One day before the official conferences started, the 24th IPA Council Meeting (picture 2) took place where 24 of the 26 IPA country members voted for the location for the next Regional Conference on Permafrost (RCOP). The RCOP 2018 will be organised by the French IPA National Committee in Charmonix, June 04-08, 2018.
Picture 2: Group foto of 24th IPA Council Meeting at EUCOP4.
Furthermore, the IPA President, Antoni Lewkowicz, announced the new IPA Senior Vice-PresidentHanne Christiansen. According to the IPA Constitution and Bylaws two years before the end of the President´s term of office a Senior Vice-President is selected by the IPA Executive Committee. The Senior Vice-President will automatically become the new President of the IPA (at ICOP 2016) and serve for four years. Also the IPA Executive Committee will be renewed, according to the number of open positions, by election of the Council at ICOP 2016.
Picture 3: The new IPA Senior Vice-President Hanne H. Christiansen.
Young scientists had the opportunity to participate in the ‘Permafrost Young Researcher Workshop‘ organized as a joint effort of the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN), the Association of Polar Earlier Career Scientists (APECS), the EU-project PAGE21 (Changing Permafrost in the Arctic and its Global Effects in the 21st Century) and the Canadian project ADAPT (Arctic Development and Adaptation to Permafrost in Transition). The workshop preparation started already a year ago with 12 organizing young scientists from 6 different countries and and as financially supported by the International Permafrost Association (IPA), Climate and Cryosphere (CliC), the International Arctic Science Comittee (IASC) and the Bolin Centre for Climate Research in Sweden.
Picture 4: Group foto of the Permafrost Young Researcher Workshop participants.
Chris Burn from the Carleton University in Canada received the PPP (Permafrost and Periglacial Processes) award for Excellence in Permafrost Research and gave a PPP award Lecture at the end of the conference. This unique award is the premier international award for excellence in geocryology and is given just once every four years. The official announcement was made at the 10th International Conference on Permafrost (TICOP) in Salekhard on June 22, 2012.
Picture 5: Chris Burn received the PPP Award for Excellence in Permafrost Research, handed over by the IPA President.
The International Permafrost Association is pleased to announce that the 2014 recipient of the ‘IPA Lifetime Achievement Award’ is Academician Cheng Guodong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The award was delivered to Cheng during the opening ceremony at the EUCOP4.
Picture 6: Cheng Guodong received the IPA Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding permafrost science and engineering research, handed over by the IPA President.
The International Permafrost Association is proud to announce the winners of the PYRN-IPA awards for outstanding oral presentation, poster and FrostByte.
The PYRN-IPA award 2014 for outstanding oral presentation went to Bethany Deshpande (University Laval, Canada) for her talk about “Permafrost thaw lakes: Anaerobic bioreactors in the forest-tundra region of the Canadian subarctic”.
The PYRN-IPA award 2014 for outstanding poster presentation went to Jana Eichel (University of Bonn, Germany) for her poster about “Interactions between solifluction processes and vegetation on lateral moraines in the Turtmann glacier forefield (Switzerland)”.
The PYRN-IPA award 2014 for outstanding FrostBytes went to Sina Muster (Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Germany) for her FrostByte about “Decomposing arctic land cover”. (http://www.climate-cryosphere.org/media-gallery/1126-frostbyte-s-muster-2014?album_id=54)
Diverse social events gave the conference participants a good impression about the culture and tradition of the regions and helped fostering the exchange of traditional knowledge (see picture 6) and recent research activities. Furthermore it afforded the opportunity to network, to meet old friends and to make new ones.
Picture 6: EUCOP4 Ice-breaker: Grupo Cantares de Évora Coral Etnográfico, a traditional Alentejo region choir.
In general the feedback from the conference participants was very positiv and the conference can be seen as a great success. A big thank you goes to the local organisation team for organising such a delightful conference!
The IPA also likes to thank their country members and individual members for their annual support, without which the organisation would not be able to operate!
The IPA looks forward to the next Permafrost Conference, the 11th International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP 2016) that will be held 20-24 June 2016 in Potsdam, Germany.
Picture 7: ICOP 2016 presentation held by the Conference Chair Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten.