Date

Conference Announcement
9th International Conference on Permafrost
29 June - 3 July 2008
Fairbanks, Alaska

For further information, please go to:
http://www.nicop.org/

The Ninth International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP) will be held in
Fairbanks, Alaska, from 29 June through 3 July 2008, and will be hosted
by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). International Permafrost
Conferences are held every five years under the auspices of the
International Permafrost Association (IPA). The IPA was officially
organized in 1983 during the Fourth International Conference on
Permafrost. NICOP will celebrate the 25th anniversary of IPA and the
125th anniversary of the International Polar Year with special IPA
emphasis on the thermal state of permafrost throughout the polar regions.

Conference themes have been solicited from leading permafrost scientists
and engineers across the globe. These include:

  • contemporary climate change and paleoclimatic reconstruction in
    permafrost regions;
  • remote sensing and geophysics in permafrost science;
  • community development and planning in permafrost regions;
  • permafrost and the global carbon balance, including greenhouse gases
    and gas hydrates;
  • impacts of permafrost degradation on terrestrial and aquatic
    ecosystems;
  • permafrost controls on hydrologic and surface heat flux processes;
  • sea level changes and dynamics of coastal permafrost;
  • cold-regions infrastructure and engineering techniques;
  • results from the IPY: toward a systems understanding of permafrost
    changes;
  • natural and technological hazards in mountainous and high-latitude
    permafrost regions;
  • periglacial geomorphology, permafrost mapping, and cryostratigraphy;
    and
  • history of permafrost research.

The conference chair will be Professor Douglas L. Kane, assisted by
Professor Larry Hinzman and a local and national committee.

Extended pre- and post-conference field excursions include (a) the
Dalton Highway and Trans Alaskan Pipeline route to Prudhoe Bay, (b) the
Arctic Coastal Plain and the community of Barrow, and (c) Northwest
Canada. Local tours during the conference include permafrost and
periglacial geomorphological landscapes; fire ecology; hydrology; soils;
and engineering practices including visits to the oil pipeline and the
permafrost tunnel.

Also, please note that two other major international conferences will
take place in summer 2008 - the International Geological Congress and
the Congress of the International Geographical Union. Participants in
these congresses are invited to Fairbanks in June to commemorate these
three international conferences and the IPY.

Initial Conference Sponsors
University of Alaska Fairbanks (http://www.uaf.edu/)
International Permafrost Association (http://www.geo.uio.no/IPA/)
U.S. Permafrost Association (http://www.uspermafrost.org/)

For further information, please go to:
http://www.nicop.org/

or contact:
Douglas Kane
Water and Environmental Research Center
Institute of Northern Engineering
University of Alaska Fairbanks
P.O. Box 755860
Fairbanks, AK 99775-5860

Phone: 907-474-7808
E-mail: contact [at] nicop.org