Distinguishing ice-rich and ice-poor permafrost to map ground temperatures and ground ice occurrence in the Swiss Alps

Kenner, Robert; Noetzli, Jeannette; Hoelzle, Martin; Raetzo, Hugo; Phillips, Marcia

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1925-2019

Articles | Volume 13, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1925-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1925-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 7

Research article

|

15 Jul 2019

Research article |

| 15 Jul 2019

Distinguishing ice-rich and ice-poor permafrost to map ground temperatures and ground ice occurrence in the Swiss Alps

Robert Kenner, Jeannette Noetzli, Martin Hoelzle, Hugo Raetzo, and Marcia Phillips

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1925-2019-supplement

Data sets

Permafrost and ground ice map (PGIM) R. Kenner https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1470165

Short summary

A new permafrost mapping method distinguishes between ice-poor and ice-rich permafrost. The approach was tested for the entire Swiss Alps and highlights the dominating influence of the factors elevation and solar radiation on the distribution of ice-poor permafrost. Our method enabled the indication of mean annual ground temperatures and the cartographic representation of permafrost-free belts, which are bounded above by ice-poor permafrost and below by permafrost-containing excess ice.