Þorsteinn Sæmundsson


Þorsteinn Sæmundsson

Dr. Þorsteinn Sæmundsson graduated with a Ph.D. degree in Quaternary geology from the University of Lund, in Sweden in 1995. During the same year he started working as a snow avalanche specialist at the Icelandic Met Office. In the year 2000 he moved the northern part of the island and worked as a director of the Natural Research Centre of NW Iceland in the town of Sauðárkrókur until 2014. From 2014 Þorsteinn has been working at the University of Iceland, both as a teacher and a researcher. The bulk of his research has been focused on natural hazard and mass movements. During the last four years, he has built up a master program in natural hazard at the university. He has supervised several bachelors, master, and Ph.D. students mainly in the field of mass movements. Þorsteinn has been the president of the Geoscience Society of Iceland from 2009-2013 and from 2017 until present.

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Slope movements are strongly affected by climate and climate changes, e.g. changes in precipitation (precipitation pattern and intensity) and temperature variations which can, f.ex. influence growth or retreat of glaciers, and permafrost conditions. Over the last decades changes in weather patterns have affected slope stability worldwide. These changes attract great attention and concern in many mountainous areas, not least due to the increasing likelihood of mass movements. Iceland is no exception to that, but as in many other countries out knowledge of these ongoing changes is limited. Therefor we need to do more research and monitoring to gain more knowledge and understanding of the changes which are occurring. During the last decades, several unusual mass movements have occurred in Iceland. These events have both be unusual due to their size, increased frequency, triggering factors and not least the timing within the year they have occurred. One of the most visible consequences of temperature rise in Iceland is the fast retreat and thinning of outlet glaciers and formation of proglacial lakes. The frequency of mass movements on retreating outlet glaciers have increased, from the turn of the century compared to the last four decades of the 20th century. New discoveries of unstable slopes above outlet glaciers and proglacial lakes have also increased since 2000. Similar environmental changes, even though on a much larger scale, took place during and shortly after the last deglaciation, with enormous environmental impact, f.ex. due to mass movement activity. Additional consequences are more hidden and not as easy to detect and monitor. Several mass movements, which have occurred during the last decade in central N and NW parts of the island, can be directly connected to thawing of mountain permafrost, but our knowledge of the distribution of mountain permafrost in Iceland is very limited. The potential for a major geomorphological incident in these environments, that both attract increasing number of tourists year-round and have seen a recent related infrastructure development, raised serious concerns and stressed an urgent need to study and monitor these proglacial and mountainous environments in the light of the ongoing climate changes.