Tarfala research station

It was here at Storglaciären that the first glacier mass balance program was initiated immediately after World War II.

Several years of field measurements proved, that Tarfala research station is located in a zone of widespread discontinuous permafrost.

The station is situated in the Tarfala Valley in Swedish Lapland at an elevation of 1135 meters, and about 150 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.

[1] Hans Wilhelmsson Ahlmann, a well-known Swedish geographer and glaciologist, was a leading personality with expeditions to Svalbard, Iceland and Greenland already in the 1930s.

Valter Schytt and other glaciologists proposed Storglaciären at Tarfala as ideal location for long-term glacier mass balance studies.

[2] Valter Schytt remained the leading personality and promoted the development of the research station until his death in 1985.

Winter storm destroyed some buildings in 1975, 1985 and 1993; spring slush avalanches damaged the laboratory hut in 1982 and again in 1991.

[13] Four years of systematic permafrost research in the Tarfala valley followed during the years 1977 till 1980, applying different geophysical methods (seismic and DC-geoelectrical soundings in summer, continuous measurements of the ground temperatures in boreholes to get the mean annual ground temperature).

The field studies allowed to sketch a reliable picture of the permafrost distribution in the Kebnekaise region.

[15] The studies were enlarged to the areas north of Tarfala (Abisko region, Lyngen Peninsula in Norway).

[17] Thus, Tarfala station is located inmidst of the discontinuous permafrost zone, with a MAAT of −3.5 °C (25.7 °F) at an elevation of 1,130 metres (3,710 ft).

Within the EU-sponsored project PACE (Permafrost and Climate in Europe), two boreholes in bedrock, 100 m and 15 m deep were drilled in March 2000.

The geothermal gradient of 1.17 °C /100 m allows to extrapolate a permafrost thickness of 330 meters, and thus confirms suggestions done with the results of earlier geoelectric soundings.

The geothermal gradient in the uppermost 50 meters hint to a significant temperature increase during at least 50 years.

Tarfala research station
Altitudinal zonation of mountain permafrost for Tarfala (Kebnekaise) and Jotunheimen (Norway) with corresponding mean annual air temperatures (MAAT)
Measurements of the basal temperature of the snow cover end of winter. Several hundred measurements give an indication to probable permafrost sites, Tarfala, Kebnekaise.
Soil temperature recordings, refraction seismic and DC-geoelectric soundings confirm that Tarfala area shows widespread permafrost occurrences above 1100 m a.s.l.
Isotherm map of Lapland showing a strong maritime/continental contrast from west to east. A MAAT of +2 °C (reduced to sea level altitude) corresponds to a MAAT of about -4 °C at 1200 m a.s.l., a region where permafrost patches may be expected in all favored, wind exposed sites. In areas above 1600 meters and at a MAAT of -6 °C continuous permafrost probably exists (King, 1984).