M o u n t a i n P e r m a f r o s t M o n i t o r i n g
PERMOS has officially started in 2000 as a national monitoring network with financial support from federal government and is now embedded into the correspsonding national and international monitoring structure. With this structure it is the first national monitoring network for mountain permafrost. In recent years, increasing monitoring activities have been initiated in the Alps and other mountainous regions. They all share the general aim to document the current state, detect changes, and provide a sound basis to tackle the two main problems related to degradation (i.e., warming and thawing) of permafrost in high mountains: 1) stability of steep debris and rock slopes, and 2) water availability. Especially within the Alps, PERMOS shares experiences and quite closely collaborates with other monitoring institutes in order to define common strategies and standards. That way, the different monitoring components help to build up a mountain network with complementing and comparable observations. Below you find a (yet incomplete) list of institutions PERMOS collaborates with.
A first result of the collaboration with the Norwegian colleagues are combined graphs for borehole temperatures in different mountain regions. Eg. in Haeberli et al. 2010 , Journal of Glaciology, or the Report on the State of the Climate as part of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society for 2010 and 2011. Such graphs will be updated every year and complemented by newer sites and potentially other parameters.European Alps
- Germany
The Bavarian Environment Agency has drilled two boreholes across the crest of the Zugpitze summit in August 2007 to monitor rock temperatures. One of the boreholes completely pierces the crest. These measurements are complemented by near surface temperatures and electrical resistivities.
Website: Permafrostmessungen an der Zugpitze (in german)
Contact: Andreas v. Poschinger - France
The permaforst monitoring network in France (PermaFrance) has been initiated in 2008 in the scope of the EU AlpineSpace project PermaNET. The two key observation sites are the steep rocks at the Aiguille du Midi (3840 m asl) in the Mont Blanc Massif (EDYTEM, Université de Savoie) and the ice rich permafrost at les Deux Alpes (PACTE, Université Joseph Fourier).
Website: PermaFrance (description on the IPA website)
Contacts: Philip Deline, Philip Schöneich
- Italy - Valle d'Aosta
The ARPA Valle d'Aosta (Regional Agency for the Protection of the Environment) maintains a number of monitoring installations on the Aiguille du Midi in the Mont Blanc area and the Matterhorn to measure rock temperatures and meteo data. In 2011, they newly drilled two 10 m deep boreholes in the south face of the Matterhorn close to the Carrell hut (3835 m asl) and installed loggers on the north and south side just below the summit (ca. 4450 m asl).
Website: ARPA Valle d'Aosta
Contacts: Paolo Pogliotti, Edoardo Cremonese, Umberto Morra di Cella - Italy - Autonomous Province of Bolzano
The automous Province of Bolzano was the lead partner of the Alpine-wide AlpineSpace project PermaNET. In this scope a horizontal borehole of more than 100 m has been drilled at Grawand in the Schnalstal. In addtion, a number of monitoring activites on rock glacier creep and water availability are undertaken.
Websites: Autonomous Province of Bolzano, PermaNET
Contact: Volkmar Mair
Scandinavia
- Norway
In the scope of the EU project PACE (Permafrost and Climate in Europe) three 100 m boreholes have been drilled in mountainous areas in Scandinavia and additional sites were installed in the research project TSP Norway in the frame of IPY. Permafrost data from Norway and Svalbard is available online in the NORPERM database.
Websites: TSP Norway, NORPERM
Contact for mountain sites: Ketil Isaksen