The International Permafrost Association’s contribution to the International Polar Year

Abstract

other permafrost activities include regional mapping projects in central Asia and the Nordic region, education, outreach and data management activities (brown and christiansen 200 ). The permafrost young Researchers Network (pyRN) with over 500 members in 40 countries, encourages the development of a new generation of permafrost researchers. A catalogue of International university courses on permafrost (Iucp) list over 135 courses in 17 countries (christiansen et al., 2007). our collective permafrost legacy for Ipy is to develop an international network of permanent permafrost observatories, establish a sustainable data system, and help develop the next generation of permafrost researchers. The International permafrost Association (IpA), with its 2 national members, has taken the lead in organizing regional and bipolar programs to improve our current understanding of the state and fate of permafrost, soils, and periglacial processes throughout the polar and high elevation regions of planet Earth. Although permafrost temperature observations were made throughout the last century and continue to the present, many locations with excellent past records have been abandoned and some regions are under represented. Warming since the late 1970s has been observed in permafrost temperature profiles from many locations in the Northern hemisphere; parts of Alaska, canada, central Asia, northern Russia, and midand low-latitude mountain regions (brown and Romanovsky 2008, Romanovsky et al. 2008). The anniversary for International polar year (Ipy) provided an opportunity for development and implementation of a broad range of permafrost research and monitor-