Description: Over the past two decades, the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) have organized activities focused on international and interdisciplinary perspectives for advancing Arctic and Antarctic research cooperation and knowledge dissemination in many areas (e.g. Kennicutt et al., 2014). For permafrost science, however, no consensus document exists at the international level to identify future research priorities, although the International Permafrost Association (IPA) highlighted the need for such a document during the 10th International Conference on Permafrost in 2012. Four years later, this presentation, which is based on the results obtained by Fritz et al. (2015), outlines the outcome of an international and interdisciplinary effort conducted by early career researchers (ECRs). This effort was designed as a contribution to the Third International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP III). In June 2014, 88 ERCs convened during the Fourth European Conference on Permafrost to identify future priorities for permafrost research. We aimed to meet our goals of hosting an effective large group dialogue by means of online question development followed by a “World Café” conversational process. An overview of the process is provided in Figure 1. This activity was organized by the two major early career researcher associations Permafrost Young Researchers’ Network (PYRN) and the Association of Polar Early career Scientists (APECS), as well as the regional research projects PAGE21 (EU) and ADAPT (Canada). Participants were provided with live instructions including criteria regarding what makes a research question (Sutherland et al., 2011). The top five questions that emerged from this process are: (1) How does permafrost degradation affect landscape dynamics at different spatial and temporal scales? (2) How can ground thermal models be improved to better reflect permafrost dynamics at high spatial resolution? (3) How can traditional environmental knowledge be integrated in permafrost research? (4) What is the spatial distribution of different ground-ice types and how susceptible is ice-rich permafrost to future environmental change? (5) What is the influence of infrastructures on the thermal regime and stability of permafrost in different environmental settings? As the next generation of permafrost researchers, we see the need and the opportunity to participate in framing the future research priorities. Across the polar sciences, ECRs have built powerful networks, such as the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN), which have enabled us to efficiently consult with the community. Many participants of this community-input exercise will be involved in and also affected by the Arctic science priorities during the next decade. Therefore, we need to (i) contribute our insights into larger efforts of the community such as the Permafrost Research Priorities initiative by the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project together with the IPA and (ii) help identify relevant gaps and a suitable roadmap for the future of Arctic research. Critical evaluation of the progress made since ICARP II and revisiting the science plans and recommendations will be crucial. IASC and the IPA, together with SCAR on bipolar activities, should coordinate the research agendas in a proactive manner engaging all partners, including funding agencies, policy makers, and local communities. Communicating our main findings to society in a dialogue between researchers and the public is a priority. Special attention must be given to indigenous peoples living on permafrost, where knowledge exchange creates a mutual benefit for science and local communities. The ICARP III process is an opportunity to better communicate the global importance of permafrost to policy makers and the public.

Description: The Action Group called ‘Standardized methods across Permafrost Landscapes: from Arctic Soils to Hydrosystems’ (SPLASH) is a community-driven effort aiming to provide a suite of standardized field strategies for sampling mineral and organic components in soils, sediments, and water across permafrost landscapes. This unified approach will allow data from different landscape interfaces, field locations and seasons to be shared and compared, thus improving our understanding of the processes occurring during lateral transport in circumpolar Arctic watersheds.

Description: This project started in October 2015 with a crazy idea: prepare and submit a funding application for an international, multidisciplinary and non-traditional scientific outreach project… within the next 48 hours. Well, it worked out. A group of highly motivated young researchers from Canada and Europe united to combine arts and science and produce a series of outreach comic strips about permafrost (frozen ground). The aim of the project is to present and explain scientific research conducted across the circumpolar Arctic, placing emphasis on field work and the rapidly changing northern environment. The target audience is kids, youth, parents and teachers, with the general goal of making permafrost science more fun and accessible to the public. Because guess what : permafrost represents an area of more than twenty million km2 in the Northern Hemisphere, a huge area. As the climate warms, permafrost thaws and becomes unstable for houses, roads and airports. This rapid thawing of previously frozen ground also disrupts plant and animal habitats, impacts water quality and the ecology of lakes, and releases carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, making climate change even stronger. Hence permafrost and its response to climate change concerns us all. The project received initial support from the International Permafrost Association (IPA) as a targeted ‘Action Group’, and since then several other sponsors have joined the project. Here we are, now, two years after this first idea. What you are about to read is the result of an iterative process of exchanging ideas between artists and scientists. We first made an application call and received 49 applications from artists in 16 countries. Through a formal review process, we then selected two artists to work on this project: Noémie Ross from Canada, and Heta Nääs from Finland. With input from scientists, Noémie and Heta created fantastic cartoons that explain some of the changes happening to the environment in permafrost areas, how they affect people and wildlife, and what scientists are doing to better understand these changes to help people find innovative ways to adapt. We wish everyone plenty of fun reading this booklet and we would like to thank all those who supported this project.

