The recent ice deve­lo­p­ment is more than inte­res­t­ing and it is well worth to have a look at the latest ice­chart. It is a long time ago sin­ce the­re has been simi­lar­ly litt­le ice in the nor­the­ast Atlan­tic, and one can only hope that the near future will see more ice again near the coasts of Spits­ber­gen and Franz Josef Land after the usu­al sea­so­nal mini­mum in late Sep­tem­ber.

The ice chart as of Sep­tem­ber 20 (© Nor­we­gi­an meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal insti­tu­te, met.no).

Source: http://www.met.no/Hav_og_is/

While Norway’s public atten­ti­on was focus­sed on the pro­cess against ass­as­sin Brei­vik, the Nor­we­gi­an oil giant Sta­toil has announ­ced more explo­ra­ti­ve acti­vi­ty for 2013. 2 or 3 explo­ra­ti­ve wells are plan­ned for the Hoop field, 250 km north of Sørøya which is near Norway’s North Cape, are plan­ned for the 2013 sea­son. The well are just a good 100 nau­ti­cal miles sou­the­ast of Bear Island.

The swift pro­gress is met with cri­ti­zism by envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­sa­ti­ons: the Hoop field is not far from the sea­so­nal ice edge and the eco­lo­gi­cal­ly very important polar front, but far from capa­ci­ties in case of acci­dents and oil spills.

Source: NRK

Spitsbergen’s hotels and guest­hou­ses have had 11,200 over­nights in July 2012, near 2/3 of the­se con­nec­ted to tou­rism. 56 % of the guests were Nor­we­gi­an, 8 % less than in July 2011, which means that inter­na­tio­nal tou­rism has seen a rela­ti­ve increase of importance.

The tur­no­ver growth of 3% is accor­din­gly due to increased pri­ces.

Source: Sta­tis­ti­sches Zen­tral­bü­ro Nor­we­gen

38,500 pas­sen­gers have visi­ted Spits­ber­gen during the 2012 sea­son, a growth of 75 % com­pared to 2011. The growth is within the sec­tor of big­ger over­sea crui­se ships, which are signi­fi­cant­ly incre­asing in size. The num­ber of ship visits has remain­ed rela­tively con­stant, and so did the num­ber of pas­sen­gers and ships within the sec­tor of small expe­di­ti­on crui­se ships.

An avera­ge growth of 41 % is repor­ted from other ports in nor­t­hern Nor­way.

Source: NRK

Last week a small sai­ling­boat crui­sing the north coast of Spits­ber­gen sank after it got into shal­low water. The two 70 year old eng­lish sai­lers could be res­cued by heli­c­op­ter after they had spent two hours in their rub­ber life boat. Due to a tech­ni­cal defect, they could not use their life raft. Final­ly they mana­ged to inf­la­te a rub­ber boat which was also on board. Despi­te real bad fly­ing con­di­ti­ons and snow­fall the heli­c­op­ter could trans­fer the sai­lers to Lon­gye­ar­by­en hos­pi­tal.

The shal­lows near the mouth of Raud­fjord are cle­ar­ly mark­ed on nau­ti­cal charts.

On Sun­day (Sep­tem­ber 02), the­re was a weak sub­ma­ri­ne ear­th­qua­ke, force 5.2 on the Rich­ter sca­le. It was too weak to make its­elf felt in the sett­le­ments of Spits­ber­gen. If at all, then an alert obser­ver in Ny Åle­sund, the sett­le­ment nea­rest the epi­cent­re, might have obser­ved the ground moti­on.

Two days ear­lier, the­re was a stron­ger ear­th­qua­ke near Jan May­en, which was cle­ar­ly felt at the sta­ti­on on Jan May­en and cau­sed some minor dama­ge. The midd­le ocea­nic ridge bet­ween Spits­ber­gen and Green­land is a con­stant source for fre­quent ear­th­qua­kes, but only rare­ly stron­ger ones. Spits­ber­gen its­elf is not an ear­th­qua­ke zone, except a minor ear­th­qua­ke zone in Storfjord, and ear­th­qua­kes strong enough to be obser­ved by peo­p­le are rare events.

