On Sun­day (August 6) mor­ning, a pri­va­te yacht got into a dra­ma­tic situa­ti­on at sea in Sval­bard. It took water and was not far from sin­king. Three per­sons were on board, all of them Ger­man. They are all well now. The inci­dent took case near Dunder­buk­ta, at the west coast of Spits­ber­gen south of Bell­sund.

The crew cal­led for help via Ger­man res­cue ser­vices, who alar­med the Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties. The three, who were alre­a­dy on board their life raft at that time, were then taken on board the Nor­we­gi­an car­go ship Norb­jørn. Norb­jørn also star­ted to tow the sai­ling boat. The three res­cued per­sons remain­ed on Norb­jørn for the pas­sa­ge to Lon­gye­ar­by­en, which they pre­fer­red rather than a flight on the heli­c­op­ter which was soon on the sce­ne. Their sai­ling boat was towed to Lon­gye­ar­by­en by the pilot boat from the port of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

It tur­ned out that a hose that con­nec­ted a sep­tic tank to the hull had got loo­se, enab­ling water to rush into the boat.

Accor­ding to the Sys­sel­man­nen, the case will be han­ded over to the insu­ran­ces wit­hout fur­ther poli­ce invol­vement.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

If you want to tra­vel to Spits­ber­gen in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly way, per­haps you should join the­se five men: the Nor­we­gi­an Tor Wigum, the Welsh­man Jeff Wil­lis, the Ame­ri­can Car­lo Fac­chi­no, the Indi­an Roy Tat­ha­ga­ta and the Ice­lan­dic Fiann Paul want to row from Trom­sø to Spits­ber­gen today!

Fiann Paul is the lea­der of this expe­di­ti­on named “Polar Row”. The­re is no doubt about his qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on. He has alre­a­dy crossed the Atlan­tic Oce­an, the Paci­fic Oce­an and the Indi­an Oce­an in record time in a rowing boat. Fiann Paul has pre­pared the expe­di­ti­on for one year. Sin­ce the oars­men can not expect any help from sea curr­ents, they will have to row con­ti­nuous­ly 24 hours a day. In doing so, the team chan­ges with the tasks: Some will row for two hours. During this time, the others may eat, sleep or inspect the boats or their own inju­ries.

It is plan­ned to tra­vel the almost 1000 kilo­me­ters long rou­te in 9 to 13 days. The expe­di­ti­on will arri­ve in Lon­gye­ar­by­en at the latest in the begin­ning of August.

Ple­nty of equip­ment and strong ner­ves

Expe­di­ti­on lea­der Fiann Paul doesn’t worry too much about the phy­si­cal effort or the cold. All par­ti­ci­pan­ts are phy­si­cal­ly and men­tal­ly very strong, he told the news­pa­per Sval­bard­pos­ten. An accom­pany­ing boat is not included, but safe­ty equip­ment such as sur­vi­val suits, res­cue ves­ts, a res­cue boat and a satel­li­te pho­ne. Only if the equip­ment fails or the­re are pro­blems with the boat, it could be dif­fi­cult.

If the expe­di­ti­on suc­ceeds, it should be the first regis­tered rowing tour of this kind. Howe­ver, the­re are sto­ries of peo­p­le who have tra­ve­led the rou­te bet­ween Trom­sø and Spits­ber­gen (or a part of it) in a rowing boat due to a ship­w­reck.

Rowing for a good cau­se

The expe­di­ti­on also pur­sues two fur­ther goals: the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge will inves­ti­ga­te how the extre­me tour affects the par­ti­ci­pan­ts psy­che. In addi­ti­on, 20,000 Bri­tish pounds (around € 22,600) are to be coll­ec­ted via a crowd­fun­ding plat­form. With this money a school will be built in the Hima­la­yan regi­on in 2018.

And Lon­gye­ar­by­en is not yet the end of the expe­di­ti­on. After a few days break, they will con­ti­nue to the nor­t­hern­most city of Ice­land Sig­luf­jörður – about 2000 km, also in the rowing boat.

