Introduction

Data increasingly fuel the scientifically lifesustainingprocesses of description, analysis and modelling. It is atruism to say that without data there can be no coldregions science or engineering, but against this back-ground it is astonishing that the preservation and shar-ing of such a missioncritical resource comes so low onthe priorities of the average polar scientist or engineerthat they ignore it altogether. In terms of data, as in somany contexts, we are a wasteproducing society, andrepeatedly ignore (or worse, reject) opportunities topreserve, recycle and enhance the "energy" which dri-ves our work. There are many missed opportunities inthe annals of the far North and South, but none so greatas this. The global technical community has long recog-nised the inherent and lasting value of data, and scien-tists planning the International Geophysical Year1957/58 responded with the establishment of the WorldData Center network including WDCA, B and C forGlaciology, but the polar community, and permafrostscientists and engineers in particular, have respondedrather more slowly. Other structural changes are reflec-ted in the attention now given by U.S. and Europeanfunding agencies to the delivery of data sets by fundedprojects as a condition of the funding support.

Since the Fifth International Conference in 1988 inTrondheim, some significant progress has been made,

but the initiative is vulnerable and complacency wouldbe ill-placed. While the Global Geocryological Database(GGD) project of the International PermafrostAssociation (IPA) now begins to show the way, it is theculmination of a decade of effort and will require signi-ficant continuing investment if the impetus is to bemaintained. The underlying question is whether or notsuch commitment provides a meaningful return on thisinvestment. The answer to this question lies partly in anunderstanding of the evolution of IPA data strategy,and partly in a creative recasting of that strategy tomeet key needs of the profession in the future.

Background to the IPA Data Strategy

The groundwork of the IPA strategy for data andinformation management was laid during the 1988 IPAConference in Trondheim, Norway. An informal work-shop on requirements for permafrost data was held,with over 100 attendees, and a related paper was pre-sented at the conference (Barry, 1988). The interestexpressed by the workshop attendees led to the estab-lishment of the IPA Data and Information WorkingGroup (DIWG) and to the holding of a formal work-shop at the Beijing IPA Conference in 1993. The DIWGhas subsequently organised workshops inSouthampton and Oslo (1994), Potsdam (1995) andBoulder (1996), which have resulted in progressivesteps being made in the prioritisation and assessment of

Abstract

In the decade since 1988, the International Permafrost Association Working Group on Data and Informationhas overseen a remarkable transformation of permafrost data strategy, and a substantial acquisition of per-mafrost data, metadata and information. The international commitment to the principles of data preservationand rescue is now strong in the scientific community, but funding remains problematic and individual transferof data is often slow. The technical problems of data model and structure, data management and data dissemi-nation are now well on the way to solution, but the ÒpoliticalÓ hurdles of data commodification and personalreluctance to share data remain significant. The value-adding capabilities of temporal and spatial comparison,identification of the drivers of variation, hypothesis testing and support for global typology definition offerpowerful incentives to continue the data preservation and access objectives of the IPA Global GeocryologicalDatabase (GGD).

M.J. Clark, R.G. Barry 181

PERMAFROST DATA AND INFORMATION: ADVANCES SINCE THE FIFTHINTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PERMAFROST

M.J. Clark1, R.G. Barry2

1. GeoData Institute, University of Southampton, Southampton S017 lBJ, UK. e-mail: mjc@soton.ac.uk

2. World Data CenterA for Glaciology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 803900449 USA. e-mail: rbarry@kryos.colorado.edu

permafrost data requirements (Table 1), the identifica-tion of critical data sets for scientific and engineeringpurposes including global change, monitoring, model-ling, impact assessments (Table 2) , and efforts toacquire the necessary resources to assemble some ofthese data.

The next crucial item was the provision of a fundingbase to support the work since there is no agency withresponsibility for data on frozen ground conditions, atleast in the United States, and Canada has effectivelyabandoned this area within Environment Canada as aresult of agency retrenchment (Barry, 1995). Supportfrom the IPA for the Working Group planning meetingswas bolstered by a NSF grant for developing a pilotGlobal Geocryological Database (GGD). This supportedthe digitisation and assembly of selected data and infor-mation from Russia and the inventory and organisationof other priority data sets identified by the WorkingGroup. Subsequently, a CD-ROM version of parts of theGGD has been published in conjunction with the IPAYellowknife Conference (Table 3).

