At the west coast of Svalbard, continuous permafrost occurs which has been steadily warming towards the thawing threshold in the past two decades. Since 2012, we have operated an array of 80 to 100 temperature sensors which deliver a spatially distributed picture of the ground thermal regime in an area of 500 x 500m. Furthermore, we have systematically mapped snow depths at the logger.
In the thesis, you will perform statistical analysis on the data set, with the aim of isolating the environmental factors which control ground surface temperatures at different times of the year.
A particular focus will be on the effect of wintertime rain events, which can induce strong warming of the ground (if the snow cover stays intact), but also a pronounced cooling (if all snow is transformed to ice). Different numerical models (written in Matlab) on ground temperatures are available which can be used to estimate the sensitivity of the ground thermal regime towards different environmental factors (see also thesis “Simulations of permafrost processes with CryoGrid”).
With this project, there is the possibility to apply for an Arctic Field Grant from the Svalbard Science Forum to conduct fieldwork around Ny-Ålesund. The deadline is usually in October, so contact me early enough if this is an option for you.
Skills in Matlab/Python/etc programming are beneficial, but not necessary.