Annual report of the PERMOS Office 2016 Management and coordination of the

Swiss Permafrost Monitoring Network PERMOS

Jeannette Nötzli1 and Benno Staub2 PERMOS Office | April 2017, rev. 08.05.2017

1 WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos 2 Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg

Swiss Permafrost Monitoring Network ETHZ, SUPSI, UniFR, UniL, UniZH, WSL-SLF

PERMOS Office c/o University of Fribourg info@permos.ch | www.permos.ch

–1–

1 Background

The Swiss Permafrost Monitoring Network PERMOS systematically documents the state and change of permafrost in the Swiss Alps. PERMOS was initiated by research institutes in the early 1990ies, followed by pilot-phase 2000–2006. Since 2007 the network is officially implemented with a coordination office and long-term funding by the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss in the framework of GCOS Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), and the Swiss Academy for Sciences (SCNAT). PERMOS is implemented in the federal monitoring structures and part of the cryosphere monitoring including the observation of glaciers, snow and permafrost in the Swiss Alps (Cryospheric Commission of the SCNAT, EKK). It is also one early component of the international program Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P), which was established within the worldwide climate-monitoring program (GCOS) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and others (FAO, UNEP, UNESCO, ICSI). Within the five-tiered principle proposed for the Global Hierarchical Observing Strategy (GHOST) PERMOS supports research in studies that contribute to tier 2 (shallow permafrost thermal state, energy fluxes and surface controls), but mainly concerns the observations to reflect regional patterns in permafrost thermal state of tier 3 and coupling of temperature measurement with other variables to provide representative permafrost conditions in tier 4.

The PERMOS network is carried by six partner institutions from academia, which are responsible for the site instrumentation, maintenance and data acquisition: ETH Zurich (ETHZ), Universities of Fribourg (UniFR), Lausanne (UniL), Zurich (UZH), and Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), and WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF (SLF). Observation data and results are published annually in the bulletin «Die Alpen» (SAC-CAS) and a press release, and every second year in the Glaciological Re-ports (Permafrost) by the Cryospheric Commission (EKK) of the SCNAT. Monitoring strategies, approval of sites, data processing strategies, and observation results are discussed within the PERMOS Scientific Committee (SciCom). The PERMOS Steering Committee (StCom) is the steering board and includes one member of each of the financing partners and the partner institutions.

More information on the PERMOS network can be found on the website www.permos.ch.

2 Finances and Staff

2.1 Finances The financial report of the PERMOS Network for the years 2015 and 2016 (provisional) is included in Appendix A.1. It also includes the audit report on the year 2015, the overview on the annual tranchen to the PERMOS Partners and the Investment Plan 2015–2018.

2.2 Staff

A PERMOS Office

Dr. Jeannette Nötzli (JN, UZH from Jan 2007 to Jul 2015 and SLF since Aug 2015) and Dr. Benno Staub (BS, UniFR since Jan 2016) are working in the PERMOS Office (PO) in the year 2016 with a 50% employment each. JN was on maternity leave from 21.10.2016 to 20.02.2017. Jonas Wicky was filling in to support the PO during this time (Oct 2016 to Feb 2017).

Dr. Christin Hilbich is employed at UniFR from Oct 2016 to Jul 2017 with a 30% workload for the integration of the geophysics data into the PERMOS Data Base. The PERMOS Office defined aims and tasks for this initiative (Appendix A.4).

