Permafrost Carbon Network

The 7th annual meeting of the Permafrost Carbon Network took place on Sunday, December 10, 2017 in New Orleans, LA. In the morning, synthesis leads gave short presentations and updated the group on ongoing and new activities. Breakout discussions in the afternoon focused on advancing existing syntheses and brainstorming new ideas and topics. The breakout discussions focused on a) Expert assessment of permafrost; b) Thermokarst: what have we done, what do we know, where are we going; c) Bottom-up estimations of methane emissions; d) Model benchmarking; e) Thaw-induced changes to the permafrost microbiome and the functional implication; f) Bottom-up CO2 flux synthesis; g) Organizing validation data for remote sensing product, and h) Surface water analysis for pan-Arctic permafrost.

Click to view the agenda, the list of participants and some photos.

The Steering Committee of the Permafrost Action Team met on June 26, 2017 in Fairbanks Alaska for a one day workshop. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss material needed for three different types of Knowledge Pyramids and to produce a short 2-page written brief that can be distributed to a wide variety of interested people. The short briefs provide scientific information on societally-relevant questions in formats usable by a variety of stakeholders, including policy- and decision-makers. During the workshop, we focused on these three top-level questions: 1) what is the impact of permafrost carbon release on climate change? 2) How does permafrost thaw impact infrastructure? 3) How will ecosystem services critical to human livelihood in the Arctic be affected by permafrost thaw? The second half of the workshop was dedicated to brainstorming new synthesis products that focus on issues involving infrastructure and ecosystem services in the permafrost zone.

Click to view the agenda, the list of participants and a group photo.

An International Workshop to Reconcile Methane Budgets in the Northern Permafrost Region, organized by the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH), was held in Seattle on 7-9 March 2017. The workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Arctic Research Commission The primary goal was to produce a plan for reconciling methane budgets in the northern permafrost region. Forty-two scientists, including representatives of the atmospheric, inland (wetland and lakes), marine (coastal and oceanic), and remote sensing communities studying methane dynamics participated in developing the research plan.

Click to view the agenda, the list of participants and a group photo.

The 6th annual meeting of the Permafrost Carbon Network took place on Sunday, December 11, 2016 in San Francisco. In the morning, we had 15 short presentations, each including an update on the progress of ongoing syntheses or databases. In the afternoon, we had seven pop-up talks introducing large networks and databases of interest to the Permafrost Carbon Network community. These pop-up talks were followed by two rounds of breakout discussions, in which new ideas for short and long-term syntheses were discussed.

Click to view the agenda, the list of participants and some photos.

Leads and co-leads of the Permafrost Carbon Network and Permafrost Action Team gathered in Potsdam, Germany for a 1.5 day meeting in June (18-19), 2016. The meeting took place prior to the to the XI.International Conference on Permafrost. We had a diverse group of leads giving updates on ongoing syntheses as well as discussions on new and cross-cutting topics. Current core activities of the Permafrost Carbon Network and Permafrost Action Team focus on 1) winter respiration, 2) vegetation impacts, 3) hydrology, 4) Tibetan carbon stocks, 5) methane budgets and 6) the age of dissolved carbon.

Click to see the program, the list of participants, and a group photo of the meeting.

The 5th annual meeting of the Permafrost Carbon Network took place on Sunday, December 13, 2015 in San Francisco. We had 120 scientists participate with again a strong representation of early career scientists. In the morning we had three longer talks about 1) the new methane syntheses, 2) geospatial analyses: dynamic landscape controls on permafrost carbon vulnerability, and 3) Yedoma carbon stocks and other deep permafrost carbon. The second half of the morning was focused on eight speed talks that introduced break-out topics for the afternoon. In the afternoon we split into break-out groups and discussed in smaller groups ongoing and new synthesis products.

Click to view the agenda, the list of participants and some photos.

Another successful meeting for the leads and co-leads of the Permafrost Carbon Network took place May 11-12, 2015 in Flagstaff, AZ. We extended our core lead group by a few new members and are excited to be working on new syntheses over the next few years. The main goal of this workshop was to discuss and improve scoping documents that were prepared by participants in advance of the workshop. These new research areas focus around a) analysis of permafrost carbon feedback and permafrost physical representation in the context of CMIP6 activities, b) carbon pool estimates in Yedoma, c) radiocarbon dating and carbon cycling in permafrost, and d) methane hydrates in permafrost regions as well as others.

