Active Layer Thickness site «Kapp Linne» (at site «Svalbard », Svalbard) inactive

INVESTIGATION SITES

Background
In 1972 originally 20 investigation sites were chosen for the monitoring of the active layer. Twelve of these were also equipped with thermistor profiles for measurement of the soil temperatures. Ten of these sites has been monitored continuously and the thermistor profiles has been reasonably reliable up to 1997 and the rest have been discontinued.

During the first two years 10x10m squares and random sampling at 10 points was used for the measurement and estimation of the mean active layer thickness. From 1974 the sample area at each site was increased to 100x100m and random sampling at 25 points was used up to 1993. One site, AL5, has been keep at 10x10 as the environment here is not uniform for a larger area. From 1994 the proposed ITEX Active Layer sample scheme has been applied. The two sampling methods were compared during the 1994 field season for 5 of the sites and showed no significant differences. Therefore the results from the period 1972 to 1997 are here treated as one continuos record series.

The sites monitored are considered as fully representative for the major types of vegetation and land-form types of the investigation area specifically and for the west coast of Svalbard in general.

The data can be separated into two components; one being an average for the Kapp Linne' area based upon  the 8 most representative sites ( AL3 to AL20) and secondly the 10 sites treated individually.