To the expe­di­ti­ons home­page.

Sources: Sval­bard­pos­ten, Polar­row-Home­page

The Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te coun­ted 1374 Sval­bard reinde­er in the Advent­da­len around Lon­gye­ar­by­en this year. Many cal­ves were obser­ved and only a few dead reinde­er found. This is a trend that has been obser­ved for years: The reinde­er popu­la­ti­on has been gro­wing slight­ly in this regi­on for years.

The reinde­er have been coun­ted sin­ce 1979 on Spits­ber­gen by the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te and the Sys­sel­man­nen – the Gover­nor of Spits­ber­gen. At that time only 457 reinde­er were coun­ted in Advent­da­len. It is esti­ma­ted that a total of 10.000 to 11.000 reinde­er live on Spits­ber­gen.

Cli­ma­te chan­ge has variu­os effects

Up to now, it has been assu­med that reinde­er suf­fer from the incre­asing rain. In win­ter, the rain forms a lay­er of ice on the ground and the reinde­er have more dif­fi­cul­ties approa­ching the lichens and gras­ses. Hig­her tem­pe­ra­tures in the autumn seem to com­pen­sa­te for the dete­rio­ra­ti­on in the living con­di­ti­ons for reinde­er. Last year, high tem­pe­ra­tures in Octo­ber and Novem­ber made it pos­si­ble for the reinde­er to build fat reser­ves so they could sur­vi­ve the cold win­ter.

The situa­ti­on is a bit dif­fe­rent for reinde­er north of Spits­ber­gen: on the Brøg­ger­hal­vøya peninsula/ Kongsfjor­den, the stock remains sta­ble. Here, the fjords have remain­ed free of ice in recent years, so that the Reinde­er can hard­ly migra­te to avo­id bad fee­ding con­di­ti­ons.
Glo­bal warm­ing could the­r­e­fo­re have dif­fe­rent effects in the dif­fe­rent cli­ma­te zones on Spits­ber­gen.

Less dead reinde­er in the Advent­da­len could mean bad news for ano­ther spe­ci­es: The polar fox feeds from reinde­er car­cas­ses. Less dead reinde­er means, he must switch to other food sources.

More artic­les about the Sval­bard reinde­er

Source: Nord­lys, Sval­bard­pos­ten

If sea ice is gra­du­al­ly with­dra­wing as a result of cli­ma­te chan­ge, the level of mer­cu­ry in polar bears could decrease.

In an US-Ame­ri­can stu­dy, hair samples of polar bears were inves­ti­ga­ted in the Beau­fort Sea north of Alas­ka from 2004 to 2011. The result: In male ani­mals, the levels of mer­cu­ry decli­ned by about 13% per year, but not in fema­les. This is pro­ba­b­ly due to dif­fe­rent fora­ging habits of the sexes. Fema­le polar bears cha­se main­ly rin­ged seals from the ice, which in turn feed on mer­cu­ry-con­ta­mi­na­ted fish. Male polar bears also feed from land on beard­ed seals and stran­ded bowhead wha­les, which are only slight­ly con­ta­mi­na­ted with mer­cu­ry.

If the ice in the polar regi­ons is now more and more decli­ning due to cli­ma­te chan­ge, polar bears could incre­asing­ly shift their fora­ging habits to prey which can be found on land, e.g. stran­ded bowhead wha­les.

Accor­ding to the stu­dy, the lower con­cen­tra­ti­on of mer­cu­ry in the polar bears is not a con­se­quence of a redu­ced mer­cu­ry con­cen­tra­ti­on in the envi­ron­ment.

Source: ACS Publi­ca­ti­ons

In mid-Febru­ary, an ava­lan­che from the moun­tain Suk­ker­top­pen hit hou­ses in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and des­troy­ed two buil­dings. 92 house­holds were evacua­ted. The last inha­bi­tants in way 226 could now return to their hou­ses on the weekend.

