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.
The airship Norge in 1926 near Ny Ålesund before taking off for the North Pole. The logbook is now lost forever.
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!
High pressure over Greenland and the European Arctic. Image: mountainforecast.com.
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.
Result of a successful hunt on polar bears in east Greenland.
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.
This section of the calving cliff of Esmarkbreen in Ymerbukta is resting on rocks at sea level.
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!
Drift ice in Herwighamna, near the weather station on Bear Island (Bjørnøya), on 1 March 2013.
The loss of large areas of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is an ongoing process. In September 2012, new negative records were reached once again. Now there is some more information about the quality of the loss: as expected, the ice is not only shrinking in area, but also in volume. The minimum distribution, that is usually reached in September, is now down to only 20 % of what it was in 1980 – a loss of up to 80 % within just 2 decades.
These results are part of a recent study of data of US- and European research satellites. The processes driving the loss are both atmospheric and oceanic and are not yet fully understood. This makes it difficult to predict the further development in detail, but there is little doubt that the loss will continue.
The opening of the seed vault near Longyearbyen was the occasion when this Spitsbergen news site was started, which is accordingly also celebrating its 5th anniversary these days. Three cheers!
This here is entry number 245. The frequency of entries, near 1 per week in average, has certainly increased in more revent times. Since number 1, the overall appearance of this website has changed completely. Its English section has also quite recently been moved to its own URL, spitsbergen-svalbard.com.
Screenshot of one of the first entries, February 2008.
On 26 February 2008, the global seed vault near Longyearbyen was officially opened. The Norwegian minister for agriculture and food will be in Longyearbyen on Tuesday to mark the 5th anniversary of the vault. The opening in 2008 attracted worldwide media attention. Since then, more than 770,000 seed samples from most countries on the globe have been stored in the 3 halls, which are supposed to accommodate at least 1.5 million samples in the future. The natural temperature of the surrounding permafrost is -3 to -4 degrees centigrade. The temperature of the seed vault is constantly kept near -18 degrees.
The entrance is not far from the airport. It is easily seen and accessible by road. The interior is not accessible for the general public.
The vault is largely financed by, amongst others, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but also by global companies such as Monsanto, who are otherwise not known as guardians of biodiversity.
The entrance to the seed vault near Longyearbyen.
Barentsburg is currently the settlement with the strongest population growth in Spitsbergen: in early 2013, the official number of inhabitants was 471 persons or 101 more than 2 years ago. Longyearbyen has, in comparison, seen a plus of 30 during the same period. The minimum was reached in Barentsburg in 2010 with 370 persons.
The annual coal production has changed little and is still near 120,000 tons, a fraction of the production of modern coal mines elsewhere. The seams are said to last for another 12-15 years. Beyond mining, future fields of economic growth are supposed to be tourism and research. There may also be a new Russian coal mine in Colesdalen, but a decision about this is not expected before 2015.
“Our destination: communism”. This old sign is only of doubtful nostalgic value. Barentsburg’s future is supposed to be rather capitalistic.
The trapper station at Austfjordneset in inner Wijdefjord may be opened again for trappers in autumn 2014. Until 2 years ago, the station, which has a comparatively long history and is now owned by the Sysselmannen, was open for use for hunters who would stay at least one year to hunt mainly polar fox and reindeer on a professional basis. The station was then closed for reasons that are somewhat unclear. Initially, it was stated that the operation required too much of the Sysselmannen’s resources, a reasoning that was difficult to follow: the maintenance was carried out anyway regardless of potential private use (and private users would actually contribute to maintenance) and the respective users would essentially be responsible for their own logistics and expenses (although it was custom that the Sysselmannen offered transportation with their vessel Nordsyssel, for example during the annual inspection trips in the late summer). In a recent press release, attention was rather drawn to inventory work on nearby historical sites and the local reindeer populations and their recovery from earlier hunting.
The regulation for professional hunting in Spitsbergen is currently being revised. The intention is to provide a framework to keep a tradition of professional all-year hunting alive while not putting any pressure on local animal populations. There are currently 3 privately owned trapper stations in use for professional hunting: Kapp Schollin in Bellsund, Farmhamna in Forlandsund and Kapp Wijk in Isfjord.
The trapper station at Austfjordneset, inner Wijdefjord.
The first Ross Sea voyage of MV Ortelius has recently come to an end. The triplog is now available (click here). Extensive photo galleries will follow soon.
The Ross Sea coast near Coulman Island seen from the helicopter.
Milder winter weather with rain instead of snow is nothing completely new for polar areas with a maritime climate such as Spitsbergen, but there is more of it in times of climate change, a tendency expected to increase in the future. Rain that freezes to ice on cold ground during an already difficult season has always been difficult for reindeer, and an increased frequency of such events will make their already challenging life certainly not easier.
Pregnant female polar bears need slopes with good snow cover in the early polar night and good hunting grounds on sea ice in spring. Both, but especially the latter, may be lacking more and more frequently in the future with a changing climate.
Spitsbergen-reindeer in late winter. Early May 2010, Eskerdalen.
As last year, the ice in Tempelfjord (the innermost branch of Isfjord) is currently not strong enough for the two-masted schooner Noorderlicht to anchor and freeze fast for winter excursions from Longyearben. The ship moved deeper into Tempeljord and is now at anchor at Kapp Schoultz.
The relative lack of activity in the news-section of Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com is partly due to the relative lack of relevant news from Spitsbergen (look at it this way: no news are good news!), partly also to the absence of the main author, who is currently as assistant expedition leader on MV Ortelius on what could be called an “Antarctic Odyssey” from Ushuaia to New Zealand. A brief visit to the Antarctic Peninsula was followed by a successful helicopter-Landing on the rarely visited Peter I Island. The passage from there into the Ross Sea took some more time than scheduled due to heavy sea ice, but an intense 4 days brought a wealth of beauty and rich experience. The voyage brought new land not also from a geographic, but also from a photographic perspective: HDR and panorama technics were explored. Results can soon be seen on this website.