This Saturday (19/09/2015) at the GeoQuébec 2015 conference in Quebec, Canada the first online data portal on global permafrost will be presented. In the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) researchers first collect all the existing permafrost temperature and active thickness layer data from Arctic, Antarctic and mountain permafrost regions and then make it freely available for download. This new portal can serve as an early warning system for researchers and decision-makers around the globe. A detailed description of the data collection is published today in an open access article on the Earth System Science Data portal.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recognises permafrost as one of the Essential Climate Variables (ECV). Its long-term survey is organised globally within the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) as part of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) in support of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). GTN-P has been largely developed due to activity of the International Permafrost Association (IPA).
The GTN-P database is designed and located in the Arctic Portal in Akureyri, Iceland. The data is managed in close cooperation with the GTN-P Secretariat, which is based at the Alfred Wegener Institute’s research centre in Potsdam. The database is currently funded by the European Union (FP7-ENV-2011, Grant Agreement no. 282700) as part of the permafrost research project PAGE21 (www.page21.org).
Original publication
The GTN-P database is available at www.gtnp.org.
The GTN-P study will be published on the Earth System Science Data portal on 14th September 2015 under the following title:
Biskaborn, B. K., Lanckman, J.-P., Lantuit, H., Elger, K., Streletskiy, D. A., Cable, W. L., and Romanovsky, V. E.: The new database of the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P), Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 7, 245-259, doi:10.5194/essd-7-245-2015, 2015.
Workshop and Conference presentation
GTN-P Director Boris Biskaborn is going to present the database on Saturday 19th September at the workshop and subsequent conference listed below:
- Workshop: 2nd national Correspondents Workshop on GTN-P, University Laval, Québec, Canada, 19. – 20. September 2015, Web: http://ipa.arcticportal.org/products/gtn-p/gtn-p-workshop-2015
- Konferenz, 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference, Quebec City Convention Centre, Kanada, 20.-23. September 2015, Web: http://www.geoquebec2015.ca/en/
More information:
http://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/press-release/wo-auf-der-welt-taut-der-permafrost.html