Multi-Language Glossary Available Online
Permafrost and Related Ground Ice Terms
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
The glossary is available at:
http://nsidc.org/fgdc/glossary
During the 5th International Permafrost Conference, held in Trondheim
(Norway) in August 1988, the Council of the International Permafrost
Association (IPA) authorized the establishment of a Terminology Working
Group with the mandate "to develop a set of internationally accepted
permafrost terms for use in engineering and science, with equivalents in
various languages, and to disseminate and encourage the use of such
terminology." The Terminology Working Group included members from
Argentina, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway,
Sweden, the USA, and the (former) USSR, and they published a hard copy
version of the Glossary in 1998. The glossary, edited by Robert O. van
Everdingen, included detailed illustrations and terms in Chinese,
English, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish,
Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.
Electronic versions of the English version of the 1998 Glossary without
illustrations was published on the Circumpolar Active-layer Permafrost
System (CAPS) CD-ROMs (versions 1.0 and 2.0), but until now the
illustrations and multi-language terms were only available in the
limited paper publication. Now, thanks to the continued work of Dr. van
Everdingen, the full, illustrated, multi-language version of the
glossary is available at:
http://nsidc.org/fgdc/glossary
The references and English definitions are available in HTML and PDF
formats. The introduction, illustrations, and multi-language terms are
available in PDF format.
Please contact NSIDC User Services with any questions:
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0449
USA
Phone: 303-492-6199
Fax: 303-492-2468
E-mail: nsidc [at] nsidc.org
URL: http://nsidc.org