
A brief anonymous online survey aims at giving you a chance to state where you see challenges and opportunities arising in the Polar Regions, which should be solved by future research. Your answers will build a fundamental basis for the white papers, which - once completed - will be given to the European Commission and other funding agencies as recommendations towards which issues need further investigation.
The survey comprises a short list of demographic questions, including your area of expertise, nationality and gender and one main question:
What are the most important topics in relation to your work and/or everyday life (either locally, nationally or internationally) in the Polar Regions that should be solved by future research?
You will be able to list three topics. We will then ask you to categorize your topics under one of the five overarching themes:
o People and societal issues
o Climate and cryosphere
o Sustainable resources and human impact
o Polar biology, ecology and biodiversity
o New technology
Please follow this link to participate in the survey: http://www.eu-polarnet.eu/project-themes/polar-research-for-science-and-society/public-consultation-on-research-priorities/
We are very much looking forward to your input and please feel free to share this survey with anyone who could be interested in participating.
If you have any questions, please get in touch and we will be happy to assist. We apologize if you receive this information from various people.
Thank you and kind regards,
Kristina Bär
Communications Officer
EU-PolarNet<http://www.eu-polarnet.eu/>
Tel.: (+49) 471/4831 - 2139
Email: kbaer@awi.de
Alfred Wegener Institute
Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research Am Handelshafen 12
27570 Bremerhaven
Germany
Due to the increasing concerns with regard to the weather and climate of the Polar Regions, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has established a ten-year Polar Prediction Project (PPP) under the auspices of the WMO World Weather Research Programme (WWRP).
One of the main PPP activities will be the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) in order to enable a significant improvement in the environmental prediction capabilities for the polar regions, and beyond. The core period of YOPP will entail intensive observation and modelling campaigns in both the Arctic and Antarctic scheduled from mid-2017 to mid-2019.
Three Special Observing Periods (SOPs) are planned:
· 1 Feb – 31 Mar 2018 in the Arctic,
· 1 Jul – 30 Sep 2018 in the Arctic and
· 16 Nov 2018 to 15 Feb 2019 in the Antarctic.
For further details please visit the website of the International Coordination Office for Polar Prediction: http://polarprediction.net.
The draft Report of the GEO-XIII Plenary that was held from 9-10 November 2016 in St Petersburg, Russian Federation, and the 2016 Report of the GEO Executive Committee are now available: http://www.earthobservations.org/geo13.php
SAON is a Participating Organisation to GEO as the “Arctic Extension” / liason for GEOSS/GEO.’
