This location represents the ice-cap influenced humid, temperate Andes region with low altitudal permafrost-limit. The wide research activity also covers the forested, glaciated and tundra environments, but the monitoring system focuses on the surroundings of Paso Gardner, along a cross-profile above the tree-line from 1050-1250 m asl.
The key issues of the datalogger based long term research are the survey of permafrost distribution, analyses of active layer thickness changes and the monitoring of the active layer thermal behavior.
The monitoring system launched in February 2020 provides answers to questions such as the lenght-change of melting period, the depth changes and the water content of the active layer, the degradation of permafrost. The system-building was supplemented with tundra sediment sampling from the datalogger-sites. The measured data and their analyses provide the opportunity for model-development for the determination of temporal changes of water/ice phases.
The datalogger-download is biannual. The data-analysis, model-building and geomorphological investigations provide essential data about sensitive tundra changes – which are also important for managing the environmental impact of outdoor-activ (mass-turism).