Description: This project started in October 2015 with a crazy idea: prepare and submit a funding application for an international, multidisciplinary and non-traditional scientific outreach project… within the next 48 hours. Well, it worked out. A group of highly motivated young researchers from Canada and Europe united to combine arts and science and produce a series of outreach comic strips about permafrost (frozen ground). The aim of the project is to present and explain scientific research conducted across the circumpolar Arctic, placing emphasis on field work and the rapidly changing northern environment. The target audience is kids, youth, parents and teachers, with the general goal of making permafrost science more fun and accessible to the public. Because guess what : permafrost represents an area of more than twenty million km2 in the Northern Hemisphere, a huge area. As the climate warms, permafrost thaws and becomes unstable for houses, roads and airports. This rapid thawing of previously frozen ground also disrupts plant and animal habitats, impacts water quality and the ecology of lakes, and releases carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, making climate change even stronger. Hence permafrost and its response to climate change concerns us all. The project received initial support from the International Permafrost Association (IPA) as a targeted ‘Action Group’, and since then several other sponsors have joined the project. Here we are, now, two years after this first idea. What you are about to read is the result of an iterative process of exchanging ideas between artists and scientists. We first made an application call and received 49 applications from artists in 16 countries. Through a formal review process, we then selected two artists to work on this project: Noémie Ross from Canada, and Heta Nääs from Finland. With input from scientists, Noémie and Heta created fantastic cartoons that explain some of the changes happening to the environment in permafrost areas, how they affect people and wildlife, and what scientists are doing to better understand these changes to help people find innovative ways to adapt. We wish everyone plenty of fun reading this booklet and we would like to thank all those who supported this project.

Description: An increased interest in Arctic environments, mainly due to climate change, has changed the conditions for permafrost research in recent years. This change has been accompanied by a global increase in scientific publications, as well as a trend towards open access publications. We have analyzed abstracts, titles and keywords for publications on permafrost from 1998 to 2017 to identify developments (topics, impact and collaboration) in the field of permafrost research in light of these changes. Furthermore, to understand how scientists build on and are inspired by each other's work, we have (a) developed citation networks from scientific publications on permafrost and (b) conducted an online survey on inspiration in permafrost science. Our results show an almost 400% increase in publications containing the word permafrost in the title, keywords or abstract over the study period, and a strong increase in climate‐change‐related research in terms of publications and citations. Survey respondents (n = 122) find inspiration not only in scientific journal publications, but to a large extent in books and public outreach materials. We argue that this increase in global‐scope issues (i.e., climate change) complementing core permafrost research has provided new incentives for international collaborations and wider communication efforts.

Description: Communicating science about a phenomenon found under ground and defined by its thermal properties in an easy, fun, and engaging way, can be a challenge. Two years ago, a group of young researchers from Canada and Europe united to tackle this problem by combining arts and science to produce a series of outreach comic strips about permafrost (frozen ground). Because this concerns us all. As the climate warms, permafrost thaws and becomes unstable for houses, roads and airports.The thawing also disrupts ecosystems, impacts water quality, and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, making climate change even stronger. The Frozen Ground Cartoon project aims to present and explain permafrost research, placing emphasis on field work and the rapidly changing northern environment. The target audience is kids, youth, parents and teachers, with the general goal of making permafrost science more fun and accessible to the public. The project has so far produced 22 pages of comics through an iterative process of exchanging ideas between two artists and thirteen scientists. The project artists were selected through an application call that received 49 applications from artists in 16 countries. With input from scientists, artists Noémie Ross (Canada) and Heta Nääs (Finland) have created a set of beautiful, artistic, humoristic, and pedagogic comics.. The comics are available for free download through the project web page (in English and Swedish), and printed copies have so far been handed out to school kids and general public in Europe. Prints in North America are planned for the fall of 2017. The next steps of the project are (1) to distribute the comics as wide as possible, (2) work towards translations into more languages, and (3) to evaluate the effectiveness of the science communication through the comics, in collaboration with schools and pedagogic experts.

