Description: Geography and associated hydrological, hydroclimate and land use conditions and their changes determine the states and dynamics of wetlands and their ecosystem services. The influences of these controls are not limited to just the local scale of each individual wetland, but extend over larger landscape areas that integrate multiple wetlands and their total hydrological catchment – the wetlandscape. However, the data and knowledge of conditions and changes over entire wetlandscapes are still scarce, limiting the capacity to accurately understand and manage critical wetland ecosystems and their services under global change. We present a new Wetlandscape Change Information Database (WetCID), consisting of geographic, hydrological, hydroclimate and land use information and data for 27 wetlandscapes around the world. This combines survey-based local information with geographic shapefiles and gridded datasets of large-scale hydroclimate and land-use conditions and their changes over whole wetlandscapes. Temporally, WetCID contains 30-year time series of data for mean monthly precipitation and temperature, and annual land use conditions. The survey-based site information includes local knowledge on the wetlands, hydrology, hydroclimate and land uses within each wetlandscape, and on the availability and accessibility of associated local data. This novel database can support site assessments, cross-regional comparisons, and scenario analyses of the roles and impacts of land use, hydroclimatic and wetland conditions and changes on whole-wetlandscape functions and ecosystem services.

Description: Ponds and lakes are abundant in Arctic permafrost lowlands. They play an important role in Arctic wetland ecosystems by regulating carbon, water, and energy fluxes and providing freshwater habitats. However, ponds, i.e., waterbodies with surface areas smaller than 1.0 × 10**4 m**2, have not been inventoried on global and regional scales. The Permafrost Region Pond and Lake (PeRL) database presents the results of a circum-Arctic effort to map ponds and lakes from modern (2002-2013) high-resolution aerial and satellite imagery with a resolution of 5 m or better. The database also includes historical imagery from 1948 to 1965 with a resolution of 6 m or better. PeRL includes 69 maps covering a wide range of environmental conditions from tundra to boreal regions and from continuous to discontinuous permafrost zones. Waterbody maps are linked to regional permafrost landscape maps which provide information on permafrost extent, ground ice volume, geology, and lithology. This paper describes waterbody classification and accuracy, and presents statistics of waterbody distribution for each site. Maps of permafrost landscapes in Alaska, Canada, and Russia are used to extrapolate waterbody statistics from the site level to regional landscape units. PeRL presents pond and lake estimates for a total area of 1.4 × 10**6 km**2 across the Arctic, about 17 % of the Arctic lowland ( 〈 300 m a.s.l.) land surface area. PeRL waterbodies with sizes of 1.0 × 10**6 m**2 down to 1.0 × 10**2 m**2 contributed up to 21 % to the total water fraction. Waterbody density ranged from 1.0 × 10 to 9.4 × 10**1/km². Ponds are the dominant waterbody type by number in all landscapes representing 45-99 % of the total waterbody number. The implementation of PeRL size distributions in land surface models will greatly improve the investigation and projection of surface inundation and carbon fluxes in permafrost lowlands.

Description: Dieses Projekt startete im Oktober 2015 mit einer verrückten Idee: Schreiben und Einreichen eines Antrags auf Förderung einer internationalen, multidisziplinären und nicht-traditionell wissenschaftlichen Projektinitiative… innerhalb von 48 Stunden. Und es hat geklappt ! Eine Gruppe hoch motivierter, junger Forscher aus Kanada und Europa hat sich gebildet, um Kunst und Wissenschaft zu kombinieren und eine Reihe von Comics über Permafrost (gefrorene Böden) zu produzieren. Unser Ziel ist es, zu zeigen, wie wissenschaftliches Arbeiten im hohen Norden funktioniert, mit dem Schwerpunkt auf Geländearbeit und den schnellen Umweltveränderungen in der Arktis. Die Zielgruppe sind Kinder, Jugendliche, Eltern und Lehrer, mit dem allgemeinen Ziel, Permafrost zugänglicher und mit Spaß zu vermitteln. Denn ratet mal: Permafrost ist ein Gebiet von mehr als 20 Millionen km2 auf der Nordhalbkugel – ein riesiges Gebiet. Durch die Klimaerwärmung taut der Permafrost und wird zu instabil, um Häuser, Straßen und Flughäfen zu tragen. Durch das Auftauen von gefrorenem Boden werden außerdem Pflanzen- und Tierhabitate zerstört, die Wasserqualität und Ökologie von Seen beeinflusst und auf Grund der Freisetzung von Kohlenstoff als Treibhausgas in die Atmosphäre wird der Klimawandel sogar verstärkt. Daher betrifft Permafrost und seine Reaktion auf den Klimawandel uns alle. Die Internationale Permafrost Gemeinschaft (IPA) hat das Projekt als „Action Group“ von Beginn an unterstützt und seitdem sind noch viele weitere Sponsoren dazugekommen. Und hier sind wir nun: Zwei Jahre nach der ersten Idee. Ihr seid kurz davor das zu lesen, was das Ergebnis eines ständigen Austauschs zwischen Künstlern und Wissenschaftlern ist. Zunächst hatten wir eine Ausschreibungsrunde und erhielten 49 Bewerbungen von Künstlern aus 16 Ländern. Durch ein Bewertungsverfahren wählten wir zwei Künstlerinnen aus, um an diesem Projekt zu arbeiten: Noémie Ross aus Kanada und Heta Nääs aus Finnland. Mit den Beiträgen von Wissenschaftlern erstellten Noémie und Heta fantastische Cartoons, die ein paar der Veränderungen erklären, die in Permafrost-Gebieten passieren. Zum Beispiel: wie wird die Welt der Menschen und Tiere beeinflusst und was machen Forscher, um diese Prozesse besser zu verstehen, sodass sie den Einheimischen helfen können, innovative Wege zur Anpassung zu finden.

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: 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: 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.