The IPA Permafrost and Carbon budgets Interest Group (IPaC) was approved by the IPA Council in June 2018 during EUCOP5 in Chamonix, France. The aim of the IPaC is to create and sustain a formalized pathway for IPA permafrost experts to give feedback on the representation of permafrost in datasets used for broad-scale carbon budgets. The need for an interest group was first articulated by members of the Global Carbon Project while working on the global methane budget. The Global Carbon Project is a sponsor organisation of the Interest Group and IPaC will act in an advisory capacity in the calculation and revision of regional and global carbon budgets. IPaC will work in close collaboration with the Permafrost Carbon Network, which has shown great leadership in leading synthesis science related to permafrost carbon. As the need for new synthesis science is recognized through IPaC, actionable items will be pursued within the Permafrost Carbon Network.
IPaC is led by a Steering Committee chaired by Dr. Gustaf Hugelius, the founder of the Interest Group. Day-to-day activities of the group are coordinated by Dr. Justine Ramage. The Steering Committee members are:
Christina Biasi, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Robert B. Jackson, Stanford University, USA
Dmitry Kaverin, Komi Scientific Centre, Russia
Benjamin Poulter, NASA, USA
Christina Schädel, Northern Arizona University, USA
Ted Schuur, Northern Arizona University, USA
Jens Strauss, Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany
Merritt Turetsky, University of Guelph, Canada
Yuanhe Yang, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China