Jökull - 01.07.2003, Page 36

Achim A. Baylich
Figure 1. Location of the study areas in Austdalur, Seyðisfjörður, East Iceland and Latnjavagge, in the northern
Swedish Lapland. – Rannsóknarsvæðin í Austdal við sunnanverðan Seyðisfjörð og í Latnjavagge, Lapplandi,
Norður Svíþjóð.
rence intervals of meteorological events of given mag-
nitudes and of frequencies of geomorphologically im-
portant thresholds of precipitation, temperature and
wind speed. The calculation of the recurrence inter-
vals (RI) is according to the following equation (Chow
1964; Ahnert 1982; 1986; 1987).


   (1)
where N = total number of time units and r = rank of
the meteorological event.
The development of a “morphoclimatology” ori-
ented to geomorphology is still in its beginning (De
Ploey et al. 1991; Ahnert 1998; Beylich 1999a;
1999c; 2000c; 2001b; 2003). This investigation on
the morphoclimates and on recent geomorphodynam-
ics of two different periglacial environments is based
on a quantitative statistical analysis of meteorologi-
cal data from the Dalatangi meteorological station,
situated about 10 km east of Austdalur (65Æ16’N,
13Æ35’W, and 9.0 m a.s.l.), and the Latnjajaure Field
Station (LFS) situated in the Latnjavagge drainage
basin, Swedish Lapland (68Æ20’N, 18Æ30’E at 981 m
a.s.l., see Molau 2001; 2003) (Figure 1). Addition-
ally, it is based on quantitative geomorphodynamic
field work, including daily observations and process
measurements in two small drainage basins which are
representative for the study areas. The Austdalur field
work was conducted during the summer field seasons
of 1996, 1997, 1998 and autumn field season of 1997,
(Beylich 1999a; 2000b; 2003) and the Latnjavagge
fieldwork during the summer field seasons of 2000,
2001 and 2002, (Beylich 2001a; 2001b; 2003; Beylich
et al. 2003).
34 JÖKULL No. 52, 2003