Arctic science conference to highlight International Polar Year

Submitted by Marmian Grimes
Phone: (907) 474-7902
09/18/07

More than 200 scientists are expected to attend the 58th annual American Association for the Advancement of Science Arctic Division conference in Anchorage, Alaska Sept. 24-26 2007.

The conference will focus on opportunities for collaboration during the International Polar Year, a two-year, worldwide event focusing research efforts and public attention on the Earth’s polar regions. Sessions will cross multiple disciplines and will focus on recent scientific discoveries, as well as their social and policy implications. Highlights include sessions on Alaska food and agriculture, remediation and environmental science, circumpolar health, arctic resilience and the social sciences and International Polar Year education, as well as more than a dozen others. The conference will also host the 14th Arctic Round Table, a meeting of scientists and policymakers to discuss current issues in the Arctic. In addition, the conference will feature Synthesis, an international juried art exhibition of works created in collaboration with scientists or that have a scientific theme.

Conference speakers include Lars Kullerud, director of the University of the Arctic; David Hik, executive director of the Canadian IPY Secretariat; Carl Benson, professor emeritus at the UAF Geophysical Institute; Donald Lynch, professor emeritus at the UAF geography department; author William Althoff; and William Streever of BP.

The AAAS Arctic Division conference is one of the nation’s largest gatherings of arctic scientists, many of whom are active participants in the International Polar Year, which runs from March 2007 to March 2009. Conference sessions will take place at the Hotel Captain Cook in downtown Anchorage.

CONTACT: Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at (907) 474-7902 or via e-mail at marmian.grimes@uaf.edu. Jenn Wagaman, UAF Center for Research Services outreach coordinator, at (907) 322-2537 or via e-mail at jenn@alaska.edu.

ON THE WEB: www.arcticaaas.org

NOTE TO EDITORS: Media covering the conference may register for free online at the conference Web site, as well as obtain information on conference hotel rates and reservations. A synopsis of several presentations follows.

AAAS Arctic Division Conference 2007
Selected presentations

Permafrost on a warming planet
Researchers from across the nation will present information on the widespread effects of permafrost thawing. Presentations will focus on diverse issues, such as retrogressive thaw slump and sediment discharge, forecasting the effects of permafrost thaw on the standing water budget in Alaska, the presence of ice-bearing permafrost in the Beaufort Sea, the state of permafrost in the North, and permafrost degradation and its effects on methane emissions from lakes.

Community consequences of an Exxon Valdez payout
Duane Gill of Mississippi State University and Liesel Ritchie of Western Michigan University will discuss how the resolution of litigation related to the Exxon Valdez oil spill could affect communities with large numbers of plaintiffs. Their work focuses on the community of Cordova and examines potential socioeconomic effects of a payout, as well as offering suggestions for how communities could prepare themselves for those effects.

Fire impacts in rural, urban Alaska
Sarah Trainor, a researcher with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at UAF, will give a presentation on community vulnerability to wildfires in the face of global change. Her presentation will focus on communities in rural and urban Alaska and will detail community vulnerability and adaptive capacity to wildfire risk, given climate-change projections.

Coastal erosion costs in western Alaska
Owen Mason of the University of Colorado at Boulder will give a presentation on the costs of addressing coastal erosion in communities on the Chukchi and Bering Seas. Mason’s presentation will examine revetments and sea walls built in coastal communities and compare their erosion-control effectiveness to undeveloped shorelines, according to session abstracts. "A survey of hard structures across the Chukchi Sea reveals that most revetments have exacerbated erosion and that the more extensive ’levees’ proposed for Barrow and Unalakleet should be reconsidered, in light that retreat from the coast represents a less costly approach."

Climate change and agriculture
Stephen Sparrow of the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences will give a presentation on how climate change stands to affect commercial agriculture in the circumpolar North. According to abstracts, his research indicates that while global change could result in a warmer climate, it could also mean limited water resources.