Source: Lofo­ten-Tid­ende

Polar bear alarm sys­tems for camps are a nui­sance: essen­ti­al for safe­ty unless you have a relia­ble polar dog or enough man­power to hand­le a night­watch, but curr­ent­ly hard to obtain local­ly in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. In Octo­ber 2011, this page repor­ted about a Bri­tish sys­tem made and dis­tri­bu­ted by Arc­tic Limi­t­ed. First user reports are now available.

Next to the fact that the sys­tem from Arc­tic Ltd. is, in con­trast to other ones, easi­ly available, it has seve­ral advan­ta­ges in com­pa­ri­son to other sys­tems which have com­mon­ly been used in Spits­ber­gen until recent­ly. With older sys­tems, the one-way com­pon­ents (the ban­gers) were the hea­vy and expen­si­ve parts. With the sys­tem from Arc­tic Ltd., the hea­vy and (rela­tively) expen­si­ve parts are the trig­ger mecha­nisms, which last fore­ver. The ban­gers are blank car­tridges: shot car­tridges depri­ved of the shot, so they are cheap and light­weight and can be car­ri­ed in num­bers. This is useful, as it is hard to avo­id occa­sio­nal unin­ten­ded trig­ge­ring (wind, inob­ser­van­ce, reinde­er, …).

User reports agree that the bang should be lou­der. Accor­ding to Arc­tic Ltd., spe­cial ban­gers are available that meet this demand. Ano­ther ques­ti­on is that of the ide­al string, which should be as thin as pos­si­ble to be invi­si­ble for polar bears and to avo­id unin­ten­ded trig­ge­ring. It has, howe­ver, to be very strong and it should not be ela­s­tic (then a bear might feel it befo­re the sys­tem trig­gers).

Strong posts are essen­ti­al for relia­ble func­tio­ning. For the aut­hor, alu­mi­ni­um pipes have ser­ved the pur­po­se well. Relia­ble ancho­ring to the out­side of the camp with thin cords and tent pegs or hea­vy stones is also cri­ti­cal, other­wi­se pul­ling the string may bend the posts rather than trig­ger the ban­gers.

Two sets of trig­gers and strings, one hig­her and one lower on the same set of posts around the camp, will also increase safe­ty noti­ce­ab­ly.

The importance of pro­per­ly set­ting up a good sys­tem must not be under­sti­ma­ted, as is shown by the dead­ly attach of a polar bear on a Bri­tish camp in Spits­ber­gen in August 2011 (see reports on the­se pages).

The Nor­we­gi­an Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal insti­tu­te is fol­lo­wing the drift ice deve­lo­p­ment in the arc­tic sin­ce 30 years now, and simi­lar insti­tu­ti­ons in other arc­tic nati­ons do the same with simi­lar results: the­re has never been less ice than the­re is now. Even in Sep­tem­ber 2007, the mini­mum year so far, the­re was more ice than now. The­re are about 3 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­t­res ice less than in 1979, an area 8 times lar­ger than Nor­way (wit­hout Spits­ber­gen).

It is not only the area that is lost, but also the chan­ge in qua­li­ty that makes experts worry. In the past, arc­tic sea ice used to be lar­ge­ly of lar­ge, strong, thick floes mul­ti-year ice. The­se have lar­ge­ly dis­ap­peared. Now, most of the ice con­sists of much thin­ner one-year ice, which does not compa­re to the stron­ger, older ice in thic­k­ness, sta­bi­li­ty and as a habi­tat for the arc­tic eco­sys­tem.

The drift ice is curr­ent­ly far north from any coast in the Spits­ber­gen archi­pe­la­go, but the ice loss is far more dra­ma­tic on the other side of the arc­tic, north of wes­tern arc­tic Cana­da, Alas­ka and Sibe­ria.

Source: Nor­we­gi­sches Meteo­ro­lo­gi­sches Insti­tut