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Community Announcements

This page provides recent announcements from the polar community that are not directly related to GCW. New documents, job opportunities, student training, special datasets, and field experiments are posted here. All items are extracted from email lists such as CRYOLIST and ArcticInfo, various newletters, and other public mailings. GCW news and other cryosphere news are available elsewhere on this site. Meetings, workshops, and some conferences are available on the Community Calendar.


[2022-07-05] The first Sea Ice-thickness product iNter-comparison eXerciSe (SIN’XS) workshop will be held virtually 6-7 October 2022. This first workshop will define the list of datasets involved in the intercomparison, and will discuss the inter-comparison protocol. More information will be provided in the coming months. The SIN’XS project closely follows recommendations of the Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW), which organized a workshop at the Alfred-Wegener Institute in 2019, and has led sessions at the EO4Polar ESA/EC conference (2020) and the DUAL-CRYO ESA Workshop (2021). The GCW initiative was motivated by the need for reconciled satellite-derived ice thickness products and the definition of ad-hoc methodologies to intercompare multiple Sea Ice Thickness (SIT) products and provide standardized metrics, validation protocols and community best-practices adapted to various types of applications and typical scales of variations. Christian HAAS, AWI, is SIN’XS scientific leader; Elodie DA SILVA, NOVELTIS, is the project manager.

[2020-06-07] The UK company MAINTENANT Sustaining Now has created a DIVERSITY DECK® Funbook on on the cryosphere. MAINTENANT Sustaining Now creates Sustainability Science educational content to empower children to take initiative for the planet. Their Cryosphere Funbook will be released and available free-of-charge on 10 June 2020.  A preview is available at https://maintenant.org.uk/resources/cryosphere-funbook. (Note: This is a community announcement, and not necessarily an endorsement by GCW.)

[2019-12-12] The Cryosphere1.5° report of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative has been released online. It available at http://iccinet.org/cryosphere15/. From the Executive Summary: "This Report, authored and reviewed by over 40 IPCC and other cryosphere scientists, combines the findings of both the SR1.5, and SROCC, plus published studies since. Its inevitable, science-based conclusion: failure to choose policies keeping the world below 1.5° is neither measured nor economically prudent."

[2019-03-19] The GlobPermafrost Permagrost Information System has recently been completed. All datasets have been registered on PANGAEA including product guides. The thematic products include (1) mean annual ground temperature (Northern and Southern Hemisphere) and zonation for permafrost areas, (2) Landsat trends and derived disturbances (1999-2014; 10% of Arctic permafrost covered), and (3) local to regional maps on landcover, vegetation height, ground fast lake ice, subsidence rates and rock glacier activity. For more detail see http://www.globpermafrost.info/cms/products. [CRYOLIST]

[2018-03-24] A giant has fallen. Roger Barry, founder and former director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), scholar, and champion of all things cryosphere, passed away on 19 March 2018. Read more at http://globalcryospherewatch.org/news/rgb/roger_barry.html.

[2018-01-19] The Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN) announced availability of the 2017 Arctic Sea Ice Outlook (SIO) Post-Season Report. The full report and highlights are available at https://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2017/post-season. The 2017 Sea Ice Outlook post-season report includes reviews of the 2017 Arctic conditions, the melt season, contributions to the 2017 SIO monthly reports, as well as discussions of the statistical methods and local-scale analysis of 2017 Sea Ice Outlooks. The report also includes discussion of contributions to the call for forecasts of the Antarctic maxima and discussion of the beginning of the Sea Ice Drift Forecast Experiment (SIDFEx), which is a contribution to the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP). [CRYOLIST]

[2017-12-10] The NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) team reports that the "MEaSUREs Annual Antarctica Ice Velocity Maps" product has just been updated and now includes the 2016/17 velocity map thus expanding the number of annual maps to 12. They are available from https://nsidc.org/data/NSIDC-0720/. The WMO Polar Space Task Group is acknowledged for its role in coordinating the Antarctica data acquisition plans. [CRYOLIST]

[2017-11-13] The International Permafrost Association (IPA) and the Climate and Cryosphere project (CliC) initiated a process in 2014 to seek input from the scientific community on the definition of research priorities in the field of permafrost science. They are now asking for your opinions on the relevance of the questions that were submitted. The survey can be accessed until 20 December 2017 at http://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90050886/prp. [CRYOLIST]