B PERMOS Partners and Committees

The contact persons of the six PERMOS partner institutions are:

• Institute for Geotechnical Engineering, ETH Zurich (ETHZ), Prof. Dr. Sarah M. Springman • Department of Geosciences, Geography Institute, University of Fribourg (UniFR), Prof. Dr. Reynald

Delaloye (RD) • Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne (UniL), Dr. Christophe Lambiel • Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland

(SUPSI), Dr. Cristian Scapozza

–2–

• Department of Geography, University of Zurich (UZH), Dr. Tobias Bolch • WSL Institut for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF (SLF), Davos, Dr. Marcia Phillips Members of the PERMOS Steering Committee (StCom):

Fabio Fontana (MeteoSchweiz/GCOS Switzerland, Chair 2015 and 2017), Hugo Raetzo (BAFU, Chair 2016 and 2018), Christian Preiswerk (SCNAT), Reynald Delaloye (UniFR), Isabelle Gärtner-Roer (UZH), Christophe Lambiel (UniL), Marcia Phillips (SLF), Silvio Seno (SUPSI), Sarah M. Springman (ETHZ), Daniel Vonder Mühll (SystemsX.ch).

Attendance: PERMOS Office

Members of the PERMOS Scientific Committee (SciCom):

Jan Beutel (ETHZ), Tobias Bolch (UZH), Reynald Delaloye (UniFR), Isabelle Gärtner-Roer (UZH), Andreas Hasler (SensAlpin GmbH), Christian Hauck (UniFR), Christin Hilbich (UniFR), Martin Hoelzle (UniFR), Dr. Christophe Lambiel (UniL), Jeannette Nötzli (PERMOS Office, SLF), Marcia Phillips (SLF), Cristian Scapozza (SUPSI), Sarah Springman (ETHZ), Benno Staub (PERMOS Office, UniFR), Daniel Vonder Mühll (SystemsX.ch), Jonas Wicky (UniFR)

3 Activities of the PERMOS Office

3.1 Operational Business The main tasks and corresponding responsibilities in the PO were defined based on the PERMOS Agreement 2015–2018 and accepted by the StCom (Appendix A.3, cf. minutes of the StCom meeting 2016). In general, both members perform the tasks of the PO jointly, with JN being responsible for the overall management.

A Management and Coordination

Members of the PO have organised or taken part in the following meetings in the framework of the network coordination. The minutes of the PERMOS meetings (StCom and SciCom) are included in the Appendix A.2 (also the meeting minutes for the year 2015 are included in order to archive all meeting minutes in the annual reports).

PERMOS Meetings (includes preparation, organisation, minutes, etc.) o PERMOS Scientific Committee: 27.01.2016 in Zurich, 02.05.2016 in Berne, 07.11.2016 in Berne o PERMOS Steering Committee Meeting 2016 on the 02.05.2016 in Berne

National meetings (with talk or active contribution) o Cryospheric Commission EKK, 19.01.2016 in Zurich (JN) o Coordination and exchange of permafrost activities in the Canton Valais, organized by the Canton

Valais (JN): 10.03 in Sion o Exchange on planned permafrost drillings for permafrost monitoring with Canton Berne and FOEN

(JN): 23.03.2016 in Ittigen BE o Discussion and planning of a potential In-Kind Contribution concerning data hosting and

management, with MeteoSwiss (BS): 17.05.2016 at Zurich Airport. o Presentation and discussion of PERMOS activities at FOEN (BS): 24.05.2016 in Ittigen o Coordination and planning of air photos and flights in the framework of the EKK activities, with

FOEN (BS, RD): 14.06.2016 in Fribourg o FOEN/Swisstopo/EKK meeting concerning the use of Swisstopo products for PERMOS and

GLAMOS (BS): 01.07.2016 in Wabern International meetings o GTN-P National Correspondents Meeting (JN, BS, RD): 19.06.2016 in Potsdam DE

Letters of support (on request) o AGORA-SNF application «The 2 °C target in the Alps – an experience in virtual reality» by

UniFR/Prof. M. Hölzle (JN)

Committee Work o Swiss Society for Snow, Ice and Permafrost, board member (JN) o EnviDat User Group of WSL-SLF (JN) o Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P), co-chair of the steering committee (JN)

–3–

B Administration

A new email address was installed for the general correspondence, which is directed to both members of the PO: office@permos.ch

A new server was installed at UniFR for the documentation and archiving of the PO. The archive on the previous server at UZH was moved to the new server. A backup strategy was defined by the PO. The website (www.permos.ch) was relocated from UZH to a new server hosted by Hostpoint AG in July 2016.

