The observed greening of Arctic vegetation and the expansion of shrubs in the last few decades probably have profound implications for the tundra ecosystem, including feedbacks to climate. Uncertainty surrounding this vegetation shift and its implications calls for monitoring of vegetation structural parameters, such as fractional cover of shrubs. In this study, CANAPI, a semi-automated image interpretation algorithm that identifies and traces crowns by locating its crescent-shaped sunlit portion, was evaluated for its ability to derive structural data for tall (> 0.5 m) shrubs in the Arctic. CANAPI estimates of shrub canopy parameters were obtained from high-resolution imagery at 26 sites (250 m x 250 m each) by adjusting the algorithm's parameters and filter settings for each site, such that the number of crowns delineated by CANAPI roughly matched those observed in the high-resolution imagery. The CANAPI estimates were then compared with field measurements to evaluate the algorithm's performance. CANAPI successfully retrieved fractional cover (R2 = 0.83, P < 0.001), mean crown radius (R2 = 0.81, P < 0.001), and total number of shrubs (R2 = 0.54, P < 0.001). CANAPI performed best in sparse vegetation where shrub canopies were distinct, while it tended to underestimate shrub cover where shrubs were clustered. The CANAPI algorithm and the regression equations presented here can be used in Arctic tundra environments to derive vegetation parameters from any sub-meter panchromatic imagery.

This article surveys ten years of Asian involvement with Arctic research, from 2004 to 2013. The Asian countries have consolidated their Arctic research efforts, with publication output, funding and infrastructure showing a marked increase from 2008. Most of this research is in the natural sciences and relates to climate change, but there is also an emerging branch of social science studies. National polar institutes play important roles as links between the science communities and governments. Asian polar research still focuses more on Antarctica than the Arctic. As to the relationship between research and policies, there is little evidence that the Asian governments have aspirations of gaining political influence through their Arctic research.

In recent years, interest in the economic potential of the Arctic has been mounting, facilitated by environmental developments caused by climate change. In this context, the viability of shipping in Arctic waters is pivotal. This article explores the interplay of market considerations and the non-market drivers (climatic, navigational and political components) regarding the viability of the most prominent Arctic shipping route, the northern sea route (NSR), as a global shipping route. In particular, it concentrates on the Russian ice-breaking tariff policy on the NSR and presents a review from 1991, when the route was officially opened to international shipping, until 2014. The study integrates qualitative and longitudinal quantitative data related to NSR traffic, ice-breaking tariffs and ice conditions. The paper shows that the ice-breaking fees play a key role for the functioning of the NSR by providing a source of funding for the ice-breaking fleet, which constitutes a basis for safe shipping. However, the development of the NSR into a competitive transcontinental shipping route is determined by a dynamic mixture of factors in which the Russian ice-breaking fee represents an additional cost item for shipping companies and shippers. It is argued that the development of ice-breaking tariff policy has been guided by structural changes in external factors consequently influencing the demand for ice-breaking services (a derivative of NSR demand), which limits the extent to which tariff policy influences the attractiveness of the NSR in a global context.

This paper addresses the transformation that has occurred in livelihoods in the Nordic Arctic, showing how it affects gender equality among the region's older people. The region's population includes the Sámi, an indigenous people, who have traditionally relied for their livelihood on activities such as reindeer herding, making handicrafts, farming, fishing, hunting, trapping and gathering. In recent years these have faced enormous challenges because of the rapid transformation of the region in the wake of climate change and globalisation. Overall, these and other processes have precipitated socio-economic, cultural, environmental and infrastructural changes that are transforming the local economies and severely impacting older people in particular. The main research question examined in this article is whether gender inequality has arisen among older people because of the ongoing transformation of livelihoods. To this end, the paper provides an empirical analysis based on experiences gathered from field studies conducted by the author in Finnish and Swedish Lapland. The research also presents the experiences of older persons in light of the standard set by General Recommendation 27 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which oversees the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The Recommendation sets out the right of older women to equality and non-discrimination. The findings of the present research contribute to filling a gap in the literature on the topic.

At least four littoral countries have Arctic strategies that address energy issues. However, US, Canada, Russia and Norway strategies up to 2020 and beyond, reveal different interests in exploring Arctic resources. While Arctic oil and gas are of strategic importance to Russia and to Norway, Canada and the US seem content with continuing their current extraction predominantly south of the Arctic Circle. Despite the different approaches, the outcomes seem strangely similar. Indeed, despite the hype concerning the Arctic in the last decade, and for very diverse reasons, it is unlikely that any of these four countries will increase hydrocarbon production in the Arctic during the period under analysis. This was true even before the recent drop in oil prices. For all its potential, it is unclear what lies ahead for the region.

We provide a comprehensive list of microorganisms (algae, Archaea, bacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, and Protista) inhabiting cryoconite holes on glaciers throughout the world, giving an updated taxonomy accompanied by geographic coordinates and localities. The list consists of 370 taxa reported from cryoconite holes (mostly from Arctic and Antarctic regions and European Alps). However, most of the taxa were not identified to the species level. Until now only 39 identified species or subspecies of bacteria and Archaea, 11 fungi, 17 cyanobacteria, 62 algae, and 13 Protista are known from cryoconite holes, which are only about 38% of total number of taxa reported from these ephemeral environments. Almost 62% of the taxa were marked as cf. (confer) or were identified only to the genera or even to the higher taxonomic units (such as families or orders). This wide and detailed review assists other scientists to identify the gaps in our knowledge about cryobionts and indicates directions for further zoogeographical and taxonomical studies in this unique freshwater habitat.