Whe­ther and for how long they can stay in their homes is still com­ple­te­ly unclear. Exten­si­ve secu­ri­ty mea­su­res are plan­ned to pro­tect the hou­ses from ava­lan­ches. Howe­ver, seve­ral hou­ses in the ava­lan­che area may have to be demo­lished. Pro­ba­b­ly the resi­dents in way 226 can only use their hou­ses during the sum­mer.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

An auto­psy reve­a­led shot­gun ammu­ni­ti­on in the fat tis­sue of the bodies of two polar bears. One, a fema­le with a cub, was shot in June 2016 in Aus­t­fj­ord­nes. Only two months later a Rus­si­an rese­ar­cher shot ano­ther fema­le polar bear in For­lan­det.

The shot was encap­su­la­ted in the fat and fle­sh of the bears in both ani­mals, which means it must have hit them well befo­re they were kil­led in 2016. Ammu­ni­ti­on was found in seve­ral places of the bodies. Knut Fos­sum, envi­ron­men­tal direc­tor for the Sys­sel­man­nen (Gover­nor of Spits­ber­gen), pre­su­mes that the shots were fired from a rela­tively short distance. Pro­ba­b­ly someone wan­ted to sca­re away the polar bears with pel­lets, but hit them. Shot is unli­kely to hurt a polar bear serious­ly, but serious inju­ry may occur if, for exam­p­le, a joint or an eye is hit. Vete­ri­na­ri­ans refer to the case of a reinde­er that was kil­led with an air­gun. Addi­tio­nal­ly, even smal­ler inju­ries may lead to pain and inflamm­a­ti­on.

Polar bears are strict­ly pro­tec­ted on Spits­ber­gen, inju­ring them or kil­ling them will be punis­hed. Shoo­ting at a bear with shot­guns to sca­re it away is both unsui­ta­ble and ille­gal.

How long the polar bears alre­a­dy car­ri­ed the ammu­nii­on in their bodies and whe­ther they suf­fe­r­ed from pain, is not cer­tain.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Inter­na­tio­nal media repor­ted for seve­ral weeks about a lecka­ge in the Glo­bal Seed Vault, whe­re seeds of all count­ries are stored for thou­sands of years.

The floo­ding actual­ly hap­pen­ed – but alre­a­dy in Octo­ber 2016! An artic­le in the Nor­we­gi­an news­pa­per Dag­bla­det in May 2017 men­tio­ned the leaka­ge with cor­rect date. But on 19th May 2017 an inat­ten­ti­ve jour­na­list of “The Guar­di­an” made a cur­rent mes­sa­ge out of that artic­le. High tem­pe­ra­tures in com­bi­na­ti­on with weeks of rai­ny wea­ther were men­tio­ned, which final­ly led to a flood in the ent­rance area of the Glo­bal Seed Vault. Ever­y­thing cor­rect, just more than half a year ago.

A mes­sa­ge, but no news

Even the big media hou­ses Reu­ters and Vox jum­ped on the band­wagon, appar­ent­ly wit­hout che­cking the source. A pho­ne call to Hege Njaa Aschim would have been enough to cla­ri­fy the misun­derstan­ding. Aschim is press offi­cer of Stats­bygg, a sta­te-run com­pa­ny who mana­ges and main­ta­ins the Glo­bal Seed Vault. But after all, num­e­rous other news­pa­pers, radio and TV sta­ti­ons wan­ted to know more pre­cis­e­ly: Hundreds of press requests rea­ched Aschim in one week! She could cor­rect, that it was a real mes­sa­ge, but not real­ly news.

Decep­ti­ve secu­ri­ty?

The fact that the Glo­bal Seed Vault, which has actual­ly been con­s­truc­ted for eter­ni­ty, must alre­a­dy be repai­red after less than ten years, seems almost less important now. The actu­al camp, which now con­ta­ins near­ly one mil­li­on seed packets from 73 insti­tu­tes and gene banks, was not affec­ted by the water. Howe­ver, a trans­for­mer was des­troy­ed and the fire bri­ga­de had to pump the tun­nel, which leads 100 meters down to the actu­al camp.

