Watching the Arctic Melt Away

We regretfully have to postpone our annual Seattle update due to increasing concerns about the COVID-19 coronavirus and our patrons’ health, including the recent decision by Town Hall Seattle to suspend in-person attendance for all events.

Reporting to our followers at our Seattle annual event is a yearly highlight for George. This is also Friends of Cooper Island’s main fundraising event for the year, with paying for the venue a major expenditure. We are postponing (rather than cancelling) in part to save some of our Town Hall rental, as well as to be able to share the events of last field season with all of our supporters. While we hope to be able to reschedule our event before the start of the 2020 field season – George’s 46th year on Cooper – we realize we may have to wait until next fall. An announcement about the rescheduled event will be posted to this website and sent to our mailing list. If you are not yet on our mailing list and want to be please email us at info@cooperisland.org.

Whenever our update and event can take place, we still plan on including a presentation by photographer, Joe McNally, who took the 2002 NY Times Magazine cover shot of me standing on sea ice just north Cooper Island.

Joe returned to Cooper Island this past July and retook his shot from 2001, but instead of George standing on sea ice that extended to the horizon, he was standing in water with no ice in sight. Joe will also be showing a video he produced about his 2019 visit.

Donor-supported climate change research and outreach has never been more important and we thank you for your interest and support of our work. We would be grateful for your usual support as we continue to prepare for the 2020 field season. Hoping to see many of you at our rescheduled event to share our recent findings from a melting Arctic.