Global warming has the potential to strongly if not dramatically affect permafrost as a phenomenon of ground thermal conditions, and therefore, constitutes a factor of primary importance connected with the specific vulnerability of cold mountain regions. Research about effects of climate change on permafrost in complex high-mountain topography is young but in rapid progress. Internationally coordinated monitoring efforts as a contribution to global climate-related observing systems are based on integrated strategies and concepts, using a combination of borehole measurements, geophysical soundings, near-surface temperature logging and photogrammetric/geodetic analyses together with four-dimensional numerical modelling. On less inclined, often debris-covered and ice-rich slopes, snow characteristics and advective heat transfer play an important role for the coupling between atmospheric warming and subsurface temperatures, enhancing the uncertainty related to scenarios of future climate-induced developments. Steep rock walls and wind-exposed summits, on the other hand, are more directly coupled with atmospheric conditions and exhibit clear signs of ongoing temperature rise to greater depths below surface. With continued warming of perennially frozen mountain summits, the probability of large rock falls is likely to increase for very long time periods to come.
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Haeberli, W., Gruber, S. (2009). Global Warming and Mountain Permafrost. In: Margesin, R. (eds) Permafrost Soils. Soil Biology, vol 16. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69371-0_14
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