Deep­ly locked in in the per­ma­frost, the Glo­bal Seed Vault was belie­ved to be safe from floo­ding. Now inves­ti­ga­ti­ons are to be made as to how the camp can be secu­red against warm peri­ods. 37 mil­li­on crowns (ca. 3,8 mil­li­on Euros) will be pro­vi­ded for that.

Source: Dagens Nærings­liv

This is shown by satel­li­te images, that the Ame­ri­can Geo­phy­si­cal Uni­on has published. Bet­ween 1990 and 2016 the gla­cier has retrea­ted seven kilo­me­ters.

The Hin­lo­pen gla­cier in the north-east of Spits­ber­gen is a so-cal­led sur­ge-gla­cier. That means, that lon­ger peri­ods with nor­mal flow speed alter­na­te with shorter peri­ods, in which the gla­cier flows 10 to 1.000 times fas­ter. The last sur­ge hap­pen­ed from 1970-1971, when the gla­cier pushed 2.5 km into the fjord in one year. It moved up to 12 meters a day then.

The decrease in ice, that has now been obser­ved, has pro­ba­b­ly not­hing to do with the­se nor­mal fluc­tua­tions which are con­nec­ted to the glacier’s inter­nal mecha­nics. If a sur­ge-gla­cier retre­ats, the ice usual­ly accu­mu­la­tes in the accu­mu­la­ti­on area: it is thi­c­ke­ning. At the Hin­lo­pen gla­cier it was obser­ved, that the ice on the upper gla­cier is also thin­ning. This sug­gests that it is not the ear­ly stage of a sur­ge pro­cess, but cli­ma­te chan­ge that is respon­si­ble for the retre­at of the Hin­lo­pen gla­cier.

Other gla­ciers on Spits­ber­gen are also under­go­ing a simi­lar deve­lo­p­ment, such as the Pai­er­breen, Horn­breen, Bes­sel­breen and Svitjod­breen.

Source: AGU

On April 27, a gui­ded group bro­ke through the ice in Tem­pel­fjord (see spitsbergen-svalbard.com news from April). Four per­sons spent up to 48 minu­tes in ice cold water until they were res­cued by SAR forces with heli­c­op­ters. Most vic­tims could soon be released from tre­at­ment. One gui­de, howe­ver, was was kept in inten­si­ve care in the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal Nordn­or­ge in Trom­sø (UNN).

The hos­pi­tal infor­med the public today that the man died during the night from Sun­day to Mon­day.

He was a Rus­si­an citi­zen, bet­ween 30 and 40 years old.

As far as is known, he was the first gui­de who died due to an acci­dent that hap­pen­ed during a tour with guests in Sval­bard.

The acci­dent is still inves­ti­ga­ted by Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties. So far, no fur­ther details have been released bey­ond tho­se descri­bed in the artic­le in April.

Tem­pel­fjord with poor ice con­di­ti­ons in spring 2014.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Most trips in Spits­ber­gen 2017 are lar­ge­ly ful­ly boo­ked, as are our trips to Ant­ar­c­ti­ca and Pata­go­ni­an in 2018. The fol­lo­wing tickets are curr­ent­ly still available:

(Plea­se note: all of the trips are Ger­man spea­king. For this reason, the links lead to detail­ed descrip­ti­ons of the trips in Ger­man.)

• Spits­ber­gen (27.6.-14.7.2017) with SV Anti­gua: one bed in a fema­le twin cabin is available again after a recent can­cel­la­ti­on.
• Hiking and pho­to­gra­phy in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Pyra­mi­den (4.-11.9.2017): a small num­ber of tickets is still available.
• Ant­ar­c­ti­ca under sails with SY Anne-Mar­ga­re­tha (15.1.-8.2.2018): One sin­gle ticket in a fema­le twin cabin is still to be had.
• Pata­go­ni­en unter Segeln mit SY Anne-Mar­ga­re­tha (11.3.-4.4.2018): one twin cabin is available again due to a can­cel­la­ti­on.

