Philippe Blondel (Physics) chaired the first international conference on Arctic Acoustic Environments, 11-12 November 2020. Held virtually and repeated over two time zones (Asia and Eastern Europe, followed with Western Europe and America), this conference attracted close to 100 participants over two days of intensive presentations and discussions. Under the auspices of the Arctic Acoustics working group of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment, co-chaired by Philippe (https://www.iqoe.org/groups/arctic), this timely meeting aimed to federate acoustics research around the Arctic, in times of accelerating climate change and with a global pandemic adding to disruption. The open discussions started with the challenges of Arctic operations and Covid-safe deployments and recoveries of long-term monitoring instruments at a crucial time for Arctic environments. They focused on Big Data and autonomous seafloor observatories, new open-access tools (e.g. for machine learning), soundscapes and marine life, embedding of local and traditional knowledge and co-ownership with the Arctic communities. The full results will be published soon on the IQOE website.
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