Juvvasshøe
Juvvasshøe is a mountain in Lom Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The tall mountain is located in the Jotunheimen mountains just outside the border of Jotunheimen National Park. The mountain sits about southwest of the village of Fossbergom and about northeast of the village of Øvre Årdal. The mountain is surrounded by several other notable mountains including Lauvhøe to the northeast, Glittertinden to the east, Galdhøe and Galdhøpiggen to the southwest, and Storhøe to the northwest.
Climate and permafrost
The mean annual air temperature at Juvvasshøe is. This value is extrapolated from a larger number of official Norwegian weather stations. According to the experience in other alpine and polar regions this temperature indicates that permafrost must be widespread and probably extends to a depth of several hundred meters.Within the EU-sponsored project PACE, a deep vertical borehole in bedrock was drilled in August 1999 on Juvvasshøe at an altitude of above sea level. The stable ground temperature at a depth of is still. The measured geothermal gradient in the drillhole of per allows a calculation of a permafrost thickness of, a proof that widespread permafrost occurrences must exist in the Jotunheimen area at these altitudes.
Juvvasshøe is surrounded by several other notable mountains of Jotunheimen including Glittertinden to the east, Galdhøe and Galdhøpiggen to the southwest. They are even several hundred meters higher. The expected mean annual air temperature at these highest peaks is in the order of, 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 in 1988 in Trondheim followed by field excursions in Norway and Sweden with international periglacial experts. However, the first permafrost findings date back to the 1970s and early 1980s when thick permafrost occurrences were proved with geophysical soundings.