American Association for the Advancement of Science Arctic Division

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Conference Schedule, Special Events, and Technical Sessions

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Conference Schedule

schedule updated 16 September 2002

Wednesday, 18 September

Morning

8:00 – 9:00 AM Registration Regents’ Great Hall, Fine Arts Complex

9:00 AM – noon Plenary Session Lee H. Salisbury Theatre, Fine Arts Complex

Afternoon

12:15 – 1:30 PM AAAS Board Meeting Memorial Conference Room, Wood Center

12:30 – 4:30 PM Registration Fifth Floor, International Arctic Research Center (IARC)

1:00 – 5:00 PM U.S. Arctic Research Commission Meeting and Panel Regents’ Conference Room (Room 109), Butrovich Building (Butrovich)

1:30 – 5:00 PM AWIS Workshop – Assessment of Student Learning: Strategies and Tools for Evidence That Counts Globe Room, Geophysical Institute (GI)

1:30 – 5:00 PM Technical Session – Plant Terrestrial Biology Room 401, IARC ***DAY CHANGE***

1:30 – 5:30 PM Technical Session – The Bering Sea: Where the Pacific meets the Arctic Elvey Auditorium, GI

Evening

6:00 – 7:30 PM Reception University of Alaska Museum

7:30 – 9:00 PM Public Lecture – Nobel Science and Nobel Lust: Disclosing Tribal Secrets West Valley High School Auditorium

Thursday, 19 September

Morning

8:00 AM – noon Registration Fifth Floor, IARC

8:30 – 11:50 AM Technical Session – Currents Connecting Science and Education Butrovich

8:30 AM – noon Technical Session – Cold Regions Engineering Room 401, IARC ***DAY CHANGE***

8:30 AM – noon Technical Session – Climate and Weather Room 417, IARC ***NEW SESSION***

8:30 AM – noon Technical Session – Hydrology: Connecting the Land, Oceans and Atmosphere Globe Room, GI

9:00 AM – noon Poster Session Fifth Floor, IARC

Afternoon

noon – 4:30 PM Registration Fifth Floor, IARC

noon – 4:30 PM Poster Session (cont.) Fifth Floor, IARC

12:15 – 1:30 PM Association for Women in Science Luncheon Room 401, IARC

1:25 – 5:00 PM Technical Session – Hydrology: Connecting the Land, Oceans and Atmosphere Globe Room, GI

1:30 – 5:00 PM Technical Session – Cold Regions Engineering Room 401, IARC ***DAY CHANGE***

1:30 – 5:30 PM Technical Session – North Pacific, Gulf of Alaska and Adjacent Waters Elvey Auditorium, GI

1:30 – 5:00 PM Technical Session – Protection of the Environment (Non-Human Biota) from Ionizing Radiation Room 214, O’Neill Building

1:45 – 2:45 PM Technical Session – Currents Connecting Science and Education Butrovich

3:00 – 4:30 PM Demonstration – Enhancement of Science Education and Research Using Video and Audio Teleconferencing Butrovich

Evening

7:00 – 9:00 PM AINA Arctic Round Table – Evidence of Global Change and Our Response to It Globe Room, GI

Friday, 20 September

Morning

8:00 AM – noon Registration Fifth Floor, IARC

8:30 AM – noon Technical Session – Sinks and Links: The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas and the Arctic Ocean Room 401, IARC

8:30 AM – noon Technical Session – Circumpolar Health: Connecting Research and Policy Room 417, IARC

8:30 AM – noon Technical Session – Animal Terrestrial Biology Globe Room, GI

9:00 AM – noon Poster Session Fifth Floor, IARC

Afternoon

noon – 4:30 PM Registration Fifth Floor, IARC

noon – 5:00 PM Poster Session (cont.) Fifth Floor, IARC

12:15 – 1:30 PM American Society of Circumpolar Health Luncheon Room D/E, Wood Center

1:30 – 3:30 PM Informal discussion of marine research plans and results for the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the adjacent Arctic Ocean Room 401, IARC ***NEW LOCATION***

1:30 – 5:00 PM Technical Session – Animal Terrestrial Biology Globe Room, GI

1:30 – 5:00 PM Technical Session – Mesoscale Perturbations in the Arctic Middle Atmosphere Elvey Auditorium, GI

1:45 – 2:45 PM Technical Session – Circumpolar Health: Connecting Research and Policy Room 417, IARC

3:00 – 5:20 PM Technical Session – Social, Political and Human Impacts Room 417, IARC ***NEW SESSION***

3:00 – 5:00 PM Undergraduate Poster Session & Reception Fifth Floor, IARC

Saturday, 21 September

9:30 AM – noon Planning Meeting for CAOS (Coastal Alaska Observing System) Globe Room, GI

9:30 AM – 5:00 PM Field Trips

Technical Sessions

updated 20 August 2002

All area codes are 907.

