The conference will take place in the Norway Exhibition & Convention Centre in Lillestrøm, 10 minutes train ride from downtown Oslo. The centre with its tens of thousands square metres of exhibition space will have no problem holding the participants and the some 2500 oral and poster presentation falling within 6 main themes and some 39 sessions.
The OSC is in every respect an event of gigantic proportions. In addition and parallel to the scientific program, a whole range of festivals, expositions, and other outreach activities will unfold during the OSC. For example, a Polar Festival, that among other things feature Saami food and hide production, will be arranged on the Oslo city hall square, and a Polar film festival will screen more than a 100 films in Lillestrøm and in the Oslo cinemateque.
In the most recent OSC newsletter, the organizers predict that shrinking Polar sea ice extent will be one of the hottest topics of the conference. In May this year, satellite data showed the Polar sea ice shrink to a level below the former record low of 2007.
Even though cold weather in March caused a late-season ice growth and postponed the melt season, once spring set in the new and thin ice cover melted very quickly. According to leading Polar science expert Dr. David Barber, the loss of all thick, multiyear ice in the Arctic could be imminent.
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