29th Annual West Antarctic Ice Sheet Workshop

We are thrilled to announce that registration and abstraction submission for the 2022 West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Workshop at YMCA of Rockies in Estes Park, CO, is now open. You can find the registration link and all workshop details at the 2022 WAIS Workshop webpage.

Registration will cost $125 for all participants, including attendance and meals. There will be an additional charge for lodging, with multiple on-site and off-site options ranging between $50 and $325 depending on your lodging preference and career stage. See our webpage for more details. For attendees who are professional broader impacts specialists (e.g., outreach coordinators, science communicators), you may choose any of the early-career participant rates to attend WAIS Workshop at a reduced cost. If you are a community college or two-year educator, please email wais@mines.edu prior to registering as we have funding for travel and registration support for multiple participants.

Space for in-person participants will be limited, so register early to avoid being placed on a waitlist! The deadline for abstract submission is August 12, and the deadline to register for the workshop is August 26. You may register before submitting your abstract. The abstract portal will require a title, co-author information, and a ≤500 word abstract. We also will offer travel and registration fee support for some students and early career researchers, with a preference for those who submit an abstract. Applications for ECR support are due on August 12 and can be submitted here. We define early-career researchers as students, postdocs or those no more than 5 years from obtaining a PhD. Abstract and early-career support decisions will be announced mid-to late-August.

The NSF- and NASA-sponsored WAIS Workshop is a transdisciplinary conference focused on marine ice-sheets and adjacent Earth systems, with a particular emphasis on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The Workshop hosts talks and posters from a diversity of fields, including glaciology, oceanography, atmospheric science, biology, data science, computer science, and engineering, in order to capture the full breadth of the marine ice-sheet system in order to constrain the past, present, and future state of West Antarctica. We also encourage researchers studying processes and geographic regions elsewhere in Antarctica and other glaciated regions of our planet. This year’s session include:

• Observational and modeling gaps. Research that highlights data gaps that limit our ability to advance our understanding of any or all components of the Antarctic marine ice-sheet systems. What are the community needs for future satellite-, airborne-, ground-, and ship-based measurements? How do we access and analyze the growing volume of model output?
• Improving predictability. Research that aims to improve our ability to predict or understanding present and future behavior of ice sheets, ice shelves, and the surrounding ice-ocean system. We seek process modeling contributions as well as observation-driven analysis for model refinement and contextualization. The session is not limited to ice behavior, but rather is open to the predictability of driving processes and any other component of the system as well.
• Atmospheric and oceanic drivers. New discoveries and insights relating to atmospheric drivers of change (such as surface mass balance, firn processes, extraordinary snow events, atmospheric rivers), oceanic drivers of change (such as grounding zone processes, ice-shelf stability, sea ice conditions, sub-ice-shelf processes), and feedbacks within the atmospheric-ice-ocean system.
• Marine ice sheet sensitivity in the climate system. Research that highlights and/or integrates our evolving understanding of ice-sheet response to past, present, and future climate forcing, ice dynamics, and biogeochemical systems. We welcome submissions that include studies of ice cores, sediment cores, geology, topography, sub-/en-/supra-glacial hydrology, geomorphology, numerical models, and more.
• Antarctic Open Science. What does “open science” mean for the WAIS community? How do we achieve open science at the end of the Earth to leverage existing datasets, modeling frameworks, and model outputs to accelerate our science? What should our open science ecosystem look like, from proposal development to data collection and analysis to conference presentations, publication, and beyond? What are key technical, social, financial, or other barriers we encounter to adopt open science practices in our field? Do we need to rethink the “slide deck” model of conferences like WAIS Workshop to foster our open science goals? We seek contributions that identify concrete, actionable directions on which the community can build change and that explore the capabilities and challenges of open scientific collaboration.
• WAIS and the Community. Actionable science requires civic engagement and co-production of knowledge with people out the confines of academic and research institutions. We week contributions that describe efforts to provide insight on and examples of community development that mutually benefit all parties involved as well as contributions that promote the development of inclusive and equitable research and learning spaces.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are embraced at the WAIS Workshop, and we are committed to creating and maintaining a workshop environment that is safe, inclusive, and welcoming to all genders, races, identities, self-expressions, ethnicities and cultures. Please contact the Organizing Committee if you have any questions or concerns regarding the WAIS Workshop by emailing wais@mines.edu. Hope to see you in September!