News

2017

25. January: Sofia (Sonya) Antonova successfully defended her PhD thesis "Exploring the potential of high temporal resolution X-band SAR time series for various permafrost applications with ground truth observations in the Lena River Delta, Siberia" at the University of Heidelberg.

2016

December: Dr. Moritz Langer receives 5-year BMBF grant for his research group PermaRisk to simulate erosion processes in permafrost landscapes under warming climate

22. November: Dr. Sina Muster publishes a circum-arctic Permafrost Region Pond and Lake Database (PeRL) in ESSD discussion

4. November: Sofia (Sonya) Antonova submitted herPhD thesis "Exploring the potential of high temporal resolution X-band SAR time series for various permafrost applications with ground truth observations in the Lena River Delta, Siberia".

Her publications are:

3. November: Monitoring Bedfast Ice and Ice Phenology in Lakes of the Lena River Delta Using TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Coherence Time Series.
Authors: Antonova, S., Duguay, C. R., Kääb, A., Heim, B., Langer, M., Westermann, S., and Boike, J.
Published in Remote Sensing, 2016, 8(11), 903, doi: 10.3390/rs8110903

31. May: Spatio-temporal variability of X-band radar backscatter and coherence over the Lena River Delta, Siberia.
Authors: Antonova, S., Kääb, A., Heim, B., Langer, M., and Boike, J.
Published in Remote Sensing of Environment, 2016, 182, 169-191, doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2016.05.003

14. September: Julia Boike publishes a paper, showing the impact of climate warming on snow processes in Ny-Ålesund.

13. September: Julia Boike reports from an expedition to Trail Valley Creek in the North-Western Territories, Canada.

December 2015 - May 2016: Sofia (Sonya) Antonova receives a DAAD scholarship for a research stay at the University of Waterloo, Canada

2015

2014

  • Fall: Sascha Niemann finished his Masterthesis about 'lake water balance of a thermokarst lake on Kurungnakh Island, Lena Delta, northern Siberia'.
  • 27. July: We started our summer expedition to Samoylov in Siberia! Follow our activities!
  • 21. May: Sina Muster won the award for the best 'FrostByte' at EUCOP 4.     Watch her 'FrostByte' here!
  • 17. - 21. May: EUCOP 4 in Évora, Portugal with many contributions from our group
  • 10. April: Involvement in the long night of sciences (lange Nacht der Wissenschaft) with experiments and an exhibition about snow.
  • 08. April: First news from Steffen Frey from Bayelva - get an impression here!
  • April: The winter expeditions to Bayelva (Svalbard) and Samoylov starts!
  • 30. January - 2. March 2014 Exhibition "Arktische Spirale" by Sina Muster and Geertje Jacob at Umweltbundesamt (UBA) in Dessau

2013

2012

  • 13. April 2012: Opening of In-walk exposition "Arktische Spirale" at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Schumannstr. 8, Berlin. For further information look here
  • 19. March 2012: Sebastian Westermann wins the "Umweltpreis" of the "Viktor und Sigrid Dulger-Stiftung" of the University of Heidelberg for his PhD thesis „Sensitivity of permafrost“
  • 1. February 2012: Successful habilitation of Julia Boike at the University of Heidelberg

2011

  • 5. - 9. December 2011: AGU Fall Meeting, Julia Boike is attending with a poster "Sensitivity of Permafrost in the Arctic - a multiscale perspective" presenting the results of the SPARC group. Moritz Langer is giving a talk about "The freeze-up of high Arctic ponds and potential impacts on the carbon balance" in session Lakes and Reservoirs in cold Region Hydrology II (CS1B).
  • 7. November 2011: Today researchers from eleven countries will meet in Potsdam to launch a new, four-year EU project. What happens when the vast amounts of carbon in Arctic soils are released to the atmosphere? This is the central question field-researchers, operators of long term observatories and modellers from 18 partner institutions in the EU intend to answer with the PAGE21 project. For further information look here
  • 14. October 2011: Open position for an engineer in the EU project “Changing Permafrost in the Arctic and its Global Effects in the 21st Century (PAGE21). Job discription here
  • September 2011: Get an all around impression of our field sites on Polar Bear Pass, Svalbard and in the Lena Delta and have a look at the panorama pictures. 
  • September 2011: Everybody is back from expedition and the period of data evaluation begins.
  • July/August 2011: Karoline Wischnewski and Katrin Fröb on expedition to Samoylov/Siberia. Read here the expedition reports (in German).
  • 3. June 2011: Moritz Langer gives a lecture on sparc's research to students of meteorology.
  • 28. May 2011: The sparc group participates in the long night of science ("Lange Nacht der Wissenschaft") and shows visitors how a infrared camera works by using a huge block of ice. See the pictures.
  • April 2011: Moritz Langer on expedition to Samoylov/Siberia taking ice samples from thermokarst lakes. Read here the expedition reports (in German).
  • January 2011: Anna Abnizova writes 'Oasen in der Kältewüste' an article about her work in the Canadian Arctic that is published in the DAAD letter.

2010

(Kopie 6)

July 2010: 'Wenn der Permafrost taut' an article about permafrost written by Julia Boike and Lars Kutzbach is published in Welt der Physik.

2009

  • October 2009: Julia Boike presents the work of SPARC in an Helmholtz Podcast.
  • October 2009: Some results of 11 years SPARC permafrost research on Svalbard published under: http://www.svalbardscienceforum.no
  • February 2009: Sebastian Westermann won the PYRN-USPA best presentation award at the American Geophysical Union General Fall Meeting in San Fancisco in December 2008.
    Monitoring of Surface Temperatures with Thermal Camera Systems at a High-Arctic Permafrost Site on Svalbard, Norway
  • January 2009: Sina Muster was selected as a recipient for the Alexander Goetz Instrument Support Program for the 2009 Calendar Year with her project proposal "Multi-scale eco-hydrological classification of a High Arctic wetland". The project investigates relationships between above-ground phenomena (e.g. vegetation, ground-type) and sub-surface parameters such as moisture content and thaw depth which is critical for accurate estimates of evapotranspiration. Spectral measurements with an ASD FieldSpec®HandHeld (325-1075 nm) will provide ground truth for the spatial classification of surface parameters via satellite data.
  • Julia Boike presented her plenary paper (titled 'Heat and Water Transfer Processes in Permafrost-Affected Soils: A Review of Field and Modeling-Based Studies for the Arctic and Antarctic') at the NICOP conference. Click here to watch it.
  • Paul Overduin and Sebastian Westermann participated in the last Tunnel Man episode 2 on their summer expedition in Alaska. Click here to watch it.