Juvvasshøi or Juvvasshøe is a

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...

Lom Municipality Lom Municipality ( bg, Община Лом) is a frontier municipality ('' obshtina'') in Montana Province, Northwestern Bulgaria, located along the right bank of Danube river in the Danubian Plain. It is named after its administrative centre � ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (the municipalities of Jevnaker and Lunner were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken on the same date). The ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. The tall mountain is located in the

Jotunheimen Jotunheimen (; "the home of the Jötunn") is a mountainous area of roughly in southern Norway and is part of the long range known as the Scandinavian Mountains. The 29 highest mountains in Norway are all located in the Jotunheimen mountains, in ...

mountains just outside the border of

Jotunheimen National Park Jotunheimen National Park ( no, Jotunheimen nasjonalpark, "Home of the Giants") is a national park in Norway, recognized as one of the country's premier hiking and fishing regions. The national park covers and is part of the larger area Jotunhe ...

. The mountain sits about southwest of the village of Fossbergom and about northeast of the village of

Øvre Årdal Øvre Årdal is a village in Årdal Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is the larger of the two primary villages in Årdal. The village is situated at the northern end of the long lake Årdalsvatnet, with the village of Årdalstangen ...

. The mountain is surrounded by several other notable mountains including Store Lauvhøi to the northeast,

Glittertinden Glittertind or Glittertinden is a mountain in Lom Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The tall mountain is the second highest mountain in Norway. It is located in the Jotunheimen mountains within Jotunheimen National Park. The mountain ...

to the east, Galdhøi and

Galdhøpiggen Galdhøpiggen () is the highest mountain in Norway, Scandinavia, and Northern Europe. The tall mountain is located in Lom Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is in the Jotunheimen mountains within Jotunheimen National Park. The moun ...

to the southwest, and Storhøi to the northwest.

Climate and Permafrost in the Juvvasshøi area

The mean annual air temperature (MAAT) at Juvvasshøi is -4.1 °C. This value is extrapolated from a larger number of official Norwegian weather stations. According to the experience in other alpine and polar regions this MAAT indicates that permafrost must be widespread and probably extends to a depth of several hundred meters. Within the EU-sponsored project PACE (Permafrost and Climate in Europe), a 129 meters deep vertical borehole in bedrock was drilled in August 1999 on Juvvasshøi at an altitude of 1893 meters above sea level. The stable ground temperature at a depth of 100 meters is still -2.6 °C. The measured

geothermal gradient Geothermal gradient is the rate of temperature change with respect to increasing depth in Earth's interior. As a general rule, the crust temperature rises with depth due to the heat flow from the much hotter mantle; away from tectonic plate bo ...

in the drillhole of 1.19 °C/100 m allows to calculate a permafrost thickness of 320 meters, a proof that widespread permafrost occurences must exist in the Jotunheimen area at these altitudes. Juvvasshøi is surrounded by several other notable mountains of Jotunheimen including

to the east, Galdhøi and

to the southwest. They are even several hundred meters higher. The expected MAAT at these highest peaks is in the order of -7°C, a value characteristic for areas with continuous permafrost and a considerable permafrost thickness. For many Scandinavian scientists, this was surprising and not accepted until the fifth International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP) in 1988 in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

followed by field excursions in Norway and Sweden with international

periglacial Periglaciation (adjective: "periglacial", also referring to places at the edges of glacial areas) describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing of snow in areas of permafrost, the runoff from which refreezes in ice wedges and o ...

experts. However, the first permafrost findings date back to the 1970s and early 1980s when thick permafrost occurrences were proved with geophysical soundings.

References

Jotunheimen Lom, Norway Mountains of Innlandet {{Innlandet-mountain-stub

Climate and Permafrost in the Juvvasshøi area

See also

References