Arctic Coastal Erosion

Abstract

With the recent increase of interest in Arctic, the need rises for new tools for understanding the typical mechanisms of this very unique and so vulnerable area. The coast, which concentrates nearly all of the human activities, is in the front line and probably the most critical part of the system. Trough the past decades, mappings of the Arctic s shorelines point out huge erosion rates and show the threat of a climate change upon the coast. Recent studies seem to link those tremendous moves to the annual thermal variations within the soil. However, the mechanisms of thermal abrasion that are suggested to be at the hearth of the process are not yet completely understood.In answer for the need of numerical models for thermal analysis of the erosion process, this thesis proposes a toolbox specially designed, based on literature review and fieldwork data. Trough the chapters, the reader shall find essential tools for estimations of the heat transfer into a soil and complete understanding of the physical mechanisms behind. Critical parameters that influence the erosion process are highlighted. To assess the operational deployment of those tools, a thermal analysis of a site has been performed. The conclusions demonstrate the capacity of numerical models to underline the critical gears of the heat transfers, and hopefully will help understanding the erosion processes of this particular place.