Plea­se do not hesi­ta­te to get in touch with me if you have ques­ti­ons about the trips. For reser­va­tions and boo­king, plea­se get in touch with the Geo­gra­phi­schen Rei­se­ge­sell­schaft.

Update from Fri­day: one per­son, the gui­de, is still cri­ti­cal­ly unsta­ble and under advan­ced inten­si­ve care in Trom­sø. It was said today that it was four per­sons who actual­ly ended up in the water. Some of the group have alre­a­dy retur­ned to Rus­sia via Nor­way.

Updates from Satur­day are in the text, high­ligh­ted with bold for­mat­ting.

In the late after­noon today (April 27), a group of snow mobi­le tou­rists bro­ke through the ice in Tem­pel­fjord. The alarm went clo­se to 18:00. To start with the most important bit of infor­ma­ti­on: all per­sons seem to be in safe­ty by now, the­re are reports about three per­sons being serious­ly inju­red. The sta­tus of two is descri­bed as cri­ti­cal.

It was a group of nine per­sons inclu­ding one gui­de, all of Rus­si­an natio­na­li­ty, that bro­ke through the ice in Tem­pel­fjord bet­ween Kapp Mur­doch and Kapp Schoultz. Short­ly after the emer­gen­cy call, Nor­we­gi­an SAR forces were on loca­ti­on with heli­c­op­ters and a coast guard ship and star­ted to res­cue per­sons out of the water. Seve­ral per­sons are now in the hos­pi­tal in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, pla­nes star­ted from Trom­sø with addi­tio­nal medi­cal per­son­nel and equip­ment and to pos­si­bly evacua­te pati­ents to the main­land. Update: one is still in cri­ti­cal con­di­ti­on. It is one of the gui­des, who was in the cold water for almost an hour. He got a car­diac arrest while he was lifted out of the water.

Three per­sons were repor­ted miss­ing, but it seems that they were quick­ly res­cued by ano­ther group, taken to Fred­heim, a hut on the sou­thern side of Tem­pel­fjord, and taken care of the­re.

The group included about 24 per­sons in total, with seve­ral gui­des, but 11 did not get invol­ved in the actu­al acci­dent. The group was on the way from Pyra­mi­den to Lon­gye­ar­by­en, as part of a seve­ral day long trip orga­ni­zed by Arc­tic Tra­vel Com­pa­ny Gru­mant, a Rus­si­an tour ope­ra­tor in Barents­burg. The part of the group not direct­ly invol­ved retur­ned to Pyra­mi­den.

Details about the acci­dent are not yet available. The ice in Tem­pel­fjord has beco­me incre­asing­ly unre­lia­ble in recent years, to the degree that it was more or less absent in some years. In the last cou­ple of weeks, howe­ver, it was tra­ver­sed fre­quent­ly. Update: the ice was recent­ly crossed by pri­va­te per­sons, but major tour ope­ra­tors from Lon­gye­ar­by­en did not cross the ice in Tem­pel­fjord during their tours, or only near the shore. The thic­k­ness of the ice in cen­tral parts was less than requi­red by com­mon safe­ty rou­ti­nes.

Near Kapp Mur­doch, the­re is a per­ma­nent local zone of weak­ne­ss in the ice. This weak spot, which is local­ly well known and cal­led Mur­doch-råka, had led to acci­dents befo­re. It is not yet known if this was the site of today’s acci­dent or if it hap­pen­ed some­whe­re else. Update: the acci­dent did not hap­pen at the Mur­doch-råka, but some­whe­re on a more or less straight line from Kapp Mur­doch to Fred­heim, clo­ser to the sou­thern side of the fjord, so the Mur­doch-hole was defi­ni­te­ly not invol­ved.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen, Sval­bard­pos­ten, NRK

In a bun­ker in Lon­gye­ar­by­en digi­tal data will be stored and saved over gene­ra­ti­ons, a pro­ject cal­led Arc­tic World Archi­ve. We alre­a­dy repor­ted about the Glo­bal Seed Vault on this webs­ide: Seeds from all over the world are stored in high shel­ves, to save gene­tic mate­ri­al for the fol­lo­wing human gene­ra­ti­ons.