‘Speaking’ and ‘belonging’ have a particular salience as indices of intimacy in a remote corner of northwest Greenland where connectedness is constantly reinforced through a distinct commonality of expression and certain social practices, such as very frequent visiting of one another, story-telling, recycling of names and a shared monistic philosophy. The Inugguit define themselves by a repertoire of communicative and behavioural strategies which are used to ensure that one is accepted in a supportive kin group: the perennial social and personal imperative for each member of the group. This article shows how despite social and climatic upheaval, these practices remain, but that the hunters’ ‘symbiotic’ relationship with nature is eroding as the loss of sea ice means they can no longer live like the animals they hunt.

The lives of the commanders and officers associated with the British naval searches for the lost John Franklin northwest passage expedition in the 1850s are well-known through their own writings or those of later biographers. The post-Arctic careers of ordinary crew members, on the other hand, are barely known at all. Following digital searches of nineteenth and early-twentieth century British newspapers, we have compiled a list of some notices, obituaries, and reminiscences that shed light on the later years of the ‘Old Arctics’.

The Arctic and the Antarctic appear to be polar opposites with regard to many matters, including the systems of governance that have evolved in the two regions. Antarctica is demilitarised, closed to economic development, open to a wide range of scientific activities, and subject to strict environmental regulations under the terms of the legally binding Antarctic Treaty of 1959 along with several supplementary measures that together form the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). The Arctic, by contrast, is a theatre of military operations, a site of largescale industrial activities, a homeland for sizable groups of indigenous peoples, and a focus of growing concern regarding the environmental impacts of human activities. The Arctic Council, the principal international body concerned with governance at the regional level, operates under the terms of a ministerial declaration that is not legally binding; it lacks the authority to make formal decisions about matters of current interest. Digging a little deeper, however, one turns up some illuminating similarities between the governance systems operating in the antipodes. In this article, I pursue this line of thinking, setting forth a range of observations relating to (i) the history of governance in the antipodes, (ii) institutional innovations occurring in these regions, (iii) issues of membership, (iv) jurisdictional concerns, (v) the role of science, (vi) relations with the UN system, (vii) institutional interplay, and (viii) the adaptiveness of governance systems in the face of changing circumstances. The governance systems for the polar regions are not likely to converge anytime soon. Nevertheless, this analysis should be of interest not only to those concerned with the fate of Antarctica and the Arctic but also to those seeking to find effective means of addressing needs for governance in other settings calling for governance without government.

Managing polar research is a tremendous challenge. It covers work at sea on rough and intimidating oceans, and on land over crevassed terrain or rotten sea ice with the prospect of death or frostbite. These environments are extremely hostile and difficult to work in. Results are costly to obtain, and yet the work is of vital importance, as the polar regions are the world's freezers, critical components of the climate system, and repositories of amazing biodiversity. These regions are grossly undersampled, and relatively poorly monitored. National efforts are best carried out in an international framework, in which cooperation is essential for major breakthroughs, and the exchange and sharing of data and information and facilities is essential for ongoing monitoring of change. Under the circumstances the managers of polar research institutes must proceed with well-developed strategies. Given the growing interest of different countries in the polar regions, it would seem useful to bring together advice won through hard effort over the years in how best to develop strategies for polar scientific institute management. This discussion paper offers advice on how such strategies may best be developed.

The author has compiled this based on many years of management experience in both the ocean and polar sciences with the following institutions: the UK Natural Environment Research Council's Institute of Oceanographic Sciences Deacon Laboratory, the UK's National Oceanography Centre, UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, and the International Council for Science's Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research

The popular narrative of Arctic development continues to dwell on melting sea ice, untapped oil and gas reserves, an icebreaker arms race and the perils and potential of rapid industrialisation. Rarely is the welfare of Arctic populations considered in a holistic sense and with a precise call for policy change. The recently released Arctic human development report II, echoing the more widely distributed human development reports generated by the United Nations, does just this. Unfortunately, despite the laudable efforts of the authors to embrace the more systemic drivers of poverty and marginalisation, the report fails to account for governmental and policy shortcomings which continue to limit health and opportunity, while obscuring tangible pathways to prosperity for Arctic populations. This comment is intended as a call, amongst the fervour of Arctic exploitation, to refocus attention on the unmistakable disparities in public health and well-being that persist in the Arctic regions of otherwise wealthy countries, and to incorporate globally practised perceptions of human development, including the role of social and political marginalisation in explaining health and prosperity discrepancies, which have been largely lacking in Arctic development discourse, and practice.

President Barrack Obama became, in September 2015, the first US president to travel north of the Arctic Circle. Having started his Alaskan itinerary in Anchorage, attending and speaking at a conference involving Secretary of State John Kerry and invited guests, the president travelled north to the small town of Kotzebue, a community of some 3000 people with the majority of inhabitants identifying as native American. Delivered to an audience in the local high school numbering around 1000, the 41st US president placed his visit within a longer presidential tradition of northern visitation:

Major D.E.L. ‘Roy’ Homard, (Fig. 1) who died aged 94 on 20 May 2015, was an army engineer who played a critical role in two of the most significant British polar expeditions of the post-war era. He was also one of just 45 individuals to be awarded the Polar Medal with both Arctic and Antarctic clasps. (Awards of the Polar Medal include combined clasps. Data supplied by Glenn M. Stein FRGS).

Each year Polar Record calls upon numerous scholars to assist in the demanding and intensive refereeing and peer-review procedures for manuscripts submitted for publication. These individuals give generously of their time and expertise to help ensure that a high academic quality is maintained in Polar Record. During the preparation of the six issues for 2016, the following individuals participated in the review and refereeing process. Our deep appreciation for their assistance is offered to all.