The PO starts with annual reporting with the year 2016 (this report). Annual programs of the PO are compiled from the year 2017.

C Data and Measurement Strategy

The main activities concerning data and measurement strategy are summarized in the following list (cf. Figure 1):

o Call for data for 2014/2015 (Oct 2015) with processing and integration into the PERMOS Data Archive (Dec 2015 to Jan 2016).

o Update of the contract with the ETHZ library for the release of DOIs. o Preparation and release of the first DOI (http://dx.doi.org/10.13093/permos-2016-01) on

18.04.2016, which includes borehole temperature data together with relevant metadata (cf 3.4 A). o Integration of metadata and borehole temperature data into the GTN-P Data Base. The shared

data corresponds to the permos-2016-01 DOI release. o Update and adaptation of the PERMOS Borehole Data Browser to the published data set. The

public version of the data browser points to the database holding the newest published dataset (DOI).

o Quality checks and documentation of existing problems for borehole and ground surface temperature data. This documentation serves as material of the evaluation in 2017. Data was corrected were problems were obvious or flagged in the database in order to not show and publish the data. This work is on-going and requires discussion and definition of standards and procedures in order to define best practices how to deal with quality issues.

o Development of a data quality checks and procedures for the minimization of systematic errors for dGPS data (terrestrial surveys), implementation of work flows

o Improvement of representation of metadata in the database by including more details on the station history (following discussions with MeteoSwiss, know-how transfer). This will support a versioning of the PERMOS data and metadata.

o Clarification of the procedure regarding aerial surveying (planning of air photos, standardisation of ground control points, data delivery) together with BAFU and Swisstopo (Appendix A.5).

o Planning of the evaluation procedure (including the organisation of two workshop days in February/March 2017): definition of the general approach and rules for the workshop and evaluation of sites and instrumentation, preparation of basic materials documenting scientific achievements, data quality issues and instrumentation or site-specific effects, structure of the evaluation report)

Figure 1. Simplified overview on data bases and data flow of the PERMOS data.

–4–

D Reporting

The annual reporting on the observations of permafrost in Switzerland is based on the key messages compiled by the PERMOS Office and discussed within the SciCom in the beginning of the year (Appendix A.6).

PERMOS published a press release on the observation results in 2016 on 22.02.2016 via the press office of SCNAT (own press release this year, so far, results were reported jointly with the snow and glacier networks in the framework of the Cryospheric Commission EKK, Appendix A.7). Valuable support was given from the communications offices at UniFR and especially SLF. The response to the communication was high despite the late timing. ARGUS reported about 90 contributions in newspapers and radio. Members of the PERMOS Office were asked for interviews or statements on national radio (SRF3, RTS, RTR), newspaper (La Liberté, Freiburger Nachrichten, La Gruyère) and TV (RadioFr, RTS, RTR minisguard) channels.

The PERMOS Report 2010/2011 to 2013/2014 (Glaciological Report Permafrost No. 12–15) was printed in September 2016 (see Section 3.4 A) after review by the SciCom and StCom.

The PO contributed to the annual report of the Cryospheric Commission (EKK) in the magazine «Die Alpen/Les Alpes» of the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC, Appendix A.8), to a special report by FOEN on the heat wave in summer 2015, and the report «Brennpunkt Klima Schweiz» by the Swiss Academies. See Chapter 3.4 for a complete overview on all publications in 2016.