North Pacific, Gulf of Alaska and Adjacent Inland Waters

Chairs: David Musgrave – Institute of Marine Science, UAF; 474.7837
Thomas Weingartner – Institute of Marine Science, UAF; 474.7993

The North Pacific marine ecosystem has undergone remarkable changes in recent years. The relative dominance of the commercially important fish species changed in the mid-1970s: crab and shrimp declined while salmon and groundfish populations increased. These changes coincided with decadal-scale North Pacific adjustments in the atmosphere and ocean.

The spatial variability associated with the temperal variability is apparent to those who study the mechanistic links between atmosphere and ocean climate and the marine ecosystem. In this session we invite papers on all aspects of the marine ecosystem (including atmospheric and physical forcing) in the North Pacific, Gulf of Alaska and adjacent waters. Papers on the relationship between variability in forcing and variability in the marine ecosystem are encouraged.

Detailed session schedule

Hydrology: Connecting the Land, Oceans and Atmosphere

Chair: Larry Hinzman – Water and Environmental Research Center, UAF; 474.7331

Keynote Speaker: Philip Marsh – National Hydrology Research Centre, Environment Canada, Saskatoon, SK
“Water and Energy Fluxes in the Mackenzie River Basin, Canada”

In many respects hydrology acts as the linkage among atmospheric, terrestrial, and marine systems. It may also play an integrating role as one studies climatic impacts upon biological or geomorphological systems. In this session, we will examine many scientific disciplines utilizing hydrologic linkages as the common theme. A broad range of abstracts have been submitted from university, government agency and private sector scientists. Topics ranging from the impacts of climate change to detecting water on Mars will be discussed. Results from several high-profile research programs will also be presented.

Detailed session schedule

Cold Regions Engineering

Chairs: Debendra Das – Department of Mechanical Engineering, UAF; 474.6094
David Woodall – College of Science, Engineering and Mathematics, UAF; 474.7608

The theme of the Cold Regions Engineering session is broad based. Therefore, papers from all disciplines of engineering are welcome. As general engineering solutions may find applications in cold regions, any paper in an engineering-related discipline will be considered for this conference. Abstracts received to date are as diverse as windstorm and microprocessor chip models, drinking water systems, the Trans Alaska Pipeline, data retrieval systems, and ice detection radar.

Detailed session schedule

Circumpolar Health: Connecting Research and Policy

Chair: Lawrence Duffy – Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Institute of Arctic Biology, UAF 474.7525

Keynote Speaker: Albert Teich – Directorate for Science and Policy Programs, AAAS, Washington, DC
“Science Policy Directions and the War on Terrorism”

This session, sponsored by the American Society for Circumpolar Health (ASCH), will cover current health policy and research issues in Alaska and the U.S. Karen Perdue, Associate Vice President of Health Programs at the University of Alaska and former Commissioner of Health and Social Services for the State of Alaska will address Alaskan health issues. Ronnie Horner of the National Institutes of Health will discuss national health disparities research. Albert Teich, Director of Science and Policy Programs at AAAS will review current policy directions. George Happ, Alaskan Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN) Director, will describe the recent growth of biomedical research at the University of Alaska. Also, Neil Murphy, President of ASCH, will discuss the circumpolar movement, ASCH and ICCH (International Congress on Circumpolar Health). He will also host an ASCH lunch on Friday, 20 September. In addition to the above, there will be exciting technical presentations including Infectious Disease Surveillance by Alan Parkinson, Centers for Disease Control, and Occupational Safety by George Conway, of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Detailed session schedule

The Bering Sea: Where the Pacific Meets the Arctic

Chair: Peter McRoy – Institute of Marine Science, UAF; 474.7783

Keynote Speakers: Sei-ichi Saitoh – Laboratory of Marine Environment and Resource Sensing, Hokkaido University, Hakodate, Japan
“Bering Sea Ecosystem Observed from Space – Recent Satellite Evidence”

Lee Cooper – Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN

“The Prospects for High-Resolution Water Chemistry Monitoring from Little Diomede Island in Bering Strait”

Set off from the North Pacific by islands and bounded by continents, the Bering Sea is the ocean bridge between the temperate waters of the North Pacific and the icy conditions of the Arctic. The sea has two oceanographically distinct, but roughly equal area, major regions—the open sea basin and the waters of the shelf. The basin is but an extension of the North Pacific and retains the high nutrient–low chlorophyll ecology of that ocean; the shelf, the flooded Pleistocene land bridge, grades from an oceanic domain and biota in the southern edge region to arctic in the higher latitudes with seasonal sea ice and a cold adapted biota. The major regions are separated seaward of the shelf break by a zone of high biological production termed “Green Belt” that is formed by the interaction of shelf and basin waters. The papers in this session will cover aspects of the diverse spectrum that is the Bering Sea, from the paleoecology of human occupation to present day fisheries, from space to the sea floor and from the Aleutians to Bering Strait.

Detailed session schedule

Sinks and Links: The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas and the Arctic Ocean

Chairs: Rolf Gradinger – Institute of Marine Science, UAF; 474.7407
Hajo Eicken – Geophysical Institute, UAF; 474.7280

Keynote Speaker: Robie Macdonald – Institute of Ocean Sciences, Fisheries & Oceans Canada, Sidney, BC

“Getting to the Chukchi from the Pacific – When Does Sinking Still Mean Linking?”

