Today (Satur­day, 27 April) at 9 a.m., the start­ing shot for the Sval­bard Ski­ma­ra­thon 2019 was fired by Sys­sel­mann Kjers­tin Askholt.

Sys­sel­mann Kjers­tin Askholt is rea­dy to fire the start­ing shot for the Sval­bard Ski­ma­ra­thon 2019.

The moment when the 2019 com­pe­ti­ti­on was a fact must have come as a bit of a reli­ef for the orga­nisers. The strong tha­wing during the week befo­re Eas­ter took a hea­vy toll on the snow con­di­ti­ons, and the rou­te had to be moved on a short war­ning. Today’s Ski­ma­ra­thon takes the par­ti­ci­pan­ts across Advent­da­len and a short turn into Mälard­a­len, then along the coast of Advent­fjord to Hior­th­hamn and Advent City and final­ly into Hanas­kog­da­len and then back again.

Start of the Sval­bard Ski­ma­ra­thon 2019.

In addi­ti­on comes the strike of the SAS pilots. Many had hoped that Lon­gye­ar­by­en would be excluded from the strike as the­re are no alter­na­ti­ve means of get­ting here and away regu­lar­ly available other than fly­ing. Buses and trains are obvious­ly not an opti­on, in con­trast to many cities in main­land Scan­di­na­via. But the SAS flight Fri­day after­noon was can­cel­led and more can­cel­la­ti­ons are likely to fol­low.

How many regis­tered par­ti­ci­pan­ts were unable to fly to Lon­gye­ar­by­en is not known, but it is likely to be more than just a handfull. And a few days ago, the num­ber of par­ti­ci­pan­ts was alre­a­dy a bit lower than in 2018: about 800 in con­trast to about 700. The­se figu­res are not final, as par­ti­ci­pan­ts could regis­ter up to Fri­day evening, some­thing that some locals always do, depen­ding on their moti­va­ti­on sta­tus of the day and the wea­ther fore­cast.

Pre-race award cerem­o­ny 🙂

Today’s Sval­bard Ski­ma­ra­thon is the 27th one. It is one of the lar­gest regu­lar events in the calen­dar for Lon­gye­ar­by­en, attrac­ting inter­na­tio­nal par­ti­ci­pan­ts from many count­ries.

A gre­at day with much fun to all par­ti­ci­pan­ts and all others invol­ved!

Snow melt – 4 weeks too ear­ly

Yes, this is how the last ent­ry star­ted as well. It is not gre­at. Yes, the­re have always been mild air incur­si­ons with tha­wing tem­pe­ra­tures and rain in Spits­ber­gen, even in mid-win­ter. The cli­ma­te here is mari­ti­me.

But a who­le week? In April, a month that tends to be quite sta­ble other­wi­se? That is quite tough.

The wea­ther fore­cast for Lon­gye­ar­by­en from last Wed­nes­day
(© Nor­we­gi­an Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te).

This is what the wea­ther fore­cast loo­ked like on Wed­nes­day. Tem­pe­ra­tures in red, abo­ve zero, and rain. This is how it was pret­ty much all of the week, from Mon­day to Fri­day. Today (Satur­day), the­re is some mild frost again, at least.

The river­bed of Lon­gye­a­rel­va had to be ope­ned to pre­vent floo­ding of the road.

Whe­re­ver you look, it is sad. It is mel­ting and flowing ever­y­whe­re. The­re are ponds and lakes ins­tead of white snow sur­faces, smal­ler rivers have star­ted to flow again, tun­dra are­as are coming through the wet snow.

The Tun­dra is coming through the snow,
here in Bjørn­da­len in the begin­ning of this snow melt week.

They had to come with a dig­ging machi­ne to clear the river bed of Lon­gye­a­rel­va, the river in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, from snow to pre­vent the road from being floo­ded. That is a nor­mal pro­ce­du­re – but not in mid April (it was on Thurs­day).

The camp­si­te is a lake. The­re was actual­ly one lonely cam­per a week ago, but he left for some reason.

The camp­si­te near Lon­gye­ar­by­en is a lake.

Eas­ter weekend with ques­ti­on marks

The Eas­ter weekend has begun, one of the main tou­rist sea­sons in Nor­way. Ever­y­bo­dy is out and about, on tour some­whe­re, on holi­day or visi­ting someone. Pre­fer­a­b­ly some­thing that has to do with a hut, snow and ski, alter­na­tively a boat will also do.