[2017-11-02] The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) publication ‘Sea Ice Information Services in the World’ (WMO-No.574) is intended to provide to mariners and other users information on best practices in sea-ice services available world-wide and by this is formally extending the two WMO publications No.9, Volume D – Information for Shipping and No.558 – Manual on Marine Meteorological Services (WMO-No. 558). The 2017 update of the document reflects new types of sea ice and icebergs information, forms of collaboration and delivery of the products through August 2017. This update is being released by the Joint World Meteorological Organization/Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (WMO-IOC JCOMM) Expert Team on Sea Ice (ETSI). It is available from http://www.jcomm.info/index.php?option=com_oe&task=viewDocumentRecord&docID=9607, or from the GCW measurement methods page. [WMO]

[2017-10-12] The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) has opened a call-for-data for the observation period 2015/16. WGMS is compiling data on glacier front variations, glaciological mass balance, changes in glacier area, thickness, and volume, and also special events such as related to glacier surges, avalanches, or lake outburst floods. More information is available on the WGMS website at http://wgms.ch/data_submission/. [CRYOLIST]

[2017-09-08] The ArcticDEM team has announced the availability of high resolution terrain data covering 97.4% of the Arctic - an additional 32% from past releases. Release 6 adds 21,751 2m strip DEM components at 2m resolution to the ArcticDEM inventory, with an additional 2,875 mosaic tiles at 5m resolution. This sixth release completes the outstanding geographic regions of the ArcticDEM production domain: the Russian Far Eastern Federal Districts, European Russia, and Scandinavia north of 60° latitude. [CRYOLIST]

[2017-09-08] The Ice Watch ship observations initiative is an international, collaborative program to coordinate Arctic-wide visual sea ice observations collected from ships operating in ice-covered seas of the northern hemisphere. The associated observation protocol (see attached form) was developed in collaboration with the WCRP Climate and Cryosphere Arctic Sea Ice Working Group (CliC-ASIWG). For more information visit https://sites.google.com/a/alaska.edu/ice-watch/.

[2017-08-24] Arctic sea ice forecasts from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) are now available online at https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/seaice/. The 0-10 day, experimental, sea ice forecasts are produced by the ESRL Physical Sciences Division from a fully coupled ice-ocean-atmosphere model called RASM-ESRL.

[2017-08-24] The Ice Watch ship observations initiative is an international, collaborative program to coordinate Arctic-wide visual sea ice observations collected from ships operating in ice-covered seas of the Northern Hemisphere (https://sites.google.com/a/alaska.edu/ice-watch/). The associated observation protocol was developed in collaboration with the WCRP Climate and Cryosphere Arctic Sea Ice Working Group (CliC-ASIWG). For questions on the program or the template, contact the Ice Watch team https://sites.google.com/a/alaska.edu/ice-watch/contact-us. [Kirstin Werner, AWI]

[2017-07-30] The IACS Working Group on the Randolph Glacier Inventory and Infrastructure for Glacier Monitoring has announced the release of version 6.0 of the Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI). The RGI is a global dataset of digital outlines of glaciers, excluding the ice sheets. The RGI is a resource for global/regional-scale mass-balance assessments and projections. It is available from http://www.glims.org/RGI/randolph60.html. [CRYOLIST]

[2017-07-13] The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Cold Regions initiative, "GEOCRI", website is now available at http://earthobservations.org/coldregions.php.

[2017-06-22] The World Glacier Monitoring Service has updated its Fluctuations of Glaciers (FoG) database with more than 30,000 new or corrected data records. You can access the new database version using the WGMS FoG Browser at http://wgms.ch/fogbrowser/ or download the entire database from http://wgms.ch/data_databaseversions/. [CRYOLIST]

[2017-04-21] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has agreed to produce two new reports: Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, and Climate Change and Land. Both are expected to be finalized in September 2019. Outlines for the two reports were drafted at scoping meetings in December 2016 and February 2017. More information is available at https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/ipcc-agrees-outlines-of-new-reports-oceans-and-cryosphere-land. [WMO]

[2016-12-02] We would like to draw your attention to a session at EGU 2017 that is focused on projects related to the objectives of GCW and its partners: "Cross Disciplinary Observations for an Integrated Understanding of the Arctic system". Information for submitting an abstract is at http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2017/session/24604. EGU 2017 will be held April 23-28 2017 in Vienna, Austria. Abstracts are due 11 January 2017. Hope to see you in Vienna! - Jeff Key and Wolfgang Schöner

[2016-11-22] The U.S. launched it"s next-generation geostationary satellite, GOES-R, on 19 November 2016. GOES-R contains a 16-band imager, a lightning mapper, and instruments for space weather. While geostationary satellites are not normally used for high-latitude observations, the higher spatial resolution GOES-R imager will provide useful data in the southern portion of the western Arctic. Sea and lake ice products will be generated, with a particular emphasis on the Great Lakes. An advanced fractional snow cover product will also be produced. Watch the launch at https://youtu.be/FDhJYgcHDX8.

