Tem­pe­ra­tu­re record from the wea­ther any­whe­re in the world, espe­ci­al­ly from the arc­tic, are get­ting more and more com­mon the­se days. On Fri­day (Octo­ber 07), the wea­ther sta­ti­on at the air­port near Lon­gye­ar­by­en recor­ded 10.1 degrees (C). This was the first time a value hig­her than 10 degrees was rea­ched in any Octo­ber sin­ce tem­pe­ra­tu­re recor­ding star­ted. The hig­hest Octo­ber tem­pe­ra­tu­re so far had been 8.9 degrees, mea­su­red in 1984. In 1961, 9.9 degrees were recor­ded. Back then, the wea­ther sta­ti­on was in Lon­gye­ar­by­en its­elf and not near the air­port (which did not exist back then) and dif­fe­rent mea­su­ring devices were used. The values can, accor­din­gly, not be com­pared direct­ly. Espe­ci­al­ly the dif­fe­rent loca­ti­on, though only a few kilo­me­t­res apart, may make a signi­fi­cant dif­fe­rent. The loca­ti­ons, near the shore of the lar­ge, open Isfjord or in Lon­gye­ar­by­en which is situa­ted in a val­ley, are meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal­ly quite dif­fe­rent.

Very impres­si­ve is ano­ther bit of infor­ma­ti­on, which is easi­ly get­ting over­loo­ked and lost in a sub-clau­se: the curr­ent­ly last time that a month was col­der than the month­ly long-term avera­ge was in Novem­ber 2010, sad 6 years ago.

The ice situa­ti­on around Spits­ber­gen is curr­ent­ly also rather sad. It has been sug­gested that last year’s poor sea ice con­di­ti­ons were lin­ked to the El Nino phe­no­me­non, which was strong then in the south Paci­fic, with glo­bal con­se­quen­ces for wea­ther and sea curr­ents. The­re has, so far, not been any impro­ve­ment regar­ding the sea ice near Spits­ber­gen.

Source: Nord­lys