Some recent quotes about permafrost/climate change related to avalanches in the mainstream press:
Changing climate bringing more extreme weather than before will also increase the frequency of large precipitation events and thus the danger of avalanches in Western Norway.
Permafrost close to the melting point is particularly exposed as temperatures rise. Warming of the ground can cause huge instability, and in steep terrains soil and rocks can loosen and cause avalanches as permafrost thaws or disappears. The expected climate changes for coming decades will probably cause further changes to permafrost in Norway.
Outer factors like weather and climate are influential, but must be seen in conjuction with inner factors in the mountain.
'Climate political spokesperson' Oskar Jarle Grimstad from the far–right governing FRP party (that generally does "not believe" in Climate Change) says the Norwegian state will from now on (2015) finance the avalanche surveillance projects in Norway. Until recently this has been paid for by local authorities. (When global warming may kill fellow Norwegians, it is apparently sufficiently believable.):
Government is preparing a state take–over of the surveillance service at Åknes/Tafjord Beredskap IKS from 2015.
Chief geologist Lars Helge Blikra at Åknes, the national center for avalanche surveillance, is also part of a research project on the connection between avalanches and climate change.
Some added 'personal touch' background on avalanches/tsunamis in Norway:
Coincidentally, both my grandmother on the father side AND my grandfather on the mother side were — independent of each other — in the Loen valley in Summer of 1936, shortly before the disastrous avalanche and tsunami there: A million m³ of rock from the 1493 m Raven Mountain crashed down into Lovatnet and caused a 74 m high tsunami killing everything in its way (74 people + cattle etc). 1936 was also a very hot year, so permafrost melt may have caused even that catastrophe.
41 people were killed in similar tsunamis in nearby Tafjord two years earlier, in 1934.
Further reading:
Climate change and Natural Disasters in Norway (pdf 2007)