Now a huge data sto­rage fol­lows. The Arc­tic World Archi­ve was built clo­se to the Glo­bal Seed Vault by the Nor­we­gi­an tech­no­lo­gy pro­vi­der Piql and the mining com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske. The data can be stored safe­ly with a spe­cial tech­ni­que on light-sen­si­ti­ve film for up to one thousand years. The for­mer mine will have a con­stant tem­pe­ra­tu­re of -5 to -10 degrees Cel­si­us.

The bun­ker will be con­nec­ted to the inter­net so that com­pa­nies who want to store their data can access to it. Poten­ti­al cus­to­mers could be govern­ments and lar­ge com­pa­nies. The natio­nal archi­ves of Bra­zil and Mexi­co have alre­a­dy shown inte­rest and, of cour­se, Nor­way its­elf. The first data of the dis­trict govern­ment of Sogn og Fjor­da­ne were stored in the for­mer mine on 27 March at a depth of 300 meters.

Quel­le: wired.de, NRK

They wan­ted to reach the North Pole in Fri­dt­jof Nansen’s foot­prints, but their expe­di­ti­on ended tem­po­r­a­ri­ly on Spits­ber­gen. The French adven­turer Gil­les Elka­im and his wife Ale­xia star­ted their expe­di­ti­on last year in sum­mer in Kir­kenes with his sai­ling ves­sel Ark­ti­ka (not to be con­fu­sed with the local boat Arti­ka II from Lon­gye­ar­by­en). A visit of Spits­ber­gen was actual­ly not plan­ned befo­re 2018 – on the way back. Gil­les Elka­im and Ale­xia Elka­im actual­ly wan­ted to win­ter in the ice north of the New Sibe­ri­an Islands, to con­ti­nue the jour­ney to the North Pole with dog sleds.

Bad wea­ther and a dama­ged engi­ne

Rough wea­ther con­di­ti­ons and a dama­ged engi­ne forced them in Octo­ber last year to look for pro­tec­tion in the Duvefjord. The Duvefjord is strict­ly pro­tec­ted and a per­mit is requi­red in advan­ce for all tra­vels the­re.

Spitsbergen’s gover­nor -cal­led Sys­sel­man­nen- said that she was only infor­med by refe­rence to Elkaim’s tra­vel blog about the stay of the Ark­ti­ka in the Duvefjord. Accor­ding to his own state­ment Elka­im had infor­med the aut­ho­ri­ties on Spits­ber­gen in time on Octo­ber 8th 2016, but did not recei­ve any reac­tion. On Octo­ber 19th, the Ark­ti­ka was towed to Lon­gye­ar­by­en by Spitsbergen’s aut­ho­ri­ties.

Sin­ce Elka­im did not want to pay a fine of 25,000 crowns, he ended up in front of the court. The Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties even con­fis­ca­ted the pass­ports of Elka­im and his wife so that they could not lea­ve Spits­ber­gen. Elka­im has now been sen­ten­ced to 30,000 crowns (around 3,300 €) by the regio­nal court Nord-Troms.

Word agains word

Accor­ding to court the adven­turer has vio­la­ted seve­ral laws. The Ark­ti­ka ancho­red seve­ral times bet­ween strict­ly pro­tec­ted islands bet­ween the 24th of August and the 19th of Octo­ber. Elka­im had impor­ted dogs wit­hout per­mis­si­on and did also not pro­per­ly regis­ter their jour­ney.

