News

The International Permafrost Association is pleased to welcome the entry of South Korea as its 26th country member. The South Korean representation will be led by Dr. Yoo Kyung Lee, from the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI, www. kopri.kr). Korea has been active in permafrost research since over 20 of years, but the inception of the Korea Polar Institute has given a boost to its permafrost community which is active both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. The Korean permafrost committee will consist …

New international report on the state of the circumpolar Arctic coast: State of the Arctic Coast 2010 – Scientific Review and Outlook http://www.arcticcoasts.org The coast is a key interface in the Arctic environment. It is a locus of human activity, a rich band of biodiversity, critical habitat, and high productivity, and among the most dynamic components of the circumpolar landscape. The Arctic coastal interface is a sensitive and important zone of interaction between land and sea, a region that pr…

The IPA is happy to present the new Frozen Ground and the IPA Country Reports for 2010. The new issue of the bulletin of the International Permafrost Association, Frozen Ground, is available online at: http://ipa.arcticportal.org/publications/frozen-ground Frozen Ground has been modified to a shorter, sharper and more attractive format (8 pages) and focuses on the highlights from 2010. Reports from the member countries activities are also available online in a new online publication of the IPA, the IPA…

The Melnikov Permafrost Institute in Yakutsk, Russia celebrates its 50th anniversary (1960-2010). On November 25 and 26, 2010, the anniversary will be celebrated in Yakutsk with a ceremony including a series of lectures, films and a concert. More information on the institute can be found on its website: http://www.sitc.ru/ync/ync_eng/ice.htmFounded in 1960, the Permafrost Institute, a member institution of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, is dedicated to basic and applied investigati…

The International Permafrost Association releases the IPA-IPY Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) Snapshot Borehole Inventory, the first comprehensive global inventory of permafrost temperatures as an output of the International Polar Year During the planning and implementation of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007 – 2009, the International Permafrost Association (IPA) coordinated the acquisition of permafrost temperature data under the Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) Project #50. The TSP project …

State of the Arctic Coast 2010 The draft State of the Arctic Coast 2010 report is available at http://arcticcoasts.org (draft – Do not quote or cite)The Arctic coastal interface is a sensitive and important zone of interaction between land and sea, a region that provides essential ecosystem services and supports indigenous human lifestyles; a zone of expanding infrastructure investment and growing security concerns; and an area in which climate warming is expected to trigger landscape instability, ra…

Conference Announcement Tenth International Conference on Permafrost 25-29 June 2012 Tyumen, Russia http://ticop2012.orgHelp us shape the conference by registering your interest at: http://ipa.arcticportal.org/component/chronocontact/?chronoformname=ticop_interestThe International Permafrost Association and the Tyumen Oil and Gas University are excited to present the first circular on the Tenth International Conference on Permafrost, to be held in June 2012 for the first time in Russia since 1973. The …

The Third European Conference on Permafrost is over. Data from many of the permafrost research projects performed during the IPY have been presented at UNIS during this conference and the conclusion is clear: the permafrost in the High Arctic is warming and Svalbard has the warmest permafrost. However, there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the speed of the warm-up and further research is necessary.250 permafrost scientists and engineers gathered at UNIS the week of the 14th of June 2010 to share thei…

During the planning and implementation of the International Polar Year the International Permafrost Association (www.ipa-permafrost.org) coordinated the acquisition of permafrost temperatures data under the Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) Project #50. The TSP project goals were the acquisition of standardized temperature measurements (snapshot) from all permafrost regions of Planet Earth, preparation of a global data set, and development of maps of contemporary permafrost temperatures. Networks of bo…

Gonçalo Vieira, Portuguese representative of the International Permafrost Association, was awarded the National Prize Seeds of Science on Earth, Atmosphere and Marine Science for the work made in the framework of the International Polar Year to promote Antarctic research in Portugal.Gonçalo Vieira is professor at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planningat the University of Lisbon and the leader of a major Portuguese research campaign on permafrost in Antarctica. His scientific accomplishments …