Svalbard, the hottest place on Earth

dramatic situation

Kim Holmen, international director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, explains dramatic Situation “Unfortunately, the climate has changed faster than we thought“, says this scientist who was one of the first to raise the alarm and is considered a respected figure when it comes to knowledge of the area. We visited several places around Longyearbyen with him.

“Since I arrived in 1995, The average temperature in winter has increased by ten degrees“Ten degrees is plenty,” says citizen scientist and explorer Hilde Falun Ström. Hilde spent 19 months with a colleague in a cabin, isolated and in the middle of nowhere, collecting samples and data for various scientific institutions.

,We have already changed the planet and we should do everything we can to make the changes as small as possible.,

“The world would be poorer without the Arctic ecosystemAnd the nature here will change fundamentally. And it tells the rest of the world what’s going to happen. We have already changed the planet and we must do everything possible to ensure that the changes are as minor as possible,” explains Kim Holman with some disappointment, who never tires of repeating that we cannot continue like this .

Longyearbyen has already suffered direct losses consequences About these changes and extreme weather events, as Line Nagel Ylvisaker, director of Svalbardposten, the world’s northernmost newspaper, tells us. The line arrived in the archipelago 20 years ago and “does not forget December 19, 2015, when a great avalanche Due to this many houses were destroyed and two people died. Now you can see. protective fences A protective wall has been built in the mountains that surround that part of the city against avalanches and to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

Glaciers melt and permafrost warms

Svalbard Islands 60% of it is covered with glaciersThere are more than 2,200, and they are also suffering the consequences of the changes. “What’s happening in Svalbard and the Arctic has consequences for the whole world, both in sea level rise and in the planet’s global climate,” warns glaciologist Leo Decaux.

“We are losing about three meters of ice every year, every summer. This process has been accelerating for 30 years. Glaciers are melting rapidly“, he says and explains to us, next to the Longyear Glacier, that we “need snow that lasts the entire melt season and the entire summer, but, now, even at the top of the glacier, such There is no ice left, so the glacier is no longer making new ice. this glacier It does nothing except shrink and meltyear after year, without creating new ice.” And the same thing happens with many other glaciers.

position regarding permafrost This isn’t much better either. We accompanied two permafrost experts during field sampling, which they do almost every week. These are Marjoline Veret and Not Veet. They are both UNIS researchers. “Permafrost is Land whose temperature is permanently below zero degrees CelsiusIn much of the Arctic, the ground beneath our feet is frozen,” says Marjolaine Verret.

,All these organic materials stored inside can release greenhouse gases that can increase the current warming of the climate.,

He further explains that they are monitoring the active layer, which is the layer above the permafrost that melts and freezes annually and is defined as a. essential climate variablesGeologist Knut Veit concludes, “We are observing the warming of permafrost and the melting of materials that have been frozen for many thousands of years. All this organic matter stored inside can release greenhouse gases that can increase the current warming of the climate. ”

Orion Laromiguire, a French journalist who decided to move from Paris to Svalbard a few years ago, shows us a building in the center of Longyearbyen, abandoned and broken: “The problem is the permafrost and its erosion. These types of buildings, which are very old, are built on logs or on wooden pillars, but the permafrost is warming and the wooden piles are rotting.” The construction of houses and buildings, like many other things in this place, has changed due to the consequences of global warming.

Svalbard is a natural archive in which geological processes can be verified. “Often I go to lakes, especially when they are frozen. And I take out sediment cores from the bottom and analyze their chemical composition. Lakes are really important stores of climate dataBecause they take over all the sediments, plants and productivity of the lake,” explains Mark Furze, Professor of Quaternary Geology at UNIS. “It’s like a layer cake Which builds over time. By observing these layers, we can reconstruct processes, changes in the physical environment and biological environment and link them to climate changes,” he added.

science and security

Svalbard is a remote and inaccessible landThe place where the polar bear is king and where there are more polar bears than people. It is mandatory to carry rifle and flare gun while going out of the settlement. Before climbing the glacier, Leo Decaux explains to us what could happen if a bear approaches. He says clearly, “If the flames do not scare them and it comes within 50 meters of us, then we are allowed to fire, because it is our life.”

“Symptoms offace danger from here“They’re at all the exits to the settlements. This one, too.” affects scienceBecause scientists, teachers, students, etc. have to take safety and survival courses before going into the field. Bears are not the only danger they face when venturing into wild and extreme nature.

Therefore any activity in the archipelago requires ground investigations security plan“To get to the sites where data is collected, we have to travel over glaciers, over sea ice, through areas where avalanches can occur and obviously we will have the issue of fauna, that is Polar bears. These are elements we always have to consider, but part of my job is to do a risk assessment. it has to be done safely” says Neil Rhodes, Chief Engineer of the Department of Geology at UNIS.

between hope and despair

“The conditions are difficult, very cold. nature is very wildBut we are very motivated. We are interested in nature, we like science. It is a constant coexistence, in addition to the fact that, sometimes, we experience situations that contain a certain danger. And it unites,” says young Spaniard Andrea Noche Ferreira, whom we met at UNIS during her stay in Svalbard, where she is taking a course on light and primary productivity as part of her doctoral thesis in coastal ecology . At a university in Norway “We are here Direct contact with top level researchersWho help us in everything. This all contributes to collective consciousness About what’s happening. In the end, we all have a common goal which is science and it is science for society,” he concluded.

Arctic geophysics student Georg Moran Bornemann was on Erasmus in Longyearbyen. “People don’t understand The magnitude of the effects of global warming could beTypically, you hear figures like the climate is going to warm by two degrees, three degrees, four degrees, when you hear three degrees, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that much.”

,Three degrees is a very significant difference,

“But if you think about it huge amount of energy that is three degrees higher In the atmosphere, it really matters a lot. And, when you consider things like desertification or what’s happening with glaciers and the impacts on water, it’s really on a much larger scale and Three degrees is a very significant difference“He warns.

Scientists are investigating to try Stop or reduce what already seems invincible And for which we are all responsible. Hilde Falun Ström does not lose hope: “We just have to make changes and more changes and start doing things differently and not focus so much on what we should stop doing, but rather what can we start doingI really believe that we can reduce the effects of climate change.” Beatriz Albiol, also a Spanish biologist, says talk less and act more“I would like a project that provides solutions rather than providing more knowledge, because the knowledge has existed for a long time and has also been ignored for a long time,” he says.

Kim Holmen, although not losing hope, loses to a some pessimism When he looks around. “Even if we stopped all emissions at once, we would still see more changes. So Svalbard will continue to change, but I hope we can save a lot of itThis can serve as an example to the world of how important it is to stop climate change,” he concluded. And he knows very well what he’s talking about.