International Permafrost Association - Recent and Future Activities

Recent and Future Activities

IPA was actively involved in the International Polar Year International Polar Year (IPY) by participating with four coordinated projects. The 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 the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P). The three other IPY projects are concerned with Antarctic and sub-Antarctic Permafrost, Periglacial and Soil Environments (ANTPAS) and with the Arctic Circum-Polar Coastal Observatory Network (ACCO-Net) and 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;

• The Second European Conference on Permafrost (EUCOP II) in Potsdam (Germany), in June 2005;

• The Fourth International Conference on Cryopedology, was held in Arkhangelsk (Russia), in August 2005;

• The Asian Conference on Permafrost convenes in Lanzhou (China), in early August 2006 with a field excursion to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau;

• The Ninth International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP) was held in early summer 2008 in Fairbanks (U.S.A.).

• The Third European Conference on Permafrost (EUCOP III) was held in July 2010 in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway.

• The Tenth International Conference on Permafrost (TICOP) took place in June 2012 in Salekhard, Russia.

• EUCOP IV will be hosted by the University of Évora in collaboration with the University of Lisbon in Évora, Portugal in 2014 and ICOP 11 is planned for 2016 in Potsdam, Germany.