[2016-10-21] The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) is now providing a standardized dataset of 19 first-order and more than 90 second-order glacier regions from the GTN-G website at http://www.gtn-g.ch/data_catalogue_glacreg/. These are basically the regions used in the fifth assessment report of the IPCC, in the Randolph Glacier Inventory, and in the Global Glacier Change Bulletin No. 1 of the WGMS. [CRYOLIST]

[2016-10-06] From the Polar Prediction Project: "The first issue of the PolarPredictNews, a newsletter with updates on recent, ongoing and upcoming activities during the Year of Polar Prediction, is now available for download. Edited by the International Coordination Office for Polar Prediction, the PolarPredictNews keep you updated with recent, ongoing and upcoming activities during the Year of Polar Prediction. With this newsletter, we are aiming to build a common platform to exchange information, updates, and developments in polar prediction." [Polar Prediction]

[2016-10-04] A new scientific data portal that provides convenient functionality for searching, viewing, visualising and downloading satellite based products for ice sheets, glaciers and seasonal snow is now available at http://cryoportal.enveo.at. The products are generated by ENVEO and several partners in various projects, funded by ESA, EC and national agencies. The products are freely available for download after simple registration. [CRYOLIST]

[2016-09-06] A database of "Greenland surface mass balance observations from the ice-sheet ablation area and local glaciers" is now available from the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE). The database contains 3000 point measurements of surface mass balance spanning the 123 years from 1892 to 2015. The data have been compiled in the framework of the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet PROMICE and are freely accessible at http://www.promice.dk/MassebalancedataDownload.html.  [CRYOLIST]

[2016-09-06] The NOAA ESRL/PSD Arctic Processes & Modeling Team has started their second season of issuing "Experimental Sea Ice Forecasts", on the 0-10 day timescale, using the coupled ice-ocean-atmosphere model, RASM-ESRL. Please visit their website to view a variety of 2016 forecast products, model validation, skill assessment results from the 2015 freeze-up season, and 2016 model output archive. [J. Intrieri, NOAA]

[2016-05-31] The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) announces a new release of the WGMS Fluctuations of Glaciers Browser. It is available at http://wgms.ch/fogbrowser/. The WGMS team and ESRI Switzerland jointly developed this new interface to the Fluctuations of Glaciers (FoG) database. The map-based web-browser provides a global overview of available observation series of glacier front variation, glaciological mass balance, and geodetic thickness change. [CRYOLIST]

[2016-04-21] A new paper by Nager et al. (2016, http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/8/4/348) describes a method for monitoring snowmelt with Sentinel-1 SAR. This work addresses the snow observation requirements of the WMO Polar Space Task Group (PSTG) and GCW. 

[2016-04-17] The European Space Agency launched the GlobPermafrost initiative to develop, validate and implement information products to support the research communities and related international organisations in their work on understanding permafrost better by integration of Earth Observation data. As a first step, GlobPermafrost is updating the user requirements and has developed an online survey for this purpose. If you are interested in participating in the surface, provide your requirements by 22nd of April at http://www.globpermafrost.info/cms/news/user-requirements-survey-online. [CRYOLIST]

[2016-03-19] The U.S. Department of State announced the blog "Our Arctic Nation," an initiative of the U.S. Chairmanship of the Arctic Council to share how each U.S. state is connected to the Arctic. Each week throughout 2016, a local voice from a different corner of America will share the reasons why his or her home state contributes to America"s identity as an Arctic nation. The blog is available at https://medium.com/our-arctic-nation.

[2016-03-19] From the European Space Agency (ESA): "As part of the Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions (SEOM) programme element, the European Space Agency (ESA) is organising a new advanced Cryosphere Training Course devoted to train the next generation of Earth Observation (EO) scientists to exploit data from ESA and operational EO Missions (e.g. the Sentinels) for science and applications development. Post graduate, PhD students, post–doctoral research scientists and users from European countries and Canada interested in Cryosphere Remote Sensing and its applications are invited to apply to the 5 day course which will be held at the University of Leeds, UK from 12 to 16 September 2016. Research scientists and students from all other countries are also welcome to apply and participate to the course subject to space availability." More information at http://seom.esa.int/cryotraining2016/index.php.

[2016-01-23] The Fourth International Summer School in Glaciology will by hosted by the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in McCarthy, Alaska, 7-17 June, 2016. The course is intended to provide glaciology graduate students with a comprehensive overview of the physics of glaciers and current research frontiers in glaciology with focus on quantitative glaciology, modeling and remote sensing of glaciers and ice sheets. The course is taught by glaciology faculty of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and several invited guest lecturers. APPLICATION DEADLINE: 1 February 2016. [CRYOLIST]

[2016-01-23] The New Italian Glacier Inventory, which includes data about features, bibliography, evolution and area of glaciers from high-resolution orthophotos from the years 2005-2011, is available online at http://users.unimi.it/glaciol. [CRYOLIST]

[2016-01-23] The 46th Annual International Arctic Workshop will be held April 02-03, 2016 on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Arctic Workshop is open to all interested in high latitude environments, including those of the past, present, and future. Talks and posters on all aspects of Arctic science, social science, and engineering are invited, including Arctic and Antarctic climate, anthropology, atmospheric chemistry, engineering and infrastructure, environmental geochemistry, paleoenvironment, sociology, archeology, geomorphology, hydrology, glaciology, soils, ecology, oceanography, Quaternary history and more. If you are studying the Arctic, this is the conference for you. More information is available at http://instaar.colorado.edu/meetings/AW2016/.

[2015-12-17] From the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS): After two years of development, it is with great pleasure that we can announce the wgms Glacier App. This new information system for mobile devices is jointly launched with UNESCO in the forefront of the UN Climate Conference in Paris and aims at bringing glacier fluctuation data to decision makers at governmental and intergovernmental levels as well as reaching out to the interested public. With the glacier change data, the app provides information on the latest observers for all glaciers with available information. In this way, we want to increase the visibility of the hundreds of investigators sharing their data with the international community. For more details see the media release.   [CRYOLIST]

[2015-11-02] The Fourth INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL IN GLACIOLOGY by the University of Alaska Fairbanks will be held in McCarthy, Alaska, 7-17 June, 2016. The course is intended to provide glaciology graduate students with a comprehensive overview of the physics of glaciers and current research frontiers in glaciology with focus on quantitative glaciology, modeling and remote sensing of glaciers and ice sheets. The course is taught by glaciology faculty of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and several invited guest lecturers. More information is available at http://glaciers.gi.alaska.edu/courses/summer-school/2016. [CRYOLIST]

[2015-10-13] The Working Group (WG) on Glacier Ice Thickness Estimation of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) announces the launch of the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment (ITMIX) and extends its call for participation to ITMIX to the wider community. The experiment aims at comparing existing approaches that estimate the ice thickness of glaciers and ice caps from characteristics of the surface, and will be run on a set of predefined test cases. For more information about the scope, rules, and plan of action of the experiment, as well as for participating to the ITMIX itself, visit www.cryosphericsciences.org/itmix.html. [CRYOLIST]

[2015-10-13] CNES would like to announce the opening of the SPIRIT database (https://theia.cnes.fr/rocket/#/search?collection=Spirit) containing SPOT derived Digital Elevation Models, generated from SPOT satellite optical image data. Interested users can enter the site, and then type in the question field: e.g. "Antarctica", "Iceland", "Greenland", "Nunavut", to search for relevant data in the SPIRIT collection. [S. Hosford, CNES]

[2015-08-30] The U.S. Naval/National Ice Center has developed and made publically available an online training resource titled "Ship-Based Sea and Lake Ice Observing Training Module". It can be found at https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_module.php?id=1149. Description: "Ships operating in areas with ice are expected to report conditions as part of standard weather reporting procedures. This lesson is aimed at those tasked with this responsibility, be they official or informal observers. The lesson begins with background information on ice, addressing such topics as where it is found, how it develops, and how to observe and report it. This sets the stage for the lesson"s scenarios, which simulate the experience of being an ice observer in four situations: on the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy operating in the Arctic Ocean, on a container ship transiting the North Atlantic shipping lanes, on an oil tanker operating in an area with icebergs, and on the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Alder breaking ice on Lake Superior. Each scenario provides numerous opportunities to identify and report ice. These reports provide important information about local conditions and are vital to many users - from mariners deciding on route planning and ice monitoring organizations tasked with keeping waterways open to environmental scientists." [NOAA]

[2015-06-15] The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC; Boulder, Colorado, USA) announced the addition of almost 1200 photographs to the Glacier Photograph Collection. This new collection was compiled by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). The special WGMS collection focuses on photographs of glaciers for which long fluctuation series are available, some of them dating back to the 18th century. The photos were assembled from the WGMS archive, from contributions from WGMS principal investigators, and from various other sources that provide freely available data such as Flickr Creative Commons. [CRYOLIST]

