News

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 …

The International Permafrost Association is proud to announce that the first IPA Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded to Dr. J. Ross Mackay from Canada. The award will be formerly delivered to Dr. Mackay during a ceremony held at the Third European Conference on Permafrost in June 2010 in Longyearbyen.With this award, the International Permafrost Association rewards its founding Secretary-General and one the greatest permafrost researchers alive. Ross Mackay was born on 31 December 1915 in Formosa (Ta…

The International Permafrost Association is proud to announce that the first IPA Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded to Dr. J. Ross Mackay from Canada. The award will be formerly delivered to Dr. Mackay during a ceremony held at the Third European Conference on Permafrost in June 2010 in Longyearbyen.With this award, the International Permafrost Association rewards its founding Secretary-General and one the greatest permafrost researchers alive. Ross Mackay was born on 31 December 1915 in Formosa (Ta…

Thawing permafrost can release nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, a contributor to climate change that has been largely overlooked in the Arctic, a study from B. Eberling, H. H. Christiansen and B. U. Hansen showed in Nature Geoscience. The report in the journal Nature Geoscience indicated that emissions of the gas surged under certain conditions from thawing permafrost that underlies about 25 percent of land in the Northern Hemisphere.Emissions of the gas measured from thawing wetlands in Zack…

The International Permafrost Association is awarded a grant from the International Council for Science (ICSU) to launch its MicroPerm project.ICSU announced on March 15th, 2010 that the MicroPerm project, which stands for “circumpolar integration of permafrost microbiological studies” is the successful recipient of a 2010 ICSU grant. The project, led by Dr. Dirk Wagner, at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, is the first of its kind, in that it will bring…

The latest issue of the International Permafrost Association yearly bulletin, Frozen Ground, is now available for download on the IPA website. This new issue focuses on country reports of research activities, Working Group reports and many other reports from partners and permafrost projected. You can now get it here. If you want to know what the permafrost research community is doing, this is the place!

You can now follow the most recent news from the International Permafrost Association on Facebook and Twitter. The most recent news items posted on the IPA website are automatically fed to the newly established IPA account and page on both Twitter and Facebook. Follow the tweets or register on the IPA Facebook page and get these news directly into your profile, into your mailbox, or on your cellphone. You can also use the RSS feeds of the IPA directly into your RSS feed reader or in your email software…

We are pleased to provide you with the latest update to the Third European Conference on Permafrost, Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway, 13.-17. June 2010. The early registration deadline is fast approaching (15th February). Abstracts must be submitted by this date to be considered for a poster or paper. Please send abstracts to abstracts@eucop2010.no following the template format which is available on the EUCOP website.The conference will focus on both arctic and alpine permafrost research, and recent ach…