Elka­im, on the other hand, sees hims­elf as a vic­tim of Nor­we­gi­an bureau­cra­cy and com­plains that he has not been ade­qua­te­ly lis­ten­ed to in the tri­al. He refers to the UN Con­ven­ti­on on the Law of the Sea, accor­ding to which ships of all count­ries have the right to cross sea are­as of other count­ries. The Con­ven­ti­on also says that ships may be ancho­red in excep­tio­nal occur­ren­ces. In fact, the UN Con­ven­ti­on on the Law of the Sea and Nor­we­gi­an envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion laws are part­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry.

Elka­im does not accept the ver­dict and wants to appeal. He also com­plains that the natu­re reser­ve is extre­me­ly pol­lu­ted with rub­bish. He told the Nor­we­gi­an sta­te chan­nel NRK on the pho­ne: “I’m not a cri­mi­nal. What is a crime about going ashore and coll­ect gar­ba­ge in an area that Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties should have clea­ned? What is the mea­ning of a natu­re reser­ve whe­re the polar bear feeds from pla­s­tic?”

Elka­im wants to stay in the Rus­si­an sett­le­ment Barents­burg until sum­mer, whe­re he was kind­ly accept­ed as he said. Then he want to tra­vel fur­ther towards the North Pole. Hop­eful­ly wit­hout any engi­ne dama­ge.

Source: NRK, Ark­ti­ka 2.0 on Face­book

The enorm­ous air pol­lu­ti­on in major Chi­ne­se cities could be rela­ted to arc­tic mel­ting sea ice. This sur­pri­sing link bet­ween glo­bal warm­ing and air pol­lu­ti­on is the result of a stu­dy, that has now been published in Sci­ence Advan­ces.

Air pol­lu­ti­on is not­hing new in China’s big cities. Howe­ver, the haze was par­ti­cu­lar­ly bad in Janu­ary 2013, whe­re the limit values were excee­ded in almost all major Chi­ne­se cities for four weeks.

Mel­ting sea ice in the Arc­tic and per­sis­tent snow­fall over Sibe­ria led to a chan­ge in air cir­cu­la­ti­on at the end of 2012. The cold air mas­ses moved towards east to Korea and Japan, while in eas­tern Chi­na the air was not moving at all. In Win­ter the­re are usual­ly strong winds in regi­ons such as Bei­jing.

The sci­en­tists are sure that mel­ting ice and hea­vy snow­fall have at least inten­si­fied the haze. They suspect that simi­lar events will hap­pen in the future and that the Olym­pic Win­ter Games in 2022 could also be affec­ted.

Foto: Erhard Stenz, Crea­ti­ve Com­mons

Quel­len: Malay­si­an Digest, Sci­ence Advan­ces

In the midd­le of Febru­ary she shows hers­elf for the first time after the long polar­night. But first on March 8th her rays reach Lon­gye­ar­by­en, which is sur­roun­ded by moun­ta­ins. The return of the sun is cele­bra­ted by the inha­bi­tants of Spits­ber­gen one week with open-air ser­vices, exhi­bi­ti­ons and con­certs. Even the ava­lan­che war­ning, which is still valid, can not cast a shadow on this event.

Many popu­lar Nor­we­gi­an musi­ci­ans are coming to Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the­se days. The Elek­tro­po Duo Bow To Each Other, the Rap­per OnklP Og De Fjer­ne Slekt­nin­ge­ne (“Uncle P and the remo­te rela­ti­ves”) and the most nor­t­hern blues band of the world, the Advent Bay Pool­boys.

The high­light of the week hap­pens on the 8th of March, when ever­y­bo­dy shows up in front of the old hos­pi­tal to wel­co­me the sun tog­e­ther. Child­ren have their necks deco­ra­ted with a yel­low felt sun. When the sun throws its rays onto the sta­ir steps of the buil­ding for the first time, she will be tra­di­tio­nal­ly gree­ted with che­ers and sin­ging and her return will be offi­ci­al­ly declared.

Sources: Sval­bard­pos­ten, Solfestuke.no