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Ryan Kunz was sleeping in his tent on the ice when the polar bear wandered into camp. At 10,500 feet high, in the middle of the Greenland Ice Sheet more than 200 miles from the nearest coast, the remote U.S. scientific research station was about the last place anyone expected one of these sea ice-dwelling animals to be. Yet here it was, lumbering around the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Summit Station, the highest-altitude, northernmost science operation in the Arctic, where key meteorology and other research is conducted. Kunz, a carpenter from Florida, was one of the half-dozen or so workers sleeping in “Tent City”—a collection of orange domes atop snow glinting in the June 24-hour sunlight. It was 5:13 a.m.

The Summit Station research community is invited to attend the Summit Station Users Group Meeting on Thurs, Dec. 14, at 8am in the ARCUS Arctic Community Meeting Room Riverside I on the second floor of the Hampton Inn and Suites New Orleans-Convention Center hotel.

Summit Station, in the center of the Greenland ice sheet, is a vibrant interdisciplinary research hub that has served as a crucial component of the Arctic observing system for nearly 3 decades. This station has yielded numerous scientific insights, but operating Summit and similar remote stations is resource intensive. Keeping these stations at the cutting edge of scientific research requires strategic planning and scientific vision. Earlier this year, the National Science Foundation supported and hosted a planning session to update the scientific vision and direction for Summit Station. A multidisciplinary group of about 30 scientists, including remote participants, reviewed science activities at Summit, defined future scientific research questions and goals, and made community-based recommendations on science-enabling future scenarios and governance.

A report highlighting the findings and recommendations from the 2017 Summit Station Science Summit is available.

This survey is for use by the Summit Station Science Summit Organizing Committee for informational purposes among colleagues to gauge the broad scientific use of Summit Station and its data.

The two AGU Town Hall Meetings are being held on Thurs, 15 Dec, at 08:00 and 09:15 in the Arctic Community Meeting Room, Foothill E, in the San Francisco Marriott Marquis.

The Science Coordination Office (SCO) for Summit Station and the Greenland Inland Traverse (GrIT) invites you to take part in a workshop on Tues., Jan. 19, 2016, in Greenbelt, Maryland, that will focus on Future Research and Station Development Directions on the ice sheet including traverse science and ongoing research at Summit.

The Summit Station research community is invited to attend the Summit Station users group meeting on Weds, Dec. 16, in the ARCUS meeting room complex (Foothill D room) from 8:30-9:30am.

Over the coming decades, Summit-Isi Station provides a unique capability to measure, monitor, and understand global climate change. Summit-Isi is the only high altitude, high latitude, inland, year-round monitoring station in the Arctic.

The Science Coordination Office for Summit Station will host an open meeting of Summit Station users at the Fall AGU meeting in San Francisco on Thursday, December 18, in the Foothill D room on the 2nd floor of the San Francisco Marriott Marquis (55 4th Street) from 9:00-10:00 AM.