About the Project
The stability of steep slopes and rock walls is a major point of concern in relation to a changing climate, and important for society, transport and more. It is well known that permafrost can be a major factor for the stability of steep slopes, covered either with debris or in rock walls. In Norway we find permafrost widespread all over the country. Many steep rock walls lie in the mountain permafrost zone, and in Jotunheimen monitoring of rock wall temperatures documents this fact.
In northern Norway, permafrost is attributed to be a major cause for the deformation pattern of a steep rock slope, which is a large threat if failure occurs. In the past decade, many thousand rock fall or slide events were recorded which affected the national road network and transport infrastructure, and many of those might originated from steep slopes underlain by permafrost.
Cryowall will evaluate the spatial distribution of steep permafrost rock walls in Norway, instrument selected sites of special interest both in southern and northern Norway, and help addressing risk areas by employing empirical and physical rockfall run out models from selected site. We will install rock wall temperature loggers, and use these data to model the thermal regime in rock walls depending on climate forcing and snow conditions. We will employ stability modelling of selected rock falls, along with laboratory testing of rock samples at the TU Munich, Germany.
Rock fall and rockslides have happened also earlier during the Holocene, and to understand future responses of permafrost in rock walls, it is important to address former conditions. We will therefore use advanced dating techniques to evaluate the development of slip planes in permafrost rock walls.
Objectives
In the project CryoWALL – Steep permafrost slopes in Norway we will:
- evaluate the stability of selected steep frozen slopes,
- address the spatial distribution of steep permafrost rock walls,
- investigate the thermal state of steep rock walls in the mainland of Norway by instrumenting selected sites with temperature loggers,
- model the thermal regime at different locations, taking account environmental and topographic gradients in northern and southern Norway,
- evaluate the potential risk to infrastructure from permafrost rock walls in Norway, both nation-wide and for selected sites of special interest for road infrastructure, settlements and mountain tourism,
- will link the past (Holocene) development of selected rock walls to the present and future thermal regime.
Background
CryoWALL gathering national and international scientists in an interdisciplinary project and addresses the gap of knowledge about permafrost in Norway.
Financing
This is a research project with financing from The Research Council of Norway through the KLIMAFORSK-programme. The NFR project number is 243784.
The project period for CryoWALL is from 2015 to 2020.
Cooperation
CryoWALL is a collaboration between the University of Oslo, the Norwegian Geological Survey in Trondheim, the Technical Universe in Munich / Germany, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.