International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

PA R T T WO: IPY SCIENCE PR O G R A M
2.7 Permafrost
Lead Author:
Volker Rachold
Contributing Authors:
Jerry Brown, Hanne H. Christiansen, Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten, Peter Kuhry,
Hugues Lantuit, Paul Overduin and Gonçalo Vieira
Reviewer:
Vladimir E. Romanovsky
Introduction and Overview
Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten, Jerry Brown, Hanne H.
Christiansen and Hugues Lantuit
Permafrost is defined as ground (soil or rock and
included ice or organic material) that remains at or
below 0°C for at least two consecutive years (van
Everdingen, 1998), and exists in approximately 25%
of the terrestrial part of the Earth (Fig. 2.7-1). Since
permafrost is present on most continents on Earth,
in lowlands and in mountains, permafrost research is
also undertaken beyond the traditional polar regions
(north and south of 60°). During International Polar
Year (IPY) 2007–2008, most permafrost research
focused on land activities in polar regions. Several
coordinated cluster projects had bipolar focus (Fig.
2.7-2). Permafrost research, forming an important part
of the cryospheric research, is becoming increasingly
multidisciplinary, bringing together geologists,
geographers, engineers, biologists, ecologists, and
soil and social scientists.
IPY 2007–2008 provided a unique opportunity
for permafrost science to focus on regional, bipolar
and multidisciplinary activities. Late 20th century
observations and compilations of recent data indicated
a warming of permafrost in many continental, marinedominated
and mountainous regions with resulting
degradation of ice-rich and carbon-rich permafrost
(Romanovsky et al., 2007). Major activities during IPY
focused on the measurement of ground temperatures
to assess the thermal state of permafrost and the
thickness of the active layer, on the quantification of
carbon pools in permafrost and their potential future
remobilization, as well as the quantification of erosion
and release of sediment along permafrost coasts, and
periglacial process and landform quantification.
To address these and related bipolar questions, four
permafrost cluster projects were approved by the IPY
Joint Committee:
• The Permafrost Observatory Project: A Contribution
to the Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) [IPY Project
50]
• The Antarctic and sub-Antarctic Permafrost,
Periglacial and Soil Environments Project (ANTPAS)
[IPY Project 33]
• The Arctic Circum-Polar Coastal Observatory
Network (ACCO-Net) [IPY Project 90]
• Carbon Pools in Permafrost (CAPP) [Project 373].
These four cluster projects focused on research
and observations in the permafrost and periglacial
environments of the Planet Earth. They together
represented more than 50 individual IPY Expression
of Intent (EoI) proposals with participants from more
than 25 countries representing both polar regions, as
well as mid- and low-latitude, permafrost-dominated
mountainous regions. They were coordinated by
the International Permafrost Association (IPA) and
its Secretariat, then based at the University Centre
in Svalbard (UNIS). An overall objective of these
coordinated projects was to produce a “snapshot”
of permafrost conditions during the IPY period, with
emphasis on the thermal state of the permafrost (TSP).
This includes active layer thickness measurements
as part of the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring
(CALM) program established in the 1990s (Nelson et
al., 2008).
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