ALBERT

Description: The PYRN General Assembly is hold every two years as part of a regional or international permafrost conference. It is the bi-annual meeting of all young permafrost researchers registered in the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN), which is an initiative of the International Permafrost Association (IPA). The Executive Committee is an international mix of permafrost young researchers with different research backgrounds. They came together at the European Conference on Permafrost 2014 in Évora, Portugal, and have been organizing the network since then. During the assembly the current PYRN Executive Committee presents its main achievements and major milestones during the last two year of governing (2014-2016) and gives insights into the structure of PYRN and how it operates. Furthermore the new PYRN Executive Committee (2016-2018) is introduced, that starts governing the network from the end of the 11th International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP2016) until the 2018 Regional Conference on Permafrost in Chamonix, France.

Description: Presentation of Permafrost Comics at the Polarforum. Polarforum is a meeting place for all those engaged in research concerning, or in, the polar regions, the Swedish mountain region and other Northern regions. The aim is to create transdisciplinary interfaces between researchers, the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat and other actors through work groups and networking. Government officials and others are welcome as observers. Polarforum currently has just over 300 members from some 40 Swedish seats of learning.

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: Getting started in a research career is challenging for many young scientists. There are many new skills to learn, managing their own research projects and planning their laboratory budgets, teaching responsibilities and at the same time developing network skills, building up the collaborations and seeking for new research opportunities as well as finding employment. PYRN is a network bringing together young and enthusiastic permafrost scientist from all around the world and is an ideal platform to exchange ideas and knowledge. PYRN was created in 2005 as the result of the 2nd International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP II) and boosted its activities and visibility since the 4th International Polar Year (IPY 2007-2008). We work in close collaboration with APECS and our overarching organization, the International Permafrost Association (IPA), together raising awareness of the necessity for permafrost early career scientists to be included in future polar activities. PYRN seeks building interdisciplinary knowledge on how the Arctic and Antarctic permafrost regions play a key role in the Earth System and to give each participant an embracing view on the regions beyond disciplinary research questions. Now comprising over 1100 members from more than 20 countries, PYRN represents an international organization for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and early faculty members, and others with interest in the studying of permafrost. PYRN is guided by an Executive Committee but run through its members that organize themselves in an international Council, national communities, thematic groups and several groups of interest. During last years among PYRN main contributions were organizing the workshops during the regional and international permafrost conferences to maintain an active, dynamic and growing early career scientific network on permafrost. It was increasing its presence on large conferences like the European and American Geophysical Union (EGU, AGU) as a part of sessions and social network events. The value of knowledge accumulated by young researchers should not be underestimated. One of the goals of PYRN is to increase the communication between young and senior researchers, and to engage early career scientists in cross-disciplinary knowledge exchanges, policy and strategy discussions. As part of this strategy, PYRN led the Permafrost Young Researchers Workshop 2014 together with APECS, PAGE21 and ADAPT in conjunction with the 4th European Conference on Permafrost 2014 in Évora, Portugal. This workshop included approximately 100 early career permafrost scientists and engineers and aimed to give each participant an overarching view of permafrost related topics beyond disciplinary research questions. To achieve this, the participants shared their knowledge in thematic breakout sessions and elaborated on the future avenues of permafrost research. They were also inspired and guided by mentors who play a key role in permafrost research either in large scale international projects or science policy. Besides various activities along the way PYRN already gets prepared for its next major task: The PYRN workshop at the 11th International Conference on Permafrost 2016 in Potsdam, Germany.