Description: Here we present the first results of an entertaining and easily understandable scientific-based comic on the impacts of climate change in permafrost areas. Education and outreach is a fundamental component of scientific research activities. Especially for Arctic science, the involvement of local communities and the diffusion of scientific knowledge in schools is now an essential task on every researcher’s to-do list. The International Permafrost Association (IPA) Action Groups “A Frozen-Ground Cartoon” and “Permafrost and Culture” aim at filling the gap between indigenous knowledge, complex scientific results and outreach to the general public. It is possible to change global thinking, especially in relation to environmental friendly policy and industry, but only if awareness to the sensitive Arctic regions can be brought to the general public and to political decision makers. This can be hard to achieve, as scientific publications and knowledge are difficult to access for the general public. Permafrost comics explain the impact of climate change in permafrost areas, its effects on local communities, 172 ASM2016 Conference Program Oral Presentation and Poster Abstracts wildlife and changing landscape. We provide handouts with simple scientific background information that can be used by school teachers as educational material. The comics are part of a larger outreach and education project including posters and a short Frostbyte video. Everything will be freely available on the IPA website for download. For more information: https://www. researchgate.net/project/A-Frozen-Ground-CartoonExplaining-international-permafrost-research-usingcomic-strips http://ipa.arcticportal.org/activities/actiongroups

Description: Poster Presentation about the Permafrost Comics at the Bolin Days. This is the launch of the new Bolin Centre for Climate Research after the merge of former EkoKlim and the Bolin Centre! Come and listen to interesting talks, enjoy discussions over fika, celebrate Tarfala research station 70 years, hear the latest about ICOS, attend the SWERUS photo exhibition, view interesting posters, jugde in the PhD poster competition, talk with the database team, involve yourself in the mentoring programme, rack your brain with puzzles and equip yourself with Bolin Centre give-aways. End the Bolin Days by letting your hair down at the Ceilidh dance after the relaxed conference dinner. There are also excellent opportunities to interact with the Bolin Centre External Science Advisory Group during the Bolin Days.

Description: Communicating science about a phenomenon found under ground and defined by its thermal properties in an easy, funny, and engaging way, can be a challenge. Two years ago, a group of young researchers from Canada and Europe united to tackle this problem by combining arts and science to produce a series of outreach comic strips about permafrost (frozen ground). Because this concerns us all. As the climate warms, permafrost thaws and becomes unstable for houses, roads and airports. The thawing also disrupts ecosystems, impacts water quality, and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, making climate change even stronger. The Frozen Ground Cartoon project aims to present and explain permafrost research, placing emphasis on field work and the rapidly changing northern environment. The target audience is kids, youth, parents and teachers, with the general goal of making permafrost science more fun and accessible to the public. The project has so far produced 22 pages of comics through an iterative process of exchanging ideas between two artists and thirteen scientists. The project artists were selected through an application call that received 49 applications from artists in 16 countries. With input from scientists, artists Noémie Ross (Canada) and Heta Nääs (Finland) have created a set of beautiful, artistic, humoristic, and pedagogic comics. The comics are available for free download through the project web page (in English and Swedish), and printed copies have so far been handed out to school kids and general public in Europe and Canada. The next steps of this project are (1) to distribute the comics as wide as possible, (2) work towards translations into more languages, and (3) to evaluate the effectiveness of the science communication through the comics, in collaboration with schools and pedagogic experts.

Description: The “Frozen-Ground Cartoons” IPA Action Group has teamed up with artists Noémie Ross and Heta Nääs to come up with a series of entertaining comics aimed mainly at youth, but relevant to the general public. The comics focus on permafrost, permafrost research and the effects of climate change on northern communities and wildlife. The topics surrounding permafrost research have recently been evolving, garnering an interest to frozen-ground sensitivity and behaviour that extends beyond scientific researchers and organizations. The expression “permafrost is melting” (sic) now pops up frequently in the news, with such phenomena as “methane explosions” and “permafrost landslides” elevated to the honorable rank of click-baits on social media newsfeeds. While “permafrost” is a word now recognized by many, it is still a challenge to demystify the Arctic environment and the work that is done by researchers on this topic. The “Frozen-Ground Cartoons” address this gap between scientists and the public and are available as printed booklets (free giveaways at the poster!) and free public downloads of the comics on the website frozengroundcartoon.com. Available in English, the comics are to be translated in many languages in the near future, including northern native languages. This project was initiated exclusively from early career researchers who built on the networking opportunities of large projects such as ADAPT and PAGE21, as well as from the Arctic early career researcher groups APECS and PYRN. It is of great interest to every researcher, as outreach is now an important part of the work of scientists. The framework could also be applied to other disciplines, and we strongly hope this project can serve as an inspiration to budding outreach specialists across the ArcticNet community.