Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions

The International Permafrost Association (IPA), founded in 1983, has as its objectives to foster the dissemination of knowledge concerning

permafrost Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...

and to promote cooperation among persons and national or international organisations engaged in scientific investigation and engineering work related to permafrost and seasonally frozen ground. The IPA became an Affiliated Organisation of the

International Union of Geological Sciences The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) is an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the field of geology. About The IUGS was founded in 1961 and is a Scientific Union member of the Int ...

in July 1989. The Association’s primary responsibilities are to convene International Permafrost Conferences, undertake special projects such as preparing databases, maps, bibliographies, and glossaries, and coordinate international field programmes and networks. The International Conference On Permafrost (ICOP) is regularly held since 1965.

Permafrost Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...

or perennially frozen ground is defined as earth material that remains at or below 0 °C for at least two consecutive years. As such, upwards of 25% of Planet Earth is underlain to some degree by permafrost and in extreme conditions reaches depths of 1500 meters. Permafrost occurs in the high latitudes and mountains and plateaus of both hemispheres.

International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP)

The first International conference (ICOP) was held at West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A. in 1963, followed by

Yakutsk Yakutsk (russian: Якутск, p=jɪˈkutsk; sah, Дьокуускай, translit=Djokuuskay, ) is the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one ...

, Siberia (1975);

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city an ...

, Canada (1978);

Fairbanks Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the p ...

, Alaska (1983);

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, an ...

, Norway (1988);

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

, China (1993);

Yellowknife Yellowknife (; Dogrib: ) is the capital, largest community, and only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the ...

, Canada (1998); and Zurich, Switzerland (2003: ICOP 2003). The Ninth International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP) was held in

, Alaska, June 29-July 3, 2008 and the Tenth took place in Salekhard, Russia, June 25–29, 2012 (TICOP 2012). The Eleventh International Conference on Permafrost was held in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of ...

, Germany, June 20-14, 2016. The 12th International Conference on Permafrost was planned in

Lanzhou Lanzhou (, ; ) is the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. Located on the banks of the Yellow River, it is a key regional transportation hub, connecting areas further west by rail to the eastern half of the country. H ...

, China, with the conference theme ''Permafrost environments under persistent warming: Challenges for scientific assessment and engineering practice''. Due to the Covid19 pandemic, it was postponed until June 20–24, 2022. This ICOP 2022 will take place in Lanzhou, China. The 13th International Conference on Permafrost is planned June 16–20, 2024 in

Whitehorse Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's Downtown Whitehorse, downtown ...

, Yukon, Canada at

Yukon University Yukon University (formerly Yukon College) is a public university in the Canadian territory of Yukon. The university main campus is based in Whitehorse, although the institution also operates 12 campuses throughout the territory. The university ...

. Field excursions are an integral part of each Conference, and are organised by the host country. Regional conferences are organised between the main conferences (in Europe, Russia, China).

Organization and structure

Membership is through adhering national or multinational organisations or as Associate Members in countries where no Adhering Body exists. The IPA is governed by an Executive Committee and a Council consisting of representatives from 26 Adhering Bodies having interests in some aspect of theoretical, basic and applied frozen ground research, including

, periglacial phenomena, seasonal frost, and artificial ground freezing. Members are: Argentina, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America. News from the IPA members are posted on the IPA webpage. The officers of the seven-member Executive Committee (2012–2016) are: :President: Prof. Antoni Lewkowicz (Canada) :Vice Presidents: Prof. Hanne Christiansen (Norway) and Prof. Vladimir Romanovsky (USA) :Members: Dr. Hugues Lantuit (Germany), Prof. Lothar Schrott (Austria), Dr. Dmitry Sergeev (Russia) and Prof. Ma Wei (China) The Executive Director is Dr. Inga May (Germany). The IPA Constitution provides for three categories of Working Group Parties: standing committees (long-term), working groups (5–10 years) and action groups (1–2 years) that organise and coordinate research activities and special projects. The first category includes a Standing Committee for Data, Information and Communication, an International Advisory Committee for the International Permafrost Conferences, and a Standing Committee for Education and Outreach. There are ten Working Groups, each with two co-chairs and some with subgroups. These are: :�
Antarctic Permafrost and Periglacial Environments
:�

(see
Arctic Coastal Dynamics
webpage) :�

:�

(see
GAPHAZ
webpage) :�

:�

:�

:�

:�

:�

Details of the Working Parties goals and activities are found on the IPA website. The International Secretariat is based at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research under the direction of Dr. Inga May (Germany). Annual membership contributions are used for producing and distributing ''Frozen Ground'', and support of Working Parties and committee activities and representations at international meetings.