Click to see the program, the list of participants, and a group photo of the meeting.

The 4th annual meeting of the Permafrost Carbon Network took place on Sunday, December 14, 2014 in San Francisco. This meeting was highly attended with more than 90 participants. We had the usual updates from the working group leads and co-leads in ther morning followed by four brekaout sessions in the afternoon that focused on a) Modeling, Benchmarking and possible CMIP6 activities; b) Arctic coastal processes and Yedoma region carbon pools; c) Thermokarst upscaling; and d) Aerobic and Anaerobic upscaling using a Panarctic thermal scaling approach.

Click to see the program, the list of participants, and some photos of the meeting.

Working Group Lead Meeting, May 15, 2014, Stockholm, Sweden (co-sponsored by CAPP)

This one day workshop was held in conjunction with the third and final CAPP (Carbon Pools in Permafrost) workshop organized by Dr. Peter Kuhry. The specific intent of this co-hosted workshop was to connect US activities represented by the Permafrost Carbon Network to ongoing international research efforts. Participants from the Permafrost Carbon Network presented their synthesis results in oral presentations or posters which will be made available for review on the website for Permafrost Carbon Network members. The last day of the workshop was fully dedicated to discussion of cross-group synthesis activities and development of useful benchmarks for the modeling community

The agenda can be found here and a group photo here.

The third Annual Meeting of the Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon Network was held in San Francisco on December 8th, 2013. About 90 participants attended the meeting.

In the morning session product leads presented progress on synthesis activities and breakout discussion in the afternoon focused on a) model intercomparison for future climate scenarios, b) a roadmoap for upscaling permafrost C loss, and c) maps and data visualization.

Click to see the program, the list of participants, and some photos of the meeting.

The 2013 spring meeting for working group leads and co-leads took place May 16-17 on Captiva Island, Florida. This workshop included members of the steering committee as well as leads and co-leads of each working group. The purpose of the meeting was to present and discuss progress on synthesis activities, link findings of products from individual working groups into cross-group synthesis activities and to discuss network related items such as data organization and storage. There were a total of 14 short presentations that were each followed by a discussion to provide feedback and review next steps.

Click to see the program and the list of participants. A group photo can be seen here.

On December 2nd of 2012, the annual Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon RCN meeting took place at the Intercontinental in San Francisco, CA and brought together more than 70 scientists from the Permafrost Carbon Network.

In the morning session leads presented progress on working group products as well as introduced new (or ongoing) synthesis products. The afternoon discussions focused around two discussion periods. The first one centered around working group specific synthesis activities while the second discussion round focused on making cross-links between working groups.

Click to see the program, the list of participants, and some photos of the meeting.

The last Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon Network meeting took place May 17-18 2012 in Florida and brought together leads and co-leads from each working group. The purpose of the meeting of the leadership was to review initial drafts of synthesis products and to identify remaining gaps for future cross-group synthesis opportunities. We had short presentations by the working group leads/co-leads that were followed by thorough feedback and discussions from the whole group. We also identified remaining gaps and how to communicate with the broader science community within and outside of the network in order to efficiently keep members informed and to get new scientists involved. Following this workshop leads/co-leads will improve initial drafts and initiate new synthesis activities/opportunities by engaging additional RCN members. These new opportunities were also new key aspects at our annual RCN meeting at AGU on December 2nd 2012. 

Click to see the program and the list of participants. A group photo can be found here.

The first annual meeting of the Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon Network took place December 4th 2011 in San Francisco, CA. We could welcome many new members and work together on synthesis activities. Please click on the links for more details on the program and for a list of participants.

Click here for some photos of the meeting:

This first Permafrost Carbon RCN meeting brought together scientists of the broader global change community interested in and working on the vulnerability of permafrost carbon. During the 3-day meeting we had five introductory talks from experts on permafrost carbon quantity, carbon quality, thermokarst, anaerobic and aerobic carbon emissions and model integration. One goal of the workshop was to structure smaller working groups that focus on particular research questions that will eventually determine the ultimate feedback from permafrsot carbon to climate change.

Seattle Workshop participants. Click photo to enlarge

Please click on links for more details on the program and a list of participants. More photos can be found here.