[2015-04-17] The European Space Agency (ESA) announced the availability of near-real time Arctic sea ice thickness information and data from its CryoSat-2 satellite. Click here for more information. The interactive website developed by CPOM/UCL London, with click and zoom, time-series plotting, and data download is at http://www.cpom.ucl.ac.uk/csopr/seaice.html. [ESA (M. Drinkwater)]

[2015-01-02] From the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado: The “MEaSUREs Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Snow Cover Extent Weekly 100km EASE-Grid 2.0” data set is now available from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). This data set, part of the NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, provides weekly snow cover extent from the NOAA/NCDC Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Extent Climate Data Record and passive microwave brightness temperatures. Access to the data and documentation is provided at http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0531. [IWG-everybody]

[2014-12-16] From WGMS: With this email we officially open the application for the “Summer School on Mass Balance Measurements and Analysis”. This course will be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from 2-8 August 2015 with theoretical lectures taking place at the Central Asian Institute for Applied Geosciences and practical training in field work and safety aspects on nearby Golubin Glacier in the Ala Archa Range. There is a limited number of about a dozen training positions which will be offered to candidates from the following Central Asian countries: Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. During the selection process, priority will be given to candidates involved in established mass balance programmes. Letters of application including a CV can be sent to: marlene.kronenberg@unifr.ch. Deadline for application is 28 February 2015. For more details see http://www.wgms.ch/mb_summerschool_2015.html. [CRYOLIST]

[2014-11-04] The International Association for Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) announced its 2015 Early Career Scientist Prize. The IACS Early Career Scientist Prize is an annual cash prize of €1000 awarded to a nominated early career scientist who is assessed as having published the best scientific paper on a cryospheric subject during the previous calendar year. The objective of the prize is to recognize excellence in cryospheric science by honouring and promoting someone in the early-stages of her or his career, and to draw attention to the work of IACS. IACS now welcomes nominations of scientific papers satisfying the eligibility criteria (see guidelines on-line at http://www.cryosphericsciences.org/iacsAwards.html). Submit nomination packages until 13 February 2015 the latest to ecsaward.iacs (at) slf.ch with the subject line labeled as "IACS: 2015 ECS Prize". The Selection Committee will announce the winner late-March 2015 and the 2015 Prize will be formally presented during the IACS Plenary Administrative Session at the XXVI IUGG General Assembly in Prague in June 2015. [CRYOLIST]

[2014-09-20] The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) has just completed a new release of their Fluctuations of Glaciers database. The current version comprises reported observations on glacier changes up until the observation period 2011/12 including: 5,300 glaciological balances from 413 glaciers (partly including ELA, AAR, seasonal and elevation bin balances, and point observations); 920 geodetic balances from 446 glaciers; 44,000 front variations from 2,340 glaciers; and 420 special event reports from 295 glaciers. For a detailed overview and quick data access, please use the WGMS MetaData Browser http://www.wgms.ch/metadatabrowser.html.  [CRYOLIST]

[2014-09-11] The glacier inventory of the Himalayan region announced by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in May of this year (http://www.icimod.org/?q=13569) is now in the GLIMS Glacier Database. This set of 38200 outlines adds approximately 24000 new glaciers to the GLIMS database, and 14000 new outlines that were already represented in the GLIMS database. (Announced by Bruce Raup, National Snow and Ice Data Center, USA) [CRYOLIST]

[2014-09-10] In light of the media attention regarding the ongoing fissure eruption in Holuhraun, north of Vatnajökull, in Iceland, the glaciology group at the Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland wants to send out trustworthy web links for up-to-date information to the glaciological community. The are:

http://earthice.hi.is/bardarbunga_2014 - Institute of Earth Science Homepage
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/articles/nr/29 - Icelandic Met Office Homepage
http://ruv.is/volcano - Icelandic National TV Volcano News Summary Homepage. [CRYOLIST]

[2014-07-02] The Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN) announces the call for contributions for the Sea Ice Outlook July report and revised guidelines. The new guidelines for contributors can be found at http://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2014/july/call. All Outlook submissions should be sent directly to Kristina Creek, ARCUS (creek@arcus.org). The Sea Ice Outlook provides an open process for those interested in Arctic sea ice to share ideas about the September minimum sea ice extent. The monthly reports contain a variety of perspectives from advanced numerical models to qualitative perspectives from citizen scientists. A post-season report will provide an in-depth analysis of factors driving sea ice extent this summer as well as explore the scientific methods for predicting seasonal ice extent. [ArcticInfo]

