Grant: Discovery Frontiers - Northern Earth System Research

What are the implications of rapid environmental change in Canada and the circumpolar North caused by thawing permafrost conditions? How will we cope? These are the central questions driving this proposed research program, at a time of unprecedented economic development across the Arctic. ADAPT brings together a team of 15 of Canada's leading Arctic researchers to define how changing permafrost and snowfall affect tundra landscapes, water and wildlife, and the implications for Northern communities and industries who depend on these resources. Our aims are to achieve a transformative new understanding of permafrost dynamics, and to produce an integrative Earth systems science framework that will help guide sustainable development and adaptation strategies, all in the increasingly urgent context of accelerated environmental change. ADAPT combines diverse expertise from within Canada and abroad, in engineering as well as the natural sciences, and will apply a broad suite of experimental, laboratory, field and modelling approaches. Our numerous research sites extend across northern Canada, from the Yukon to Labrador via the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, both sides of Hudson Bay, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut. ADAPT will thereby generate an unprecedented pan-Canadian view of permafrost dynamics, which will be integrated via our international collaborations into a broader circumpolar perspective. It will set the stage for future, accelerated research in this vitally important and exciting new area of ""Integrated Permafrost Systems Science"". This theoretical and applied approach will also allow us to develop a variety of coupled physical-biological models for Arctic landscapes that can be used as a framework for understanding what makes these systems so critical to the Earth System, and the implications of their rapid transition to uncharted, higher energy states. By way of many synergistic activities within this framework, ADAPT is also fully committed to achieving excellence in training researchers in permafrost systems science and engineering, and in meaningful knowledge exchange with northern stakeholders.