Data futures for the IPA

BACKGROUND TO THE CURRENT DEBATE

The period 1988-1998 has built for the IPA both a datastrategy and an embryo data archive. In so doing it haslaid a foundation for honouring that most basic of scientific traditions respect for data as the validation ofpresent work and the illumination of future trends. Butsuch ideals are not selffulfilling: they require carefulnurturing if they are to achieve their potential. Figure 1shows the primary underlying functions of the GGD asbeing:

- Process understanding (basic science) - Change detection- Model validation (for science and engineering)- Engineering design- Impact evaluation (and management response)

These objectives range from pure research to manage-ment application, and from the site scale to globalprocesses. In so doing, they provide a set of worthyaims, but beg the question as to how these targetsmight be met. To this end, a number of possibilitieshave been considered including:

- Comparison in time and space: In practice, mostengineering and science investigations have been at thesite scale across just a very few field seasons. A funda-mental purpose of the GGD is to offer supplementarydata (and metadata) through which to assess and incor-porate spatial and temporal trends.

- To identify the drivers of variation: Clearly, animmediately beneficial spinoff from the ability to use

aggregate data sets to isolate trends is that it becomesfeasible to consider identifying the factors or processeswhich drive and constrain these trends. This is a power-ful added facility in its own right, but is rendered dou-bly effective if (as seems likely) some of the systems arescale-dependent. Under such circumstances, sitescaleanalyses may provide a poor indication of the function-ing of regional and global systems, and the use of dataaggregation offers completely new investigative possi-bilities.

- Hypothesis testing: Since many potentially fruitfulhypotheses are generated only through the analyseswhich follow the end of data collection in a study,immediate hypothesis testing and refinement are oftenrendered speculative. It is common practice to providefirst order validation or refutation through reference tothe published findings of other authors, but this is apoor substitute for reworking primary data to assessthe robustness of the hypothesis. Carefully documenteddata sets made available (through GGD) for this pur-pose can bring new rigour to cold regions science,where project extensions and followup visits may beprohibitively expensive.

- Global typology: The outcome is a set of more care-fully validated descriptive and explanatory statementswhich can be used to build a prototype global typologyof attributes or processes. Such a perspective is notcommon in cold regions science at the present, andwhere genuinely global typologies do exist they areoften deductively generated from speculativeoverviews (perhaps driven by coarse resolutionremotelysensed data) rather than inductively drivenfrom fieldscale studies. There is a very real role for bothapproaches, but the muchneeded fusion cannot takeplace without data set aggregation.

PROBLEMS AND RESISTANCE

It is apparent that even rudimentary success in build-ing structures for global cooperation in data assemblyand management is highly challenging. The technicalhurdles are significant, but the political and economicbarriers are still higher. Economics provides a usefulmetric for the process in offering the notion of Benefit-Cost Analysis.

This reminds the cold regions science and technologycommunity that while it is readily possible to articulatea series of claimed benefits for the GGD, it is equallyimportant to acknowledge the breadth and scale of thetangible and intangible costs. The analogy of aBenefitCost Analysis is also useful in focusing attentionon the payback period. Many of the "costs" have to becarried during the years (or even decades) of the setupperiod, while the "benefits" may be reaped much later.The stark conclusion is that those who carry the costsmay not individually be those who attract the greatest

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benefits. Manifestly, it is a measure of the maturity of aprofessional community that it should confront theseissues, and respond to them. Commitment to the GGDis a symbol of the IPA's commitment to its ongoing pro-fessional role, and to the continuing intellectual andpractical importance of permafrost, especially its contri-bution to global change issues. Anything less would bean individual and corporate abrogation of duty.

TECHNICAL HURDLES

Nevertheless, when the problems of building alongterm global data strategy for permafrost are ho-

nestly confronted, it is clear why many individualschose to turn aside. The first 10 years of the IPAWorking Group on Data and Information have esta-blished the scale of the technical challenge. In the firstplace, it has been necessary to converge on an agreeddata model (the consensus represented by Figure 1) anddata structure (a working version of which is incorpo-rated in the interim data protocols now in use forreporting and managing data sites within IPA) (seeBarry et al., 1995, Appendix 2 and Appendix 4)).

M.J. Clark, R.G. Barry 183

Table 1. Evolution of the IPA Data Strategies

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Table 2. Priority assessment of key permafrost variables (Original Version from Frozen Ground, 18, 1995)

H M L = High, Moderate and Low Priority1The demarcation between shallow and deep is taken as the local depth of zero annual amplitude.Site descriptions include location, geology, geotechnical properties, vegetation etc. Metadata include techniques, equipment, pre-cision, post-processing, data ownership etc.

