Start of sum­mer sea­son 2008

Ear­ly and mid June sees the onset of the arc­tic “high sum­mer”. The sum­mer tou­rist has begun, and the first ships have alre­a­dy arri­ved Lon­gye­ar­by­en. An extra­or­di­na­ry amount of snow has fal­len during the past win­ter and spring; locals say that they have never seen so much snow befo­re. In Lon­gye­ar­by­en at sea level, most of the snow has mel­ted by now (10 June), but in many places, the­re is still a lot of snow at sea level (which on the other hand is not so uncom­mon at this sea­son).

The ice situa­ti­on seems to be “bet­ter” than in 2006 or 2007 in that sen­se that the­re seems to be more sea ice this year. Nor­t­hern and eas­tern parts of the archi­pe­la­go are still most­ly sur­roun­ded by drift ice, and it will be inte­res­t­ing to fol­low the deve­lo­p­ment throug­hout the sum­mer. In recent years, even the nor­the­as­tern­most parts of Sval­bard were acces­si­ble as ear­ly as late June/early July.

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