Publication and Information

Proceedings of peer-reviewed papers are produced for each International Permafrost Conference by the host country, as are field trip guidebooks. A list of publications is found on the IPA website. The News Bulleti
''Frozen Ground''
is published annually and has a distribution of over 2500. Current and back issues are posted online. Th

at a scale of 1:10,000,000 was prepared by an international team and published in the Circum-Pacific map series in 1997. Th

version 2.0 CD-ROM is a compilation of global frozen ground data and information.
Permafrost and Frozen Ground: Bibliography 1978 – 2003
Glaciological Data Report GD-31, is an online bibliography of the world’s literature. Both are produced in conjunction with the International Permafrost Conferences and available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. An illustrate
Glossary of Permafrost and Related Ground-Ice Terms
in 12 languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, and Spanish), 278 pages, was produced in 1998. IPA cooperates with th
American Geological Institute
by providing literature to its Cold Regions Bibliography Project.

Recent and future activities

IPA was actively involved in the International Polar Yea
International Polar Year (IPY)
by participating with four coordinated projects. Th
Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP)
proposes to obtain a ‘snapshot’ of permafrost temperatures throughout Planet Earth during the period 2007-2008. Another objective of TSP is to establish a permanent International Network of Permafrost Observatories (INPO) within the framework of th
Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P).
The three other IPY projects are concerned wit
Antarctic and sub-Antarctic Permafrost, Periglacial and Soil Environments (ANTPAS)
and with th
Arctic Circum-Polar Coastal Observatory Network (ACCO-Net)
an
Carbon Pools in Permafrost Regions (CAPP)
and revised regional permafrost maps of Central Asia and the Nordic region. For updated news about IPA activities linked to IPY, see the IPA website. Several regional permafrost and soils conferences were held and are planned, including: :• The First European Conference on Permafrost (EUCOP I) in Rome (Italy), in 2001; :• Th
Second European Conference on Permafrost (EUCOP II)
in Potsdam (Germany), in June 2005; :• Th

was held in Arkhangelsk (Russia), in August 2005; :• Th

convenes in Lanzhou (China), in early August 2006 with

:• Th

was held in July 2010 in

Longyearbyen Longyearbyen (, locally �lɔ̀ŋjɑrˌbyːən "The Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. It stretches along the foot of the left bank ...

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group rang ...

, Norway. :• The Fourth European Conference on Permafrost (EUCOP IV) in June 2014 was hosted by the

University of Évora The University of Évora (''Universidade de Évora'') is a public university in Évora, Portugal. It is the second oldest university in the country, established in 1559 by the cardinal Henry, and receiving University status in April of the sa ...

in collaboration with the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

, Portugal.

Other major activities

The IPA coordinates and cooperates with several other major international programmes and organizations. Briefly these are: Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) is a WMO network for monitoring of the active layer and th
Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP).
The IPA manages th
GTN-P.
Th
Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM)
program has 125 reporting stations an
TSP
has identified over 800 boreholes; both include a total of over 15 participating countries.
Arctic Coastal Dynamics (ACD)
is a joint programme with th
International Arctic Science Committee (IASC)
and th
IGBP
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme)
LOICZ
(Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone) programme to estimate the organic carbon content and mineral transfer for eroding permafrost onto the Arctic shelves. The IPA is collaborating with th
International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA)
The IPA has a Memorandum of Understanding with th
Climate and Cryosphere (CliC)
programme of th

The main areas of cooperation are on the roles of permafrost on water and carbon balances, and

data assimilation Data assimilation is a mathematical discipline that seeks to optimally combine theory (usually in the form of a numerical model) with observations. There may be a number of different goals sought – for example, to determine the optimal state es ...

and modelling. Beginning in 1995 the IPA and th
International Geographical Union (IGU)
developed an Agreement of Cooperation, thus making IPA an affiliate of th
IGU
The current IGU collaboration is within it

Coordination of activities on permafrost, soils and periglacial environments of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands is a joint programme with a

of th
Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR)
Activities related to

glaciers A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

and permafrost hazards in the high mountains
GAPHAZ
are a joint activity with th
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG)
and its newly designate
Commission for the Cryospheric Sciences.
The topic of carbon sources and sinks in cold regions soils ( cryosols) and permafrost is a joint program with the Global Carbon Project (GPC) and the joint working group on Cryosol of th
International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS)

References

External links

International Permafrost Association (IPA
;Organisations:
International Polar Year (IPY)Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN)National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS)International Geographical Union (IGU)9th International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP)United States Permafrost AssociationGlobal Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P)
;Information about Permafrost:'
U.S. Arctic Research Commission: Report on Climate Change, Permafrost and Impact on Civil InfrastructureAll About Frozen Ground, National Snow and Ice Data CenterFrederick E. Nelson. (Un)frozen in Time. (''Science'', 14, March 2003: Vol. 299, no. 5613, pp. 1673 - 1675)What is Permafrost?, Geological Survey of Canada
{{Authority control Permafrost Earth sciences organizations Geology organizations International scientific organizations International organisations based in Germany Scientific organizations established in 1983