[2014-05-27] IceChrono v1.0 has been released by Frédéric Parrenin. IceChrono is a statistical model to build a common and optimized chronology for several ice cores, taking into account background scenarios of accumulation, Lock-in-Depth and thinning function and various observations. It is available under an open-source license (GPLv3). IceChrono is hosted on github at https://github.com/parrenin/IceChrono. [CRYOLIST]

[2014-02-14] Markku Similä of the Finnish Meteorological Institute has announced an ongoing demonstration phase of the ANISTIAMO project. ANISTIAMO is an ESA funded project to improve Maritime Surveillance and Arctic Sea Ice Information. During the demonstration phase they provide sea ice thickness and drift products for the Barents and Kara seas. Also the ice concentration charts by JAXA over the same area are available on our website. The products are available at www.arcice.org. All products can be viewed freely but if you want to download them, possible also in numerical format (netCDF file), registration is mandatory. [CRYOLIST]

[2014-02-09] The third International SUMMER SCHOOL in Glaciology, organized by the University of Alaska, will be held in McCarthy, Alaska, 6-16 August, 2014. The application deadline is 20 February 2014. The course is intended to provide glaciology graduate students with a comprehensive overview of the physics of glaciers and current research frontiers in glaciology with focus on quantitative glaciology, modeling and remote sensing. The course is taught by glaciology faculty of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and several invited guest lecturers. Student fees: US $300 (inludes accommodation and food in McCarthy, course material and transport Fairbanks-McCarthy). A few student travel grants are available. For further information: http://glaciers.gi.alaska.edu/courses/summer-school/2014. [CRYOLIST]

[2014-01-31] A summer school on "Land Hydrology and Cryosphere of the Arctic and Northern Eurasia in the Changing Climate" will be held 29 June - 5 July 2014 in Zelenogorsk, Leningrad Region, Russia. It is organized by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre and funded by the European-Russian Center for Cooperation in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic (EuRuCAS). For further information visit http://eurucas.niersc.spb.ru/summer-school.html. [ArcticInfo]

[2013-12-20] 4th Ice Analyst Workshop and Antarctic Workshop: The International Ice Charting Working Group (IICWG) and the JCOMM Expert Team on Sea Ice (ETSI) are organizing the 4th Ice Analyst Workshop (IAW-4) which will be held in Helsinki, Finland 9-12 June 2014. The workshop is hosted by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI).  As a part of the IAW-4,  an Antarctic mini-workshop will be held during 12-13 of June. The Antarctic mini-workshop is organized by the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) and will also be held at the FMI premises in Helsinki. Key themes of the workshops include the use of a variety of satellites for sea ice and iceberg analysis, integrated ice charting, ice information via the GMDSS for the Southern hemisphere and ice charting during the melt/breakup and freeze up seasons. More information will be distributed later on the topics, arrangements etc. (Antti Kangas, Finnish Meteorological Institute; Vasily Smolyanitsky, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute; Jürgen Holfort, German Ice Service, BSH; Boram Lee, World Meteorological Organization) [IICWG email list]

[2013-12-10] A new sea ice thickness product derived from SMOS brightness temperatures is available from the Univeristat Hamburg. It is available at  https://icdc.zmaw.de/l3c_smos_sit.html?&L=1. [CRYOLIST]

[2013-10-30] Registration is now open for the CliC GTN-P ESA DUE Permafrost Workshop that has the objective to bring together the scientific permafrost communities and the producers of satellite data. The 4th DUE Permafrost User Workshop will be held at ESA ESRIN, Frascati, Italy the 11-13 February 2014. It is sponsored by the Climate and Cryosphere Project (CliC) and Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost of the International Permafrost Association (GTN-P/IPA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Visit the Workshop webpage at: http://www.climate-cryosphere.org/meetings/due-permafrost-2014. [CRYOLIST]

[2013-10-26] The NASA Snow Working Group for Remote Sensing (SWGR) has been holding a series of meetings to create a blueprint for future U.S. and International snow remote sensing research, and to create a community and forum for the exchange of ideas related to snow and remote sensing. The 2nd Snow Remote Sensing Workshop will be held January 14-16th 2014 in Granby, Colorado. There will also be a a community snow school for graduate students and practitioners January 7-9th at Fraser Experimental Forest in Colorado. Details and registration for the workshop and snow school will be posted shortly at http://nasasnowremotesensing.gi.alaska.edu. [CRYOLIST]

