Potential of frost damage of off-ground foundation stones in Norwegian Stave Churches since 1950 using land surface temperature

The Stave Churches (SCs) are one of the most iconic heritages in Norway, and only 28 medieval SCs have survived till our age in this country. They are built on wood with staves and wooden sleepers standing off the ground on foundation stones which have the primary purpose of guaranteeing structural support, ensuring integrity of the leveled foundation, and avoid ground water or rainwater penetration up to the valuable wooden structures. This paper aims to analyze the risk of Freeze-Thaw (F-T) decay on the foundation stones of the 28 SCs using an algorithm with a single climate input parameter i.e., the land surface temperature, extracted from the Global Land Data Assimilation System GLDAS which integrates satellite- and ground-based observational data products. The novel proposed algorithm estimates a climate-based index of F-T risk on foundation stones starting from the analysis of the variability of a 70-year (i.e., 1950 to 2020) land surface temperature datasets at these 28 locations. The outcome is further used to evaluate the average lifetime (half-life time) of foundation stones as well as the number of interventions necessary to guarantee their structural soundness thus providing a quantitative, predictive, and timely effective information to SC churches managers, and conservators on the climate change effect on foundation stones degradation at support of prioritization of maintenance interventions. •Use of surface land temperature (ST) from satellite products.•Creation of an original algorithm to derive a damage function assessing the risk of freeze-thaw cycles impact on off the ground foundation stones.•Application of the damage function to the still existing 28 Stave churches located in Norway.•The long-term ST timeseries analysis applied to our algorithm also highlights the impact of climate change at the case studies location.•Benefit in the use of the novel damage function for prioritizing maintenance intervention, and versatility of applying the risk model to each site. Cultural heritage; Stave church; Satellite data; Norway; Freeze-thaw; Foundation stones; Risk; Climate change