3.2 Collaboration with National and International Networks and Organisations On a national level, PERMOS collaborates with the glacier and snow measurement networks via the EKK in two annual meetings as well as the joint publication in «Die Alpen/Les Alpes» (SAC-CAS). The EKK meetings support the coordination and exchange of experiences, strategies, and information as well as the identification of synergies. A joint on-going project is the new EKK website where information on the cryosphere in the Swiss Alps as well as on its observation and changes are provided to a wider public (http://www.naturalsciences.ch/organisations/ekk/cryosphere). Further national collaboration and exchange takes place via the annual GCOS roundtable organized by the Swiss GCOS Office. PERMOS contributions to reports were provided to BAFU (Hitzesommer 2015) and ProClim («Brennpunkt Klima Schweiz»), and the FAN (Fachleute Naturgefahren) autumn course 2016. Input and an overview on recent PERMOS activities was provided for the preparation of the update of the GCOS inventory report. Experience and results from permafrost observations were shared with the cantons VS and BE on several meetings. As a member of the WSL User Group for EnviDat, the PERMOS Office (JN) can bring in its experience with data management of long time series.

Internationally, PERMOS collaborates with a number of monitoring networks and data archives such as the Alpine Permafrost Database (operated by ARPA Aosta), Global Cryosphere Watch (mainly via C. Fierz, SLF), the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) and the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P). The collaboration includes exchange of information, experiences, standards, and strategies and is considered important and fruitful. Borehole temperature time series are contributed to the GTN-P database (via DOI publication). In order to bring in the long experience of an operational permafrost monitoring programme, JN is a co-chair of the GTN-P Steering Committee. Within GTN-P several initiatives are being launched for publication and reporting of data and results, but also to renew its strategy and implementation plan.

A detailed list of meetings that took place in 2016 can be found below.

3.3 National and International Meetings and Public Outreach Members of the PERMOS Office have taken part with oral or poster contributions in a number of meetings (list below). Coordination meetings are listed in Section 3.1. A, publications in Section 3.4, and the press communication is described in Section 3.1 D. In addition, a number of questions and requests to the PO mainly concerning information and data from the PERMOS Network have been answered.

o 13th Swiss GCOS Roundtable, 28.01.2016, Zurich-Airport, CH (JN) o SLF Colloquium, 04.02.2016, Davos, CH. Talk: Hitzesommer 2015: Auswirkungen auf Bodentemperatur und

Hangstabilität im Permafrost (JN und M. Phillips) o Permafrost Workshop Canton Valais, 10.03.2016, Sion. CH. Talk: Results from PERMOS after the hot summer

2015 (JN) o 11th International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP), 20.–24. Juni 2016, Potsdam, DE. Talk: The contribution of

the 2015 heat wave to mountain permafrost warming in Switzerland (JN) o 11th International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP), 20.–24. Juni 2016, Potsdam, DE. Talk: Rock glacier creep

as a thermally-driven phenomenon: A decade of inter-annual observations from the Swiss Alps (BS)

–5–

3.4 Publications

A PERMOS Publications

o PERMOS 2016a. PERMOS Database. Swiss Permafrost Monitoring Network, Fribourg, Switzerland. DOI:10.13093/permos-2016-01.

o PERMOS 2016b. Permafrost in Switzerland 2010/2011 to 2013/2014. Noetzli, J., Luethi, R., Staub, B. (eds.), Glaciological Report (Permafrost) No. 12–15 of the Cryospheric Commission of the Swiss Academy of Sciences, 85 pp.

B Reports with contributions and results from PERMOS

o BAFU (Hsg.) 2016: Sommer 2015: Hitze, Trockenheit und Auswirkungen auf Mensch und Umwelt. Bundesamt für Umwelt BAFU, Bern. Umwelt-Zustand Nr. 1629: 108 pp.

o Haeberli, W., Hauck, C., and Noetzli, J. 2016. Alpiner Permafrost. PROMET – Meteorologische Fortbildung, Heft 98 Hochgebirgsmeteorologie und Glaziologie, 78–94.

o Huss, M., Bauder, A., Marty, C., und Noetzli, J. 2016. Schnee, Gletscher und Permafrost 2014/2015. Die Alpen, 7, 36–43.

