Meetings and Workshops

The NSF Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (NSF COLDEX) and the Ice Core Early-Career Researchers Workshop (ICECReW) are partnering to host a writing workshop and retreat on May 15 and 16, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after the US Ice Core Community Meeting (May 12-14). The theme of this year’s workshop is science writing, including making figures to communicate results, responding to peer reviews, how to structure papers, and deciding on journals and authorship. The workshop will also provide time for writing and peer review, and participants should bring materials they would like to work on (e.g., papers, dissertations, fellowship and grant applications). We will also have an evening social event on Sunday, May 11, before IceCOMM. Application Deadline: February 6, 2025.

The Englacial and Subglacial Access Working Group (ESAWG) of the NSF Ice Drilling Program (IDP) will hold a meeting to initiate U.S. long-term science planning for subglacial science on Sunday, December 8, from 8:00-5:00 at the Residence Inn Alexandria Old Town/Duke Street, Alexandria VA. The outcome of the meeting will be drafts for a new set of white papers focused on future drilling locations, technology, and science requirements. The targets discussed in this meeting and these white papers will be added to the IDP Long Range Science Plan 2025-2035. Please register for the workshop before November 30 with an indication of any ‘pitch’ you would like to make for future science. Registration is free but we need a head count to finalize arrangements for the meeting.

The 2nd RAID Science Planning Workshop will be held September 25-27, 2024, at the Washington Dulles Marriott Suites hotel, in Herndon, Virginia. With new developments in knowledge of subglacial materials and basal ice-sheet environment, new technologies amd micro-instrument methodologies, discovery of very old (up to 4 m.y.) ice from blue ice fields, and an engaged new generation of young cryosphere and solid-earth scientists — NOW is a good time for a 2nd planning workshop to reunite the community and articulate the future science that we want to do with RAID! We seek a diverse group of participants for this NSF-funded workshop. Be on the lookout for future announcements about expressions of interest & an open call for applications. Please contact Sarah (sarah.shackleton@whoi.edu) or John (jgoodge@psi.edu) if interested in participating. We look forward to seeing you in September!

The third annual US Ice Core Open Science Meeting will be held May 15-17, 2024, at the Portland Public Library in beautiful Portland, Maine. This meeting is intended for anyone interested in ice core science or related fields, including ice-core analysis, ice or subglacial drilling, glacier geophysics that supports or depends on ice core records, paleoclimate, and contemporary climate and ice sheet change. Details on hotel rooms, travel support, and other aspects of the meeting will be publicized in February 2024. To ensure you do not miss announcements, we recommend joining the Hercules Dome mailing list.

The 2024 Ice Core Early Career Researchers Workshop (ICECReW) will be held May 14-15 in Portland, Maine. ICECReW is a professional development workshop for early-career researchers. It is being held in person for 1.5 days before the 3rd US Ice Core Open Science Meeting (May 15-17). This year’s ICECReW theme is exploring career opportunities within and outside of academia. The workshop will focus on developing and getting feedback on application materials such as CVs, research statements, teaching statements, and cover letters. Application Deadline: February 9, 2024.

The second annual US Ice Core Open Science Meeting will be held May 8-10, 2023, at the beautiful Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. This meeting is intended for anyone interested in ice core science or related fields, including ice-core analysis, ice or subglacial drilling, glacier geophysics that supports or depends on ice core records, paleoclimate, and contemporary climate and ice sheet change. Details on hotel rooms, travel support, and other aspects of the meeting will be publicized in February 2023. To ensure you do not miss announcements, we recommend joining the Hercules Dome mailing list.

Registration and abstract submission is now open. Abstract Submission and Early Registration Deadline are March 15.

The meeting will be held May 24-26, 2022, at the beautiful Scripps Seaside Forum at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. It will also be possible to attend online. This meeting is intended for anyone interested in ice core science or related fields, including ice-core analysis, ice or subglacial drilling, glacier geophysics that supports or depends on ice core records, paleoclimate, and contemporary climate and ice sheet change. Registration and abstract submission will open on March 1 and close on April 15.

In 2022, the US National Science Foundation, via the Ice Drilling Program, funded a workshop for US early-career researchers to become more involved in the ice-core community. The Ice Core Early Career Researchers Workshop (ICECReW) was held January 5-8, 2022, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and online. Participants met with established researchers to better understand outcomes of and resources available from past ice core projects, learn about opportunities to engage with future efforts, and connect with potential collaborators. Participants also produced the following series of articles, published in Past Global Changes Magazine, to help communicate ice core science to undergraduate students and ice core adjacent researchers:

• Editorial: Early-career perspectives on ice-core science
• From drilling to data: retrieval, transportation, analysis, and long-term storage of ice-core samples
• Putting the time in time machine: Methods to date ice cores
• Our frozen past: ice-core insights into earth's climate history
• Ice-core records of atmospheric composition and chemistry
• Fire trapped in ice: An introduction to biomass burning records from high-alpine and polar ice cores
• Ice-core records of human impacts on the environment
• The living record: considerations for future biological studies of ice cores
• Firn: Applications for the interpretation of ice-core records and estimation of ice-sheet mass balance
• What can deep ice, water, sediments, and bedrock at the ice–bed interface tell us?
• Ice-core constraints on past sea-level change

On June 11, 2021, the U.S. Ice Drilling Program and the Summit Science Coordination Office co-sponsored a U.S. science community planning workshop to identify and articulate U.S. science community interests for long-term planning of potential scientific traverses on the Greenland Ice Sheet. The interdisciplinary science community workshop identified future sites and traverse routes on the Greenland Ice Sheet where ground-based measurements and/or ice coring will be needed and the associated timeline over the coming decade for advancing science on multiple frontiers.