[2013-10-15] The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project is offering online participation for the WCRP Cryosphere Grand Challenge Workshop, which is being held this week 16-18 October in Tromsø, Norway (Central European Time). The workshop goal is to further develop the strategy to address the WCRP Cryosphere in a Changing Climate Grand Challenge. Several keynote presentations including an overview of the WCRP Grand Challenges and the Cryosphere, an update on the Polar Climate Predictability Initiative, Ice sheets and glaciers in a changing climate, sea ice in a changing climate, permafrost and carbon in a changing climate, and cryosphere biases and shortcomings in Earth System models will be webcast tomorrow. Breakout groups will follow and online participants are able to join these discussions. For more information on the Cryosphere Grand Challenge and the workshop, please visit the workshop website: http://www.climate-cryosphere.org/meetings/wcrp-cryo-gc-2013/. [WCRP/CliC]

[2013-10-04] The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) has opened the call-for-data for the observation period 2011/12. If you carried out measurements of glacier fluctuations (e.g., glacier front variations, glaciological mass balance, and geodetic volume changes) during this period or if you have data series from earlier years, you are kindly invited to submit your data via our national correspondents who organize the data compilation in their region/country. More information, data submission guidelines and digital data submission forms are available at http://www.wgms.ch/datasub.html. [CRYOLIST]

[2013-09-19] A new dataset of CryoSat-2 Arctic freeboard and thickness has been made available by Stefan Hendricks, Robert Ricker, and Veit Helm of the Alfred Wegener Institute. Data is currently available from January 2011 to March 2013 and contains radar freeboard from a CryoSat-2 level-2 processor developed at the Alfred Wegener Institute, auxiliary datasets (snow depth, ice & snow density etc.) and ice thickness with associated uncertainties. The full dataset (EASE grid) can be downloaded from http://mep-datasrv1.awi.de/download/cryosat2.zip. Documentation and quickview plots are available at http://www.meereisportal.de/cryosat. Be advised that this dataset should not be treated as a final and fully validated product. Future revisions are likely with new data releases from ESA and better snow parametrizations. User feedback is welcome (stefan.hendricks@awi.de). [CRYOLIST]

[2013-09-18] Approaching the 2016 launch of ICESat-2, it is important to know if NASA"s airborne Operation IceBridge (OIB) mission is collecting the right measurements at the right times and places to accomplish its goals and objectives. The OIB Mid-term Review Panel would like you to take a moment to assist us in assessing the OIB mission thus far, by completing the survey here. [CRYOLIST]

[2013-09-16] ECMWF seeks scientist to work on land surface and hydrological modeling. Location: ECMWF Headquarters at Shinfield Park, near Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom. Details are available at http://www.ecmwf.int/newsevents/employment/en/vn13-17-en.html. [ECMWF]

[2013-09-12] Version 3.2 of the Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) is now available from the GLIMS group. It features improved accuracy of glacier outlines in many places, notably Alaska (more recent source imagery) and South America (source imagery with less seasonal snow), filling of some gaps (for example in the tropics and in Burma), and correction of errors in a number of places. The RGI is downloadable from http://glims.org/RGI/, where there is also a Technical Report describing the main features of the inventory. Certain restrictions still apply to use of the RGI, but these restrictions will be relaxed upon publication of AR5, the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the report for which the RGI was originally compiled). [CRYOLIST]

[2013-09-10] A new book entitled "The Meaning of Ice: People and Sea Ice in Three Arctic Communities" edited by Shari Fox Gearheard, Lene Kielsen Holm, Henry Huntington, Joe Mello Leavitt, Andrew R. Mahoney, Margaret Opie, Toku Oshima, and Joelie Sanguya and published by the International Polar Institute (IPI) Press is available from the University Press of New England (UPNE). This book explores Arctic sea ice as seen and experienced by the Inuit, Inupiat, and Inughuit and describes the great depth of their knowledge of sea ice and the critical and complex role it plays in their relationships with their environment and with one another. For more information, go to http://ipipress.blogspot.com/. [ArcticInfo]

[2013-09-10] Two newsletters: (1) The International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA) announces the availability of the Fall 2013 issue of their newsletter, IASOA Observations. It is available at http://tinyurl.com/IASOA-News-Fall-2013. (2) The Secretariat of the Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) has released a first edition of the SAON newsletter. This summer 2013 issue includes an introduction to SAON, an overview of the ongoing SAON tasks and other news related to Arctic observing. To download the newsletter, click on Newsletter at http://www.arcticobserving.org/. [ArcticInfo]

[2013-09-05] A new data set containing Antarctic sea ice thickness and freeboard results from the ICESat mission is available. The data are from 13 individual ICESat campaigns which span the time period from October 2003 to March 2008. The data can be accessed at: http://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/csb/index.php?section=272. The data products contain estimates of both sea ice freeboard and thickness at the full spatial resolution of ICESat (~70 m) as well as gridded and interpolated data at a spatial resolution of 25 km. Full documentation of the data set is provided in the website and in associated publications. Please send comments or questions to nathan.t.kurtz@nasa.gov. [CRYOLIST]

