Permafrost is an important carbon storage on Earth. However, climate change and its effects are increasingly altering permafrost landscapes around the world, releasing greenhouse gases. To monitor the state of permafrost comprehensively, long-term and sustainably, the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) has been collecting high-quality measurement data in its data platform since the 1990s. Over the last few years, scientists from the Permafrost Section in Potsdam have reorganized the data platform and now made it public on the new GTN-P website. The data is continuously collected in cooperation with researchers worldwide and entered into the GTN-P database.
The Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) is the leading international program for the long-term monitoring of permafrost. Researchers from 26 countries, including many young talents, work closely together to maintain a data-driven network that provides an overview of the state of permafrost around the world. This makes it possible to assess changes over time and recognize global warming trends.
GTN-P has been managed by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) since 2011. “The network plays a central role in the global scientific community, in which it is deeply rooted,” says Dr Anna Irrgang, permafrost researcher at the AWI and head of the international GTN-P office. “Its data and work provide researchers from various disciplines, local partners and international organizations with reliable information on permafrost.” The network covers the Arctic, Antarctic and permafrost areas in high mountain regions, including the Third Pole in the Himalayan-Hindu Kush region. It comprises a total of 1,386 boreholes where permafrost temperatures are measured and 255 active layer sites where the annual thaw layer above the permafrost soil is measured. The data from these measuring points play a decisive role in global climate projections or reporting on global climate development. Among others, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the European Earth observation program Copernicus use the GTN-P data for their products.
The AWI now also hosts the GTN-P data platform. “We have been working intensively for three years to bring the platform to the AWI, to reorganize it and make it 'fit for the future',” says Anna Irrgang. The result is, among other things, a freely accessible website including a dataplatform, which is being launched today. “On the site, users can explore, filter, visualize and download permafrost data and also learn about the GTN-P's activities.”
Over the next few years, the permafrost researchers want to further develop the data platform: in close collaboration with indigenous and non-indigenous Arctic communities, GTN-P aims to provide additional local data and variables on thaw, creating new pathways for action-oriented knowledge. “In addition, we will continue standardizing GTN-P data products to make them more accessible to both scientific and non-scientific audiences,” says Prof. Guido Grosse, Head of Permafrost Research Section at AWI. In the long term, GTN-P data will also be available for global climate assessments, for example for the assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or for calculating the global carbon budget.
“GTN-P is the global hub for the exchange of knowledge and data on permafrost,” summarizes Anna Irrgang. “This way, we can contribute to improving the understanding of the polar ecosystem.”
From 2025 to 2030, the development of the GTN-P data platform will continue with the support of the AWI-led PeTCaT project, which is funded by the Schmidt Sciences Virtual Institute for Carbon Cycle. The project is investigating how carbon dioxide and methane from thawing permafrost regions could influence the climate.
Website of the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost
https://www.gtn-p.org/