• Workshop Report
• Presentations

The annual Ice Core Working Group (ICWG) meeting was held virtually on March 8, 2021 via Zoom. Discussions included updates from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Ice Drilling Program, project updates from Canada, Greenland, and Antarctica, the current status and future plans for the NSF-Ice Core Facility, data archiving, updates to the Long Range Science Plan (LRSP), and ice drilling technology development for the LRSP.

• Presentations

Due to the spread of COVID-19, the in-person workshop was not held. Instead, a one-day virtual Ice Core Working Group Community Meeting was held on Thursday, April 2, for presenting and discussing information relevant to the U.S. ice coring program and for updating the IDP Long Range Science Plan. The workshop produced the following white papers:

• Community Recommendations for the NSF Ice Core Facility
• Paleoclimate Ice Core Research Priorities in Antarctica
• Alpine Glaciers and Ice Caps
• Ice Core Research Priorities in Greenland

On March 29-30, 2019 the Ice Drilling Program Subglacial Access Working Group Science Planning Workshop was held at the Washington Dulles Marriott Suites Worldgate hotel in Herndon, Virginia. The goal of the interdisciplinary ice community workshop was to identify future Arctic and Antarctic drilling sites for subglacial science, the ice drilling technology that is needed, and the timeline over the coming decade for advancing subglacial science on multiple frontiers. The workshop produced the following white papers:

• Assessment of East Antarctic Ice Sheet sensitivity to warming and its potential for contributions to sea level rise
• Drilling priorities to determine the past extent of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
• Subglacial Access Working Group (SAWG): Access Drilling Priorities in Greenland
• Subglacial Access Working Group: Access Drilling Priorities in the Ross Ice Shelf Region

On May 22-23, 2016, IDPO held the Subglacial Access Science Community Planning Workshop in Herndon, Virginia, which was a science-planning meeting organized by IDPO Director Mary Albert and was open to the community and to NSF. The goal of the meeting was to identify community consensus on the major community science projects in the coming decade that would need subglacial access drilling. Attendees at the workshop included 30 scientists, four NSF program managers, and one representative of Antarctic Support Contract. IDPO Subglacial Access Working Group (IDPO-SAWG) members Jill Mikucki, Ross Powell, and John Goodge led the discussions at the meeting, facilitated by Mary Albert of IDPO. IDDO Program Director Kristina Slawny and Terry Benson (Physical Sciences Lab, University of Wisconsin – Madison) also participated in the workshop. Download the workshop's final agenda and participant list. The workshop produced the following white papers:

• Access Drilling Priorities in Ice Shelves and Ice Streams - Thwaites Glacier Region
• Access Drilling Priorities in Subglacial Aquatic Environments
• Access Drilling Priorities in the Antarctic Continental Interior
• Access Drilling Priorities in the Ross Sea Sector of the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Community members interested in identifying the next deep and intermediate-depth drilling sites in Greenland and Antarctica (using the DISC Drill or Intermediate Depth Drill) are invited to participate with the Ice Core Working Group in a short meeting to identify community consensus on the target sites and dates at the upcoming IDPO Community Workshop on Ice Coring at U.C. Irvine on February 26 & 27, 2014. Results from these discussions will form the basis of the drilling sites identified in the Long Range Science Plan for 2014-2024. There is no registration fee for the meeting.

The 7th International Workshop on Ice Drilling Technology was held 9-13 September 2013 at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. The workshop took a comprehensive look at the latest innovations in ice drilling technology, including ice coring, borehole logging, subglacial sampling, core logging and handling, and field logistics.

• The Council of the International Glaciological Society (IGS) published a thematic issue of the Annals of Glaciology on topics consistent with the workshop themes.

The first Open Science Conference of the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) will be held from 1-5 October 2012 at the beautiful setting of the Belembra club, situated on the border of the Mediterranean Sea in one of the best spots of the French Côte d'Azur. The objective of the conference is to present, discuss and put into perspective the most recent results of past and current ice core drilling projects in Antarctica and Greenland.

On April 15-16, 2011 the IDPO sponsored an interdisciplinary ice community workshop to identify future Arctic and Antarctic drilling/coring sites, the ice drilling technology that will be needed, and the timeline over the coming decade for conducting scientific endeavors important for advancing science on many frontiers. Results from the workshop were reflected in updates to the science descriptions, timeline and planning matrices in the Long Range Science Plan and Long Range Drilling Technology Plan to help ensure that the drilling technology will be ready when needed by the science. The workshop produced the following white papers:

• Subglacial aquatic environments access drilling
• 10-year plan for shallow (1-400 meter deep) coring capabilities
• Rapid access ice drilling (RAID) system
• Hot water drilling

The 6th International Workshop on Ice Drilling Technology was held at the US Fish and Wildlife Service National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia on 17-23 September 2006.

• Proceedings from the workshop are published in Annals of Glaciology, volume 47 (2007).