Data quality is an even greater challenge. Internalconsistency checks are much improved as data aredrawn into the GGD, in practice through the profes-sional services of World Data CenterA, Boulder,Colorado. But data collection quality remains thedomain of the individual scientist or engineer. At firstsight, this appears reasonable, but on reflection the datacollection norms established by other professionalgroups that are as yet only just beginning to emergewithin the permafrost community offer genuine attrac-tions. For example, it is difficult to imagine regional orglobal climatic description and modelling being achiev-able without the comprehensive data collection stan-dards assembled and promulgated through the WorldMeteorological Organisation and World ClimateResearch Programme's Global Climate ObservingSystem (GCOS) (WMO, 1997). This is not an impositionon the freedom of expression of the individualresearcher, but a means of linking those individuals intoan effective professional community. The CALM net-work of permafrost monitoring sites supported by IPAis, perhaps, a vital first step in this direction, and movesare underway to identify this network as a componentof the GCOS.

Data model, data structure and data quality all havethe strong incentive that they serve the individual scientist or engineer as well as supporting the corporateactivity of data aggregation. This is clearly not the casewhen one turns to the problems inherent in storing anddisseminating data and information. Here, both thechallenge and the solution have to be communal and a

degree of compromise is essential. The established pro-cedures and protocols of organisations such as theWorld Data Centers offer both a default standard and apractical infrastructure for achieving the desired func-tions. They are less obviously effective on their own asa mechanism for disseminating awareness, and it is notsurprising that the IPA has sought to supplement thisnetworking. In the first instance, its own World WideWeb site (http://www.geodata.soton.ac.uk/ipa) offersa potential gateway to the contents of the GGD for per-mafrost practitioners. For those many professionals inrelated disciplines and organisations for whom IPAwould not be a selfevident source of information, gate-ways such as links through the UNEPGRIDInternational Arctic Environmental Data Directory(ADD) may be more effective. It is fortunate that rapiddevelopment of Internet hypermedia linkages (see "coldlinks" on http://wwwnsidc.colorado.edu) makes itlikely that the problems of identifying and acquiringsuitable data from wellmanaged repositories will bereduced in the future. The overriding problem then willbe the political one of getting data into the repositoriesin the first place.

POLITICAL HURDLES

Politics embodies the assumptions, values and infra-structures through which societies seek to organisethemselves. On this basis, the GGD is an act of massivepolitical significance. It is the manifestation of a set ofobjectives of increasing overt political significance asthe permafrost community moved from Trondheim(1988), through Oslo (1994) and Potsdam (1995) to

M.J. Clark, R.G. Barry 185

Table 3 Current contents of GGD and CAPS (Circum-Arctic Permafrost System) CD-ROM

Berlin (1995). Along the way, its development has fos-tered substantial collaboration between permafrost dataspecialists in the USA, Russia, U.K. and China, forexample, with National Geocryological Databases inMoscow, and at WDCA for Glaciology, Boulder, WDCDfor Glaciology, Lanzhou and at the GeoData Institute,University of Southampton, U.K. A decision by the IPAExecutive at Yellowknife (1998) to reorder the manage-ment of its datal and information role would constitute

political recognition and a further advance in thisprocess.

Most basic amongst the Òpolitical/professionalÓdebates is the ongoing consideration of the rights andobligations of the individual against those of the profes-sional community. Such issues lie at the heart of thefuture of GGD in particular, and of IPA data strategy ingeneral. While every effort is made to ensure proper

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GLOBAL GEOCRYOLOGICAL DATABASE

User RequirementsRESEARCH OPERATIONAL

PROCESS UNDERSTANDINGHigh Resolution

Large and Small Scale

ENGINEERING DESIGNHigh ResolutionLarge Scale

GCM MODEL VALIDATIONLow ResolutionSmall Scale

DETECTION OF CHANGEVarying ResolutionVarying Scale

IMPACT ASSESSMENTHigh ResolutionLarge Scale

SYSTEM PREDICTIONMultiple Scenarios

DATA APPLICATIONSONE DATABASE - MANY USES

ENVIRONMENTALPROTECTION

Figure 1. Possible application focuses for different GGD user sectors.

accreditation to the author of a data set every time it isdisseminated and subsequently reworked or repub-lished, the act of depositing data centrally is neverthe-less a personal sacrifice by the individual. The GGD isincreasingly working to reduce this cost by assisting inthe investment needed to prepare data for GGD, and toincrease the benefit through accreditation and throughreturning to the individual the valueadding capabilityof access to related data.