[2013-09-01] The International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (INTERACT) announces a call for proposals for access visits taking place between October 2013 and October 2014. Submissions are due by 30 September 2013. Transnational Access is available to user groups where the group leader and majority of group members work in an institution established in a EU Member State or Associated State. The maximum amount of access per user group is 90 person-days, including previously granted INTERACT Transnational Access. Eligibility rules, application instructions, stations available in the call, descriptions of stations and their facilities, and registration for the online application system are available on the INTERACT website (http://www.eu-interact.org). [ArcticInfo]

[2013-08-28] PolarTREC Informational Webinar (Web Seminar) for Teachers & Researchers, Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. Tuesday, 3 September, at 3:30-4:30p.m. Alaska Daylight Time. For further information and to register to participate, please go to: FOR RESEARCHERS: http://www.polartrec.com/researchers/webinar; FOR TEACHERS: http://www.polartrec.com/teachers/webinar. Or contact PolarTREC: Email: info@polartrec.com; Phone: 907-474-1600 [CRYOLIST]

[2013-08-27] A Second Science and Applications Research Call for Europe (SOAR-EU2) has been released together with Canadian Space Agency to support use of Radarsat 2 data in conjunction with ESA mission data. This call has been opened last week. Submission of proposals is possible until 31 October 2013 at https://earth.esa.int/aos/soar2. [ESA]

[2013-08-24] The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) invites applications for the 2013-2014 APECS Council and/or Executive committee. This is an opportunity for early career scientists to gain leadership and collaboration experience in an international polar organization. For further information, please go to: http://www.apecs.is. [ArcticInfo]

[2013-08-24] The Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Germany, invites applications for a Project Scientist International Coordination Office (ICO) for Polar Prediction. The successful applicant will have the following responsibilities: Provision of scientific, technical and administrative support to the Steering Group of the WWRP (World Weather Research Programme) Polar Prediction Project (PPP); Support and coordination of planning and implementation of PPP activities; Assistance in cooperation between the PPP and appropriate Working Groups and Experts Teams within WWRP, World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), Commission of the Atmospheric Sciences (CAS) and other partners’ relevant activities as well as in particular with the WCRP Polar Climate Predictability Initiative to ensure progress in delivering the Global Integrated Polar Prediction System (GIPPS); Organzitation of appropriate meetings, conferences, educational events and other activities related to PPP; Preparation of reports and publications; Management of the PPP website; Fund raising and recruiting secondments to join the ICO. For further information please contact the chair of the WWRP Polar PredictionProject: Prof. Dr. Thomas Jung (Thomas.Jung(at)awi.de).

[2013-08-21] Organizers of the Arctic Climate Change, Economy, and Society (ACCESS) cross-sectoral summer school announce that applications are still being accepted. A few slots remain open for this opportunity, and applications should be submitted as soon as possible. The school will be held 23-27 September 2013 in Bremen, Germany. To apply, please immediately contact: Lilian Schubert, Email: Lilian.Schubert@awi.de or Michael Karcher, Email: michael@oasys-research.de. [ArcticInfo]

[2013-08-06] The Chair of Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich has a vacancy for PhD position in glacio-hydrology. The position is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation project "/UNderstanding COntrasts in high MoUNtain hydrology in Asia (UNCOMUN)"/. The project aim is to improve the understanding of the glacio-hydrological response to climate variations of the glacierised Langtang catchment in central Himalaya. The project intends to (i) study the role debris covered glaciers play on glaciers dynamics, ablation patterns, mass balance and runoff, and (ii) characterise patterns of air temperature and precipitation important for the hydrological response of the catchment. Additional information about the position can be obtained by e-mailing Dr. F. Pellicciotti (pellicciotti at ifu.baug.ethz.ch ). [CRYOLIST]

[2013-08-01] Postdoctoral Research Fellow in solar transmittance of seasonal Arctic sea ice http://www.jobbnorge.no/job.aspx?jobid=95527. The Norwegian Polar Institute, in Troms ø, Norway, invites applications for a postdoctoral research fellow position on the project "Solar Transmittance in the Arctic as a Seasonally Ice-covered Sea". The position is a fixed-term position for a period of 2.5 years with the possibility for a 1.5 year extension, depending on funding. [CRYOLIST]

[2013-07-12] The July SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook reports are now available. The Pan-Arctic Summary, Full Pan-Arctic Outlook, and Regional Outlook are available at http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2013/july. [ArcticInfo]


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