Dear colleagues,
We would like to draw your attention to the session "Limnological processes in permafrost environments" at the upcoming 4th European Conference on Permafrost 2014, Evora (Portugal), 18-21 June 2014.
The deadline for abstract submission is approaching fast: 15th December 2013
Session "Limnological processes in permafrost environments"
Chairs: Dermot Antoniades (Laval University), Marc Oliva (University of Lisbon)
Key-note Speaker: Georg Schwamborn (AWI)
Many permafrost environments are undergoing rapid changes in response to changing climate conditions. Drainage is generally poor in permafrost environments, and often results in landscapes dominated by surface waters. These lakes and ponds have life spans ranging from weeks to millennia and constitute highly dynamic, rapidly evolving environments. They may be characterized by highly variable physical, biological and geochemical conditions even on small spatial scales. Although their importance is often underappreciated, processes in permafrost lakes and ponds may have effects that extend far beyond the cryosphere, such as the implications of their emissions of greenhouse gases on the global carbon cycle. Lakes and ponds, in turn, may affect landscape evolution in permafrost regions, through processes including changing albedo or the influence of landforms such as taliks.
The sedimentary records of permafrost lakes also represent important archives of past climate and environmental conditions. However, in permafrost environments the deposition of lacustrine sedimentary sequences may be affected by a wide range of processes: variations in the thickness of the active layer, vegetation cover, the presence of glaciers, type/seasonality of precipitation, runoff, aeolian transport, etc. Past environmental changes and their effects on lake dynamics, and hence on past permafrost evolution, may be reconstructed by a high-resolution multidisciplinary characterization of the bottom sediments using a large variety of techniques.
Understanding the role of permafrost and the active layer is of major importance for revealing the relationships between patterns of lake evolution and the forcings that trigger landscape change (i.e. climate).
The aim of the session "Limnological processes in permafrost environments" is to bring to light the state of progress in knowledge of limnological understanding in permafrost areas, with a focus on both present and past processes.
Dermot Antoniades, Marc Oliva
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Marc Oliva i Franganillo, PhD
Research Group on Antarctic Environments and Climate Change
Centro de Estudos Geográficos / IGOT, Universidade de Lisboa
Edifício FLUL, Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214 - Lisboa, Portugal
Research Group on Antarctic Environments and Climate Change
Centro de Estudos Geográficos / IGOT, Universidade de Lisboa
Edifício FLUL, Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214 - Lisboa, Portugal
Tel: +351 210442936 / Fax: +351 217938690
Research Group on Landscape Research and Mediterranean Mountain Palaeoenvironments
Facultat de Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona
c/ Montalegre, 6-8, 08001- Barcelona, Catalonia
Tel: +34 934037561 / Fax: +34 934034529
