Rock-face temperature at high-elevation sites: a new measuring approach

The Alpine environment and in particular the cryosphere, is responding quickly and with great intensity to climate change. Temperature increase observed in the Alps urge the scientific community to study not only air temperature but also rock temperature, to deepen the knowledge about thermal properties of the potentially unstable geological materials. The metrological traceability of measurements is fundamental for data comparability in space and in time and this can be achieved by the use of calibrated instruments and with the evaluation of measurement uncertainties. Here we present some preliminary results of rock-face temperature analysis based on data acquired at high-elevation sites, by means of sensors with documented traceability to International System of Units Standards and evaluated measurement uncertainty. We found and quantified a strong difference in the hourly rate of temperature increase between air and rock. During summer rock temperature grows more than 8 times over air temperature.