International Permafrost Association


The International Permafrost Association, founded in 1983, has as its objectives to foster the dissemination of knowledge concerning permafrost 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 in July 1989.
Permafrost 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.

Objectives

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. International conferences were held at: West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A. ; Yakutsk, Siberia ; Edmonton, Canada ; Fairbanks, Alaska ; Trondheim, Norway ; Beijing, China ; Yellowknife, Canada ; and Zurich, Switzerland. The Ninth International Conference on Permafrost was held in Fairbanks, Alaska, June 29-July 3, 2008 and the Tenth took place in Salekhard, Russia, June 25–29, 2012. The Eleventh International Conference on Permafrost will be held in Potsdam, Germany in 2016. Field excursions are an integral part of each Conference, and are organised by the host country. Regional conferences are organised between the main conferences.

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 permafrost, 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 are:
The Executive Director is Dr. Inga May.
The IPA Constitution provides for three categories of Working Group Parties: standing committees, working groups and action groups 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:
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. 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 Bulletin is published annually and has a distribution of over 2500. Current and back issues are posted online.
The at a scale of 1:10,000,000 was prepared by an international team and published in the Circum-Pacific map series in 1997.
The , version 2.0 CD-ROM is a compilation of global frozen ground data and information.
, 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 illustrated in 12 languages, 278 pages, was produced in 1998.
IPA cooperates with the by providing literature to its Cold Regions Bibliography Project.

Major activities

The IPA coordinates and cooperates with several other major international programmes and organizations. Briefly these are:
Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost is a WMO network for monitoring of the active layer and the The IPA manages the The program has 125 reporting stations and has identified over 800 boreholes; both include a total of over 15 participating countries.
is a joint programme with the and the - programme to estimate the organic carbon content and mineral transfer for eroding permafrost onto the Arctic shelves. The IPA is collaborating with the .
The IPA has a Memorandum of Understanding with the programme of the The main areas of cooperation are on the roles of permafrost on water and carbon balances, and data assimilation and modelling.
Beginning in 1995 the IPA and the developed an Agreement of Cooperation, thus making IPA an affiliate of the . The current IGU collaboration is within its
Coordination of activities on permafrost, soils and periglacial environments of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands is a joint programme with an of the .
Activities related to glaciers and permafrost hazards in the high mountains are a joint activity with the and its newly designated
The topic of carbon sources and sinks in cold regions soils and permafrost is a joint program with the Global Carbon Project and the joint working group on Cryosol of the .

Recent and future activities

IPA was actively involved in the International Polar Year by participating with four coordinated projects. The 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 within the framework of the The three other IPY projects are concerned with and with the and , 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: