Background
Climate change has a powerful impact on high-altitude Alpine sectors and glaciers. This impact often turns into an increase in instability processes that can lead to very high-risk conditions. These risk conditions can significantly affect the usability of areas characterized by intense tourist flows, making risk management very complex.
Purpose
The open-air laboratory of Grandes Jorasses was born from an agreement between the Montagna Sicura Foundation and CNR IRPI. The deal aims to use the area of the Grandes Jorasses (Italian side of Mont Blanc, municipality of Courmayeur) as a site in which to develop innovative techniques aimed at monitoring the instability processes that characterize the Planpincieux glacier and that of the Grandes Jorasses (Whymper Serac).
Methods
The laboratory uses the most advanced monitoring systems that exist today on the market and develops new ones (partly patented by CNR) to significantly increase the knowledge of the dynamics that characterize the Planpincieux and Grandes Jorasses glaciers. In particular, the site provides for the combined use of instrumentation for high-frequency topographic monitoring such as GB SAR, robotic total station, systems based on image analysis. These are also combined with periodic measurement campaigns carried out with drones, ground-penetrating radar, and LiDAR.
