A fire in the muse­um of sci­ence in Nap­les (Napo­li) in Ita­ly hast led to the loss of irre­trie­va­ble arti­facts from polar histo­ry. The exhi­bi­ti­on was meant to focus on tho­se aspects of polar histo­ry which are shared by Ita­ly and Nor­way, such as the air­ship expe­di­ti­ons to the North Pole by Roald Amund­sen and Umber­to Nobi­le, who star­ted 1926 and 1928 in Ny Åle­sund. Now, both count­ries have lost some of their polar heri­ta­ge.

Accor­ding to media, fire rai­sing was the reason for the dis­as­ter, which has des­troy­ed the muse­um and thus 175 jobs. The­re is no infor­ma­ti­on about peo­p­le being inju­red. The moti­ve is belie­ved to be a local con­flict about the attrac­ti­ve muse­um estate.

Some of the lost arti­facts were brought to Nap­les from Nor­way espe­ci­al­ly for the exhi­bi­ti­on. Lost are, among­st others, the ski­es that Fri­dt­jof Nan­sen has sup­po­sedly used during his famous crossing of the Green­land inland ice in 1888, clo­thes used by Nobi­le during his North Pole flight with the Ita­lia in 1928 and the log­book of the Nor­ge, the air­ship that was used by Amund­sen, Nobi­le and Ells­worth and their crew on their famous flight from Ny Åle­sund across the North Pole to Alas­ka in 1928. It was most likely on this occa­si­on that the North Pole was seen by man.

Source: Aften­pos­ten

Spits­ber­gen is curr­ent­ly coming under strong pres­su­re – regar­ding the wea­ther. The meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal sta­ti­ons in Sval­bard are registring record-high air pres­su­re values, stron­ger than any­thing that has been mea­su­red in histo­ry of local mea­su­re­ments, which is part­ly going back into the 1920s. A new record has been estab­lished at the auto­ma­tic wea­ther sta­ti­on on small Karl XII Øya (-island) north of Nord­aus­t­land, whe­re 1054,7 hPa were regis­tered a few days ago, signi­fi­cant­ly more than the old record of 1051,9 hPa from 1929.

Nor­t­hern Green­land has curr­ent­ly part­ly even hig­her values. The high pres­su­re is respon­si­ble for a peri­od of calm, clear and cold wea­ther, much to the delight of locals and tou­rists. The fore­cast for the Eas­ter weekend in Spits­ber­gen is, howe­ver, pre­dic­ting clouds, but still tem­pe­ra­tures well below free­zing. The cold wea­ther is also bene­fi­ci­al for wild­life and the deve­lo­p­ment of fast ice in fjords and drift ice east of Spits­ber­gen. The north coast is still lar­ge­ly ice-free, due to the influence of more tem­pe­ra­te waters that have come up with the West Spits­ber­gen Cur­rent (“Gulf Stream”) from fur­ther south. On the eas­tern side, the drift ice has recent­ly even rea­ched Bjørnøya (Bear Island), whe­re the first polar bears in 2 years have alre­a­dy been seen!

Source: adressa.no

Our plans for an expe­di­ti­on to Jan May­en in 2014 are get­ting shape. We are now aiming at the time from 28 June to 12 July 2014 (from and to Isafjor­dur, Ice­land). Click here for more infor­ma­ti­on about this exci­ting trip. We have alre­a­dy more inte­res­ted peo­p­le than places available, so plea­se get in touch soon if you are inte­res­ted in joi­ning (cont­act).

The latest CITES con­fe­rence has not been suc­cessful in put­ting a ban on hun­ting polar bears. Seve­ral count­ries inclu­ding Cana­da and Green­land still allow limi­t­ed hun­ting, inclu­ding tro­phy hun­ting for rich for­eign hun­ters. As can be expec­ted, this is met with sub­stan­ti­al cri­ti­cism by envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­sa­ti­ons. During the latest CITES con­fe­rence in Bang­kok, Den­mark was among­st the count­ries that expres­sed worries about a com­ple­te ban on hun­ting. Den­mark is spea­king for Green­land inter­na­tio­nal­ly. Accor­ding to the CITES trea­ty, each EU coun­try has a vote on its own in the con­fe­rence. The­re is, howe­ver, an agree­ment that the EU count­ries agree on their vote or do not vote at all. As a result, important votes for a glo­bal ban on polar bear hun­ting were miss­ing and an agree­ment was con­se­quent­ly not rea­ched.

CITES is the legal­ly bin­ding Con­ven­ti­on on Inter­na­tio­nal Trade in End­an­ge­red Spe­ci­es of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra.

It is wide­ly accept­ed that cli­ma­te chan­ge is gene­ral­ly the most serious glo­bal thre­at for polar bears, fol­lo­wed by pol­lu­ti­on with envi­ron­men­tal toxins. But regio­nal­ly, pres­su­re from hun­ting can be signi­fi­cant, or at least its con­se­quen­ces for regio­nal popu­la­ti­ons are not unders­tood.

In Spits­ber­gen, whe­re Nor­we­gi­an law is valid, polar bears are and remain ful­ly pro­tec­ted.

Source: Spie­gel Online

The Sys­sel­man­nen have con­cluded their inves­ti­ga­ti­on of the lethal inci­dent in August 2012 at Esmark­breen (Ymer­buk­ta) (see Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com-news of August 2012). Juri­di­cal­ly, the case is now clo­sed, as no hard evi­dence for cri­mi­nal­ly rele­vant beha­vious was found.

The acci­dent hap­pen­ed on 21 August 2012 when ice mas­ses bro­ke off and fell down from the cal­ving cliff of Esmark­breen in Ymer­buk­ta. The ice did not fall into the water, but onto dry ground. Two Zodiacs of the French tou­rist boat Pola­ris I, each with 6 pas­sen­gers and a dri­ver, were in the vici­ni­ty. A woman was hit by a pie­ce of ice and died almost imme­dia­te­ly. It could not be estab­lished if the boat was clo­ser to the gla­cier than 200 met­res, which is the mini­mum distances as recom­men­ded by the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen

After a long peri­od with very litt­le ice, the drift ice has now sur­roun­ded most of the eas­tern parts of the Spits­ber­gen archi­pe­la­go. It has even rea­ched Bear Island (Bjørnøya) again, much to the delight of the crew of the wea­ther sta­ti­on!

Sources: Nor­we­gi­an ice chart, Bjørnøya-Blog of the wea­ther sta­ti­on