An overcooled coarse‐grained talus slope at low elevation: New insights on air circulation and environmental impacts, Cannon Cliff, New Hampshire, USA

Abstract

AbstractOvercooled talus slopes are generally described as islands of sporadic permafrost below the lower alpine limit of permafrost. The negative thermal anomaly of the ground is mainly consecutive to the internal ventilation of the deposit, but it is also conditioned by multiple factors as topography, slope aspect and incline, openwork structure and coarseness of the deposit, air temperature, solar radiation and wind regime. Therefore, the study of the spatiotemporal dynamics of ventilation processes allows a better understanding of the phenomenon. At Cannon Cliff, New Hampshire (USA), several field visits and environmental monitoring allowed us to describe the varying nature and significance of the ventilation mechanisms that can be observed at the ground surface and associated with both the intensity and direction of the airflows in a talus debris accumulation/protalus rampart system. The thermal negative anomalies are strong enough to lower the ground temperature to the point of preserving ice during the late spring and summer seasons. The monitoring of the gradient between external (air) and internal (talus) temperatures coupled with several dendroecological and geomorphological analyses provided a complete environmental picture of the impacts, feedback and extent of the phenomenon.