o Huggel, C., Marty, C., Noetzli, J. und Paul, F. 2016. Schnee, Gletscher und Permafrost. In: Akademien Schweiz 2016. Brennpunkt Klima Schweiz. Grundlagen, Folgen, Perspektiven. Swiss Academies Reports 11(5), 80–83.

o Noetzli, J., Christiansen, H., Gugliemin, M., Romanovsky, V., Shiklomanov, N., Smith, S. and Zhao, L. 2016. Permafrost thermal state. In: State of the Climate in 2015. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 20–21.

o Plattner, G.-K, Stocker T.F, Marty, C., Nötzli, J., Paul, F. und Huggel, C. 2016. Ozean und Kryosphäre. In: Akademien Schweiz 2016. Brennpunkt Klima Schweiz. Grundlagen, Folgen, Perspektiven. Swiss Academies Reports 11(5), 60–67.

o Staub, B., Nötzli, J. und Delaloye R. 2016: Entwicklung des Gebirgspermafrosts in der Schweiz. Beilage zum FAN Herbstkurs 2016. FAN-Agenda 3/2016.

C Research papers (with a direct relation to PERMOS data and results)

o Luethi, R. and Phillips, M. 2016. Challenges and solutions for long-term permafrost borehole temperature monitoring and data interpretation. Geographica Helvetica, 71(2), 121–131. http://doi.org/10.5194/gh-71-121-2016

o Luethi, R., Phillips, M., and Lehning, M. 2016. Estimating non-conductive heat flow leading to intra-permafrost talik formation at the Ritigraben rock glacier (Western Swiss Alps). Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 1–12. http://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.1911.

o Marmy, A., Rajczak, J., Delaloye, R., Hilbich, C., Hoelzle, M., Kotlarski, S., Lambiel, C., Noetzli, J., Phillips, M., Salzmann, N., Staub, S., and Hauck, C., 2016. Semi-automated calibration method for modelling of mountain permafrost evolution in Switzerland. The Cryosphere. http://doi.org/10.5194/tcd-9-4787-2015.

o Phillips, M., Haberkorn, A., Draebing, D., Krautblatter, M., Rhyner, H., and Kenner, R. 2016. Seasonally intermittent water flow through deep fractures in an Alpine rock ridge: Gemsstock, Central Swiss Alps. Cold Regions Science and Technology, 125, 117–127. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2016.02.010.

o Staub, B., Hasler, A., Noetzli, J. and Delaloye, R. 2016. Gap filling algorithm for ground surface temperature data measured in permafrost and periglacial environments. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, doi.org/10.1002/ppp.1913.

o Staub, B. and Delaloye, R. 2016. Using Near-Surface Ground Temperature Data to Derive Snow Insulation and Melt Indices for Mountain Permafrost Applications. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes. http://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.1890.

D Theses (with a direct relation to PERMOS data and results)

o Staub, B. 2015. The evolution of mountain permafrost in the context of climate change – towards a comprehensive analysis of permafrost monitoring data from the Swiss Alps. PhD-Thesis, Faculty of Science, University of Fribourg, 225pp. http://doc.rero.ch/record/261348.

o Riebler, T. 2016. Statistical analysis of spatial and temporal variability of ground surface temperatures in Alpine terrain. MSc Thesis, Department of Geography, University of Zurich, 113pp.

4 Conclusions and Outlook The key tasks of the PO were all carried out in the year 2016, with a completely staffed PO for the period 2015–2018 for the first time: The coordination and administration of the activities of the PERMOS network, the integration of observation data from the measurement period 2015/2016 into the PERMOS Database, reporting and publication activities including a successful first press release, as well as atten-dance at and contribution to national and international committees (e.g., EKK, GCOS Roundtable, GTN-P). In addition, two evaluation workshops for the first quarter 2017 were planned and basic material was prepared (such as overviews on sites, data quality, data management, etc.).