Separate but equally difficult issues are those of datacommodification and pending new intellectual proper-ty laws (Webster, 1997). Whether the tangible cost ofdata acquisition is carried by the individual, industry(commerciallydriven contracts) or society (researchgrants), the ensuing data do have value which rendersthem a commodity to be traded. Increasingly, this pro-duces a conflict of interest. Understandable resourcingpressures ensure that the present commodity value ofdata sets may make it unattractive to consider giftingthe same data to the GGD so as to reap the muchgreater longterm and communitywide benefits.Ultimately, the only immediate response is to use GGDas an awareness gateway which carries metadatathrough which to direct the ÒcustomerÓ to the data sup-plier. Much more robustly, GGD can serve as a long-term archive for the data, while dissemination rightsrest with the data originator.

The very real progress made in acquiring data sets forGGD (Table 3) suggests that in at least some circum-stances, the perceived professional Benefit-Cost ratio isnow seen as being positive. This brings one step closerthe ideal of creating a data democracy in which accessto information drives an enhanced and accelerateddevelopment of cold regions science and engineeringbased on permafrost understanding. At the same time,it recognises the needs and rights of the individual datadonor and attempts to meet them. There is a long wayto go in turning these first encouraging signs into a newprofessional expectation for datasharing, but the foun-dation has been laid for a future data strategy for per-mafrost.

FUTURE SCENARIOS

Who could have predicted the rise of the Internet andthe World Wide Web at the inaugurating meeting of theIPA Data Working Group at Trondheim in 1988?Technoforecasting is notoriously unreliable, and theevaluation of professions is equally complex and unpre-dictable. Nevertheless, three trends appear sufficientlywellestablished to form part of the future scenario forIPA data strategy:

- Widearea longterm monitoring holds the key to thecreation of standardised data now desperately requiredto build and validate spatial and temporal models and

assist in efforts such as those of the IPCC and IGBP instudying cold region responses to global change.CALM is an excellent example, and may become a keypermafrost contribution to programmes such as GTOSand GCOS.

- Communally organised exercises in data aggregationdemonstrate the valueadding potential of the GGD andrelated strategies. An early and perhaps trendsettingexample is the IPA Circumpolar Permafrost Map of theNorthern Hemisphere (Brown et al.,1997). Despite allthe inherent problems of merging nonstandardised datamodels and data structures, this map represents a majorinternational success in establishing a baseline statusreport on globalscale permafrost. Future aggregationinitiatives might focus on mapping individual per-mafrost indicators or synthetic indices, or might bedirected towards making a wider and more robust con-tribution to models and to status reports such as that ofthe IPCC.

- Ultimately the key to IPA data strategy lies at a sim-pler but perhaps more far reaching level. It lies in turn-ing data into information. "Information" implies anactive process: that of informing. This in turn meansthat there is an identified user community with ques-tions to be answered and operations or decisions to beunderpinned. These potential users include resourcemanagers, the educational community, northern peo-ples, and interested general public. The IPA has to findthese people and highlight their needs. It means thatwhat we transmit to these users has to be truly "infor-mative". Key indicators (often individual variables suchas active layer depth) and indices (often synthetic vari-ables such as frost susceptibility) need to be specifiedand created. It means that we have to be proactive inbuilding and publicising infrastructures for informationand data dissemination. Problems of technology, rights,and commodity values will need to be overcome. If thewill is there, they can be overcome.

Perspectives

All of this is a long way from the technology and sci-encedriven thrust of the original 1988 Permafrost DataWorkshop in Trondheim. The data strategy has evolvedfrom a science focus to a user focus. Its priorities haveevolved from being introvert (identifying and exploit-ing the needs and capabilities of the IPA membership)to being extrovert (seeking a formal and ongoing contri-bution to IUGS, IPCC ADD and WCRPGCOS/GTOS).Partly through its data and information activities, IPAhas established a professional role and infrastructure,and has put permafrost back into the centre of the col-dregions debate.

M.J. Clark, R.G. Barry 187

Acknowledgments

The following collaborators have been activelyinvolved in the development of many of the aboveactivities: J. Branson, J. Brown, D. Gilinchinsky, R. vanEverdingen, C. Hanson, W. Haeberli, J.A. Heginbottom,M. Leibman, F.E. Nelson, N.N. Romanovskii, and A.Taylor, and their contributions are gratefully acknowl-edged.

Support of the GGID has been variously provided bythe International Permafrost Association, U.S. NaturalResources Conservation Service, the National ScienceFoundation through NSFATM 9528007 andOPP9614557, as well as Russian agencies for theMoscow node, and the GeoData Institute, University ofSouthampton, UK.

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