The interconnections of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas with the Arctic Ocean influence the physical, biological and chemical properties of these seas to a large extent. Apart from oceanic and atmospheric transfer, river runoff and sea-ice drift further complicate the picture. The keynote speaker, Robie Macdonald will provide an overview of some of the relevant processes. Oral and poster presentations will focus on different aspects of interactions and exchange, including the role of physical features (such as pycnocline eddies) and transport of organic matter in the context of shelf-basin interaction.

Detailed session schedule

Animal Terrestrial Biology

Chair: Terry Bowyer – Institute of Arctic Biology and Department of Biology & Wildlife, UAF; 474.5311

Keynote Speaker: John Kie – United States Forest Service, La Grande, OR
“Habitat Selection by Mule Deer: Does Spatial Scale Matter?”

To date, abstracts for the Animal Terrestrial Biology session cover moose, muskoxen, Rocky Mountain elk, cattle, reindeer, mule deer, wolves, squirrels and ptarmigan. Areas of interest include nutrition, circadian rhythms, mating behavior, habitat selection, niche relationships, population biology, and phylogeography. This promises to be one of the larger sessions and should engender lively discussion.

Detailed session schedule

Plant Terrestrial Biology

Chair: Christa Mulder – Institute of Arctic Biology, UAF; 474.7152

The Plant Terrestrial Biology session covers a wide range of northern vegetation types, but disturbance (large-scale and small-scale, human and natural) is a topic that is touched on in many talks. Several presentations focus on the Tanana floodplain, including human disturbance effects on Tanana floating mat fens and bank erosion along the river. A very different type of disturbance is the subject of a talk on bark beetle effects on white spruce on the Kenai Peninsula. A second theme is comparisons of vegetation across large spatial scales, reflected in talks on frostboil ecosystems, the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map, and bryophyte spatial distributions in several vegetation types. The third theme, relationships between global climate change and vegetation, includes a presentation on permafrost and plant nutrient dynamics, a poster on UV-B radiation and snow algae, a discussion of relationships between coastal erosion and tree growth patterns, and a talk that will hit very close to home for many Interior residents: changes in pollen and spore dispersal in Alaska and the Yukon in the face of climate change.

Detailed session schedule

Currents Connecting Science and Education

Chair: Philip Marshall – Institute of Marine Science, UAF; 474.5254

Keynote Speaker: Matthew Sturm – U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Ft. Wainwright, AK

“Taking Teachers Out in the Wild: Winter Science in the TEA (Teachers Experiencing the Arctic) NSF Program”

In this session hear about such activities on the secondary school-level as: a summer research science camp, new teaching materials on physical oceanography, and teacher involvement in a geophysical field program. At the college level, other topics to be presented are: specialized library and information services dealing with science or Alaskan natural resources; and a multimedia, networked, distance-delivered high-performance computing class.

Detailed session schedule

Protection of the Environment (Non-Human Biota) from Ionizing Radiation [includes a panel discussion]

Chair: Douglas Dasher – Department of Environmental Conservation, State of Alaska; 451.2172

The North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea have several potential sources of anthropogenic radionuclides:
• The former Amchitka underground nuclear test site
• Russian North Pacific nuclear submarine facilities on Kamchatka
• Nuclear accidents in Russia, the former Soviet Union, and east Asia
• Historic fallout from atmospheric nuclear testing and accidents
• Proposals have been made to ship nuclear waste through the North Pacific and Bering Sea and locate floating nuclear power plants in the Russian Far East

Historically, the framework for radiological protection of the environment (non-human biota) was founded on the protection of man. In the early 1990s non-human species were addressed and several agencies have since established working groups to help establish a uniform scientific assessment process to evaluate the impacts of ionizing radiation on non-human biota. This session will update people on the current status of these programs.

Detailed session schedule

Mesoscale Perturbations in the Arctic Middle Atmosphere

Chairs: Richard Collins – Geophysical Institute and Department of Computer Engineering, UAF; 474.7819
Mark Conde – Geophysical Institute and Department of Physics, UAF; 474.7347

Studies of the arctic middle atmosphere are prompted by interest in the ozone layer in the stratosphere and concern about anthro-pogenic damage to the ozone layer, and the maintenance of the circulation far from radiative equilibrium. Both of these issues raise questions about the interaction between small- and large-scale atmospheric phenomena, as waves in the region contribute to the chemical equilibrium and the general circulation through wave-breaking and turbulent mixing. The region is coupled to the troposphere through upwardly propagating waves and tides as well as the thermosphere and space through auroral and electrodynamic processes as well as meteoric input. The session invites presentations on middle atmosphere phenomena (e.g., ozone, noctilucent clouds, mesospheric metals, meteoric ablation, waves and tides).

Detailed session schedule

Climate and Weather

Chair: Catherine Cahill – Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Geophysical Institute, UAF; 474.6905

Detailed session schedule

Social, Political and Human Impacts

Chair: Amy Hirons – Institute of Marine Science, UAF; 474-7899

Detailed session schedule