Permafrost Observatory Project: A Contribution to the Thermal State of Permafrost in Norway and Svalbard, TSP NORWAY

The Norwegian funded IPY project 'Permafrost Observatory Project: A Contribution to the Thermal State of Permafrost in Norway and Svalbard', (TSP NORWAY) is part of the TSP cluster. The main goal of TSP NORWAY is to measure and model the permafrost distribution in Norway and Svalbard, focussing on its thermal state, thickness and associated periglacial processes, including increased knowledge of the mountain permafrost distribution related to geohazard studies on rockslides. TSP NORWAY will contribute to IPY by providing a spatially distributed set of observations on the present status of permafrost temperatures and active layer thicknesses, and periglacial processes in Svalbard and Norway. Special focus is given to empirical and numerical modelling of permafrost distribution and thermal ground heat fluxes to address future climate variability on permafrost distribution and associated geomorphic activity. Permafrost distribution in the North Atlantic area is strongly climatically controlled, mainly by the North Atlantic Drift, providing much less permafrost than in any other high latitude terrestrial region on the Northern Hemisphere. Hopefully a first Nordic permafrost map will be based on Nordic permafrost collaboration during IPY. The TSP NORWAY project has established two permafrost observatories with intensive permafrost and periglacial monitoring sites in maritime and continental areas. One in Troms, northern Norway, which will be part of the north Scandinavian Permafrost Observatory extending into northernmost Sweden and Finland, and the Svalbard Nordenskiöld Land Permafrost Observatory also with both maritime and continental sites. The first Norwegian permafrost database, NORPERM, with all permafrost data from Norway and Svalbard, collected before and during IPY, has been established at the Norwegian Geological Survey. NORPERM shall contribute data as requested in the IPY data protocol and the TSP cluster to the international Global Terrestrial Network on Permafrost (GTN-P). During the first half year of the IPY we have carried out significant installations in both permafrost observatories. Four new 30 m boreholes located in the mountains of the Troms area have been drilled and instrumented. A borehole logging campaign of 5 existing boreholes have been carried out. Also remote sensing of large areas in the Troms observatory has been done, locating significant periglacial slope activity, which has been field verified. To study when permafrost has been present at lower latitudes in the Troms observatory, some sample for cosmogenic isotope dating has been collected from fossil rock glaciers. In Svalbard we have established a new solifluction monitoring station, a network of fix points for surveying rock glacier and solifluction movement in the Kapp Linne area and performed geophysical measurements do determine new borehole localities. Several new boreholes are planned in Svalbard to be drilled during the 2007-2008 winter, one in thin permafrost close to sea level in Kapp Linne.