Climate change significantly affects high mountain regions by strongly altering the cryosphere. It influences landscapes, water resources, slope stability, ecosystem balances, and human/touristic activities, all closely interconnected and interdependent. Permafrost degradation remains often hidden but has the potential (1) to destabilize mountain slopes, leading to large-scale landslides or rock-ice avalanches, (2) to mobilize large amounts of loose materials, generating sudden and destructive debris flows, and (3) to cause ground subsidence, with adverse effects on infrastructure. These and other mixed cascading effects illustrate the sensitivity of mountain permafrost systems and the importance of closely monitoring and understanding them.
This session welcomes all contributions from mountain permafrost research in all periglacial environments: from high Arctic climates through any continental regions (e.g. Alpine, Andean, Tibetan) to arid unglaciated areas of Antarctica. We welcome a broad spectrum of ice-rich and ice-poor landforms, including rock glaciers, talus slopes, plateaus, ice-cored moraines, steep rock slopes, and thermokarst. We particularly encourage contributions that enhance understanding thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical processes at slope and regional scales. The combination of multiple methods and newly developed approaches is of particular interest, as well as long-term studies or characterization of new permafrost sites with state-of-the-art methods. Geophysical measurements and analysis (e.g., ERT, SRT, DAS, EM, IP, GPR, TLS), in-situ measurements (e.g., temperatures, discharge, kinematics, GNSS), remote sensing surveys (e.g., optical, thermal, InSAR, UAV), modeling from past to future processes and scenarios, early warning systems, and data analysis improvements thanks to machine learning and artificial intelligence tools can be submitted.
We aim to improve the understanding of the response of mountain permafrost to climate change. This session aims to create a new opportunity for meeting and exchange within the mountain permafrost community and its fellows to promote joint research developments and improve understanding of processes.
ECS are encouraged to submit their work to this session.