Description: In June 2014, more than 75 Early Career Researchers (ECRs) attended the ECR Workshop 2014, a one-day event held prior to the 4th European Conference on Permafrost (EUCOP) in Évora, Portugal. One of the goals of this workshop was to elaborate future avenues of permafrost research from an ECR perspective during a forum with participants from various disciplines and countries. The outcome of this workshop is a “Permafrost Priority Sheet”, which will be presented to the International Permafrost Association (IPA) and will contribute to the establishment of research priorities leading up to into the 3rd International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP III) in 2015 in Toyama, Japan. This presentation will highlight some of the results that were obtained during the workshop, in a similar fashion as what will be presented at ICARP III. Additionally, it will focus on the organisation of the forum, the consultation process and the lessons learned from the overall experience. The results from this workshop took the form of research questions, from which five questions were elected by the participants as the most relevant at identifying gaps that need to be addressed in permafrost research. The broad range of topics include, engineering, remote sensing, traditional knowledge, massive ice, permafrost distribution, and more. Overall, these topics underscore the wide variety of specialties of the participants as well as the need for further research across a spectrum of permafrost-related topics. To date, this operation has been a success largely due to the extensive collaboration between the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN), and the ECR organisations of inter-disciplinary projects Changing Permafrost in the Arctic and its Global Effects in the 21st Century (PAGE-21) and Arctic Development and Adaptation to Permafrost in Transition (ADAPT). This workshop was an ECR initiative from the beginning to the end and is a great example of collaboration between National and International organizations. It also shows how ECR projects can be conveyed using existing networks and events in order to broadcast their opinions and increase their contribution to the future of Arctic science.

Description: Hydrological processes in permafrost regions are still hard to represent in models because of a lack of sufficient process understanding based on field observations in different permafrost settings. This work delivers an important contribution to the knowledge of hydrological processes, specifically the water balance of a thermokarst lake in ice -rich permafrost. The goal of this research is to quantify the water balance based on field measurements of hydraulic components as well as modeling. The study site is located on Kurungnakh, an island in the central part of the Lena river delta in northern Siberia underlain by continuous ice- rich permafrost. The investigated lake, Lucky Lake, covers an area of about 3 km² and has a volume of approximately 20 * 10^6 m³. Field measurements of the water balance components were conducted in a period from July 15th to August 26th. Precipitation was recorded by an automatic rain gauge, at a nearby site on Kurungnakh island. Open channel inflow from a neighboring thermokarst lake into Lucky Lake was identified. It was possible to estimate the amount of water input by using a measurement device based on electro magnetism (Flo-Mate). The outflow of Lucky Lake was determined every ten minutes by using the stage -discharge relationship of an installed weir and a radar sensor. The evaporation of the thermokarst lake was calculated using climate data from weather stations on Kurungnakh island and the neighboring island Samoylov. The lake water storage was measured using an automated water level sensor in 30 minutes intervals. Water levels in the shallow active layer were recorded at seven measurements sites within the catchment of Lucky Lake. Changes of the active layer, hydraulic conductivity in the thawed layer and the groundwater level on the permafrost table were measured at different locations during the mentioned period. This contribution shows the measured and estimated water balance components for the thermokarst lake. During the period of measurement the discharge decreased significantly, due to unusual small amount of precipitation in this summer. The evaporation measured during this time was as usual high compared to the rest of the year. These two main drivers for the water balance explain the development of water storage within the lake, as it also decreased. In consequence evaporation dominated the water balance of Lucky Lake during the measurement period by far

Description: Satellite‐derived surface soil moisture data are available for the Arctic, but detailed validation is still lacking. Previous studies have shown low correlations between in situ and modeled data. It is hypothesized that soil temperature variations after soil thaw impact MetOp ASCAT satellite‐derived surface soil moisture (SSM) measurements in wet tundra environments, as C band backscatter is sensitive to changes in dielectric properties. We compare in situ measurements of water content within the active layer at four sites across the Arctic in Alaska (Barrow, Sagwon, Toolik) and Siberia (Tiksi), taken in the spring after thawing and in autumn prior to freezing. In addition to the long‐term measurement fields, where sensors are installed deeper in the ground, we designed a monitoring setup for measuring moisture very close to the surface in the Lena River Delta, Siberia. The volumetric water content (VWC) and soil temperature sensors were placed in the moss organic layer in order to account for the limited penetration depth of the radar signal. ASCAT SSM variations are generally very small, in line with the low variability of in situ VWC. Short‐term changes after complete thawing of the upper organic layer, however, seem to be mostly influenced by soil temperature. Correlations between SSM and in situ VWC are generally very low, or even negative. Mean standard deviation matching results in a comparably high root‐mean‐square error (on average 11%) for predictions of VWC. Further investigations and measurement networks are needed to clarify factors causing temporal variation of C band backscatter in tundra regions.