## 7 Conclusions  
This study analysed meteorological data in order to assess the effects of freeze-thaw cycle on the declines of physical and mechanical parameters of rocks in the Ny-Alesund region, which is a polar region. In addition, we performed an indoor study to examine the freeze-thaw weathering of rocks collected from outcrops. In order to assess changes in rock properties, we measured UCS, shore hardness, absorption, and P-wave velocity. Through the analysis of the measured changes in rock properties and the meteorological data, we quantified weathering characteristics, and used these to correlate the weathering of rocks in the Ny-Alesund region.  
(1) We analysed the changes in annual air temperatures in the region in terms of the daily minimum and maximum temperatures, and evaluated the number of cycles where the temperature changed from above to below zero or from below to above zero. According to the results of the analysis, the numbers of natural freeze-thaw cycle were around 33-62 cycles per year, and the mean number of freeze-thaw cycle was 52 cycles per year.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline
**Test Type** & **Average R\({}^{2}\) of Location A** & **Average R\({}^{2}\) of Location B** \\ \hline Uniaxial compressive strength & 0.0716 & 0.1872 \\ Shore hardness & 0.4073 & 0.0780 \\ Absorption & 0.9860 & 0.2836 \\ P-wave velocity & 0.9552 & 0.6280 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 4: Variation of R\({}^{2}\) due to freeze-thaw test.  
(2) The rocks in Locations A and B in the Ny-Alesund region were fresh, showing almost no weathering. The baseline physical properties (absorption, P-wave velocity) showed clear differences between the two groups. Attenuation of weathering over the course of 900 freeze-thaw cycles differed between rocks from Location A and rocks from Location B. In terms of changes in physical properties, the rocks showed decreasing trends for UCS, shore hardness, and P-wave velocity, and increasing trends for absorption.  
(3) In order to predict the weathering of rocks in the Ny-Alesund region, we used R\({}^{2}\) values to compare changes in physical properties of the rocks by the number of freeze-thaw cycles. Changes in physical properties were weakly correlated with the number of cycles. However, the relationships between absorption and P-wave velocity, which is closely correlated with the state of weathering and fissures inside rocks, and between P-wave velocity and UCS showed stronger correlations.  
(4) The evaluation of the freeze-thaw weathering cycle using the air temperature and physical properties enables the prediction of durability, remaining life, time of repair of rock-related historical monuments, roadside riprap, railway subgrade, pipelines, built heritage, and buildings using rocks against freeze-thaw rock weathering.  
Conceptualization, K.P. and D.K.; methodology, K.P.; validation, K.K. and K.L.; investigation, K.P., K.K., and K.L.; resources, K.K.; data curation, K.P. and K.L.; writing--original draft preparation, K.P. and D.K.; writing--review and editing, D.K.; visualization, K.L.; supervision, D.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea Grant from the Korean Government (MSIT; the Ministry of Science and ICT) (NRF-2016M1A5A1901769; KOPRI-PN20081) (Title: Circum Arctic Permafrost Environment Change Monitoring, Future Prediction and development Techniques of useful biomaterials; CAPEC Project), Industrial Facilities & Infrastructure Research Program (IFIP) funded by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Korean government (19 IFIP-B089075-06;19 IFIP-B089084-06; KOPRI-PN19110), and the Incheon National University Research in 2019-2020.  
The authors acknowledge the support by the National Research Foundation of Korea, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Korean government, Incheon National University, Korea. The authors declare no conflict of interest.