Session Announcement and Call for Abstracts
Modeling the Spatial Dynamics of Permafrost and
Seasonally Frozen Ground at Diverse Scales
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting
14-18 December 2009
San Francisco, California
Abstract Submission Deadline: Thursday, 3 September 2009
For further information, please contact:
Stephan Gruber
Email: stephan.gruber [at] geo.uzh.ch
Nikolay Shiklomanov
Email: shiklom [at] UDel.Edu
Organizers of Session C20, "Modeling the Spatial Dynamics of Permafrost
and Seasonally Frozen Ground at Diverse Scales," announce a call for
abstracts. The session will be convened at the American Geophysical
Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, 14-18 December 2009, in San Francisco,
California.
Permafrost regions constitute about a quarter of the northern hemisphere
land area, and about two thirds of Earth's terrestrial surface are
subject to seasonal ground freezing. Profound and often rapid changes in
frozen ground conditions can be observed and are expected to increase in
the context of future climate change. The effects that frozen ground and
its changes have on human and natural systems span a wide range from
local engineering problems to important feedback mechanisms affecting
global climate. As a consequence, the quantitative understanding and
anticipation of changes in frozen ground conditions are of great
scientific interest and societal relevance. In this context, computer
models are becoming increasingly important but the reliability and value
of results is often unknown or even unquestioned. This brings about many
new research questions and technical challenges. With this session and
the associated activities, we aim to bring together and exchange
expertise with respect to these questions:
- How do we connect measurements and models at and across diverse
scales?
- How do we interface with differing fields of science, their
models, and theoretical frameworks?
- How can we quantify and communicate error and uncertainty?
- What is the importance of sub-grid variability? How do we consider
this in models and communicate corresponding results?
- How can we balance model complexity and the ability to cover
diverse conditions in space and time? (parameterization vs. process
model)
- How and how much do we calibrate models? (local goodness-of-fit
vs. reliable simulation of large areas)
- How do we initialize and spin-up models and what are the
associated uncertainties?
- Are present measurement and monitoring efforts sufficient for the
support of modeling?
- Are established mapping legends and terminology still suitable?
How are model uncertainty and spatial abundance represented (e.g.,
temperature and permafrost presence/absence)? How are inactive,
degrading permafrost bodies represented?
Session organizers look forward to a high-quality session with
contributions that present major advances in one or several of these
topics, provide in-depth reviews and guidance for important future
research, or show modeling case studies related to the questions above.
This session and a twinned session at the EGU General Assembly in April
2010 in Vienna, Austria are initiated as part of a working group of the
International Permafrost Association (IPA). During both conferences--AGU
2009 in San Francisco and EGU 2010 in Vienna--organizers aim to provide
an occasion for in-depth discussion between interested parties in a
separate splinter meeting. A special issue of The Cryosphere
(www.the-cryosphere.net) will be announced shortly before AGU 2009 and
will serve as a vehicle for combining and integrating contributions from
both sessions.
Session organizers cordially invite you to participate and look forward
to seeing you and your presentations in San Francisco.
The abstract submission deadline for this and all other sessions is
Thursday, 3 September 2009, at 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Time. To submit
an abstract, you must enter the first author's current AGU member ID and
password at: http://agu-fm09.abstractcentral.com/.
For further information, please contact:
Stephan Gruber
Email: stephan.gruber [at] geo.uzh.ch
Nikolay Shiklomanov
Email: shiklom [at] UDel.Edu
Sergei Marchenko
Email: ffssm1 [at] uaf.edu
Tingjun Zhang
Email: tzhang [at] nsidc.org