Important initiatives were started in the year 2016 for the improvement of the data management and quality – one of the main focus points of PERMOS for the contract period 2015–2018: 1) careful checking and documentation of the quality of the borehole temperature series, 2) publication of a bore-

–6–

hole data time series DOI with a corresponding data browser and feeding of the data into the GTN-P data management, 3) the start of the homogenization of kinematics data, and 4) the integration of geophysical data into the data base. These initiatives will all continue in 2017 and 2018. It is planned to extend the data publication to include GST and kinematic data with the next DOI release in spring 2017. With these initiatives the PERMOS Database will eventually hold all observation data that are gained in the scope of PERMOS. However, there are numerous points that need to be tackled in the coming months and year(s) to professionalize and standardize the data management of the permafrost network. This includes 1) the definition of standards for processing and quality control of the entire data flow from the logger to the data base in order to guarantee a homogenized treatment of the data, 2) the improve-ment of the data access, which means extension of the data browser for more types of data and addi-tional functionality, and 3) the improvement of the data quality of the existing data. In many time series – especially the borehole temperature time series – a number of quality issues needs to be systematically controlled, documented and where possible processed (and otherwise masked) following the first steps taken in 2016 (see Section 3.1. C). In addition, a thorough and sound metadata collection is required (e.g., station history is currently mainly with PIs and institutions). Scientific discussions are required on the correction and homogenisation of terrestrial geodetic surveying (TGS) data and the respective key graphs. A final report on the PERMOS GPS Pilot Project is pending and aerial surveying (AS) data should be delivered by FOEN to PO, serving as a discussion basis for the evaluation of the future kine-matics monitoring strategy. The initiative for the integration of all geophysics data obtained within the scope of PERMOS has successfully been launched and will continue in 2017. New elements in the PERMOS database (TGS, ERT) already consider technical recommendations by MeteoSwiss (in-kind contribution) for allowing «station history» and «data versioning».

Many issues related to the data management require a larger effort, which cannot be satisfactorily covered by the PO in addition to the operational tasks within this contract period. The investment plan includes (parts of) some of these tasks (see Annex A.1, financial report).

The main task of the coming year 2017 is the evaluation of the PERMOS monitoring strategy and sites as well as the extended discussion (and subsequent improvement) of workflows, standards and proce-dures within the monitoring network for the installations, maintenance, data processing, reporting, etc. For this, two one-day workshops are planned in the first quarter of the year 2017.

A renovation of the website is envisaged for the second half of the contract period (2017–2018). Identi-fied needs are more timely information on measurements and reports published, interactive data access to additional elements (currently only borehole temperatures), and more extensive and timely document-tation and information about the measurement locations and installations.

Finally, following the successful replacement drilling of the Murtèl borehole in 2015, the instrumentation of other borehole sites will require renovation or complete re-drilling in 2017 or the coming years. On one hand, the remote data transfer will have to be upgraded since Swisscom will no longer support the transmission via the CSD protocol by the end of 2017. On the other hand, many of the instrumented sites are now 10 years or older. On several sites it is not possible to replace the thermistor chains because they are blocked (due to shearing of the borehole for example). In order to guarantee an over-lap when a new borehole is drilled, careful planning and stepwise replacement of the boreholes at risk is required. It is planned to start with one borehole in 2017 (e.g. Tsaté, Gentianes or Ritigraben). This topic is an important point for the evaluation.

Appendix

A.1 Financial report of the PERMOS network for the years 2015 and 2016 (provisional)

A.2 Minutes of the PERMOS meetings (Steering Committee and Scientific Committee)

A.3 Tasks and responsibilities of the PERMOS Office

A.4 Aims and tasks of the geophysics initiative 2016/2017

A.5 Aerial survey plan with FOEN

A.6 Key messages of the permafrost observation for the observation period 2014/2015

A.7 Press release by SCNAT on permafrost measurement results in the Swiss Alps for the year 2014/2015 of 22. February 2016

A.8 EKK-report on the observation year 2014/2015 («Alpenbericht»)