A boat might actual­ly be the bet­ter opti­on than the kind of tour that you would expect in Spits­ber­gen at this time of year. White, wide snow land­scapes, snow mobi­le trips to places far away or dog sledge tours and ski hikes some­whe­re around Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

But, alas, ever­y­thing is grey and wet and water is flowing ever­y­whe­re. The hotels are ful­ly boo­ked, pla­nes come every day with eas­ter tou­rists who have boo­ked rooms and trips for stun­ning pri­ces, loo­king for­ward to a tas­te of the real Arc­tic.

Right place, but wrong time.

Ins­tead, mine 3, which is a muse­um mine now, is get­ting a lot of visi­tors. This is one of few places whe­re you can book an inte­res­t­ing excur­si­on right now regard­less of the wea­ther con­di­ti­ons, as long as the road is open. Not the kind of expe­ri­ence most would have thought of when they plan­ned their trip, but cer­tain­ly a very inte­res­t­ing expe­ri­ence.

Just for the sake of com­ple­ten­ess: they are still run­ning some snow mobi­le tours, obvious­ly under rather mar­gi­nal con­di­ti­ons.

Visi­ting gruve 3, the visi­tor mine.

Today (Eas­ter Satur­day), the­re is some mild frost again, and tem­pe­ra­tures are sup­po­sed to fall tomor­row. We will see if we get a bit more win­ter here again, or if the win­ter sea­son is alre­a­dy over. That is a ques­ti­on many are con­side­ring in Lon­gye­ar­by­en now.

Mid­night sun: next sun­ri­se August

The­re is no “night” any­mo­re in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The last sun­set was on Thurs­day, the mid­night sun is shi­ning sin­ce yes­ter­day (Good Fri­day). The next sun­set will be on 26 August – at 00.05 a.m., which means it is actual­ly the 25 August, astro­no­mic­al­ly (becau­se of day­light saving time, astro­no­mic­al mid­night is near 01 a.m.)

Cli­ma­te in Lon­gye­ar­by­en war­mer than avera­ge sin­ce 100 months

Febru­ary and March 2019 have most­ly been cold months with tem­pe­ra­tures around -20 degrees cen­ti­gra­de and below over many peri­ods, but it has not been enough to reach the month­ly avera­ge. Also in March, the avera­ge tem­pe­ra­tu­re of the months was abo­ve the long-term avera­ge. This was the 100th month in a row that the tem­pe­ra­tu­re (avera­ge of the month) was abo­ve the long-term avera­ge – more than 8 years, in other words, as cli­ma­te sci­en­tist Kje­til Isak­sen reports to Sval­bard­pos­ten.

Refe­rence peri­od: 1960-1990

The refe­rence peri­od for the long-term avera­ge is 1960-1990. The nor­mal tem­pe­ra­tu­re from this peri­od is histo­ry: cli­ma­te chan­ge is three times fas­ter in Spits­ber­gen than in main­land Nor­way and six times fas­ter than glo­bal­ly. Accor­ding to Isak­sen, this is lar­ge­ly due to increased water tem­pe­ra­tures in the fjords and sur­roun­ding seas: the­re is more heat exch­an­ge bet­ween sea and atmo­sphe­re than befo­re and the decreased ice cover enables the water to absorb sun radia­ti­on and turn it into heat rather than reflec­ting a hig­her pro­por­ti­on back into space as pre­vious­ly.

Ava­lan­che bar­riers as an adapt­a­ti­on to cli­ma­te chan­ge in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

Sci­en­tists do not expect this trend to stop at any time soon. In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, the com­mu­ni­ty is adap­ting to a new cli­ma­te.

Ava­lan­che bar­riers on Suk­ker­top­pen clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

After the cata­stro­phic ava­lan­che from 19 Decem­ber 2015 which has clai­med two lives, hundreds of inha­bi­tants are evacua­ted every year during the ava­lan­che sea­son, many of them for seve­ral months. Plans are curr­ent­ly made to tear down buil­dings with 142 flats in are­as which are at risk from ava­lan­ches. Housing shorta­ge and an over­hea­ted housing mar­ket are chal­lenges that many locals in Lon­gye­ar­by­en curr­ent­ly have to deal with.

Barents­burg

Also in Barents­burg peo­p­le are awa­re of the­se deve­lo­p­ments and an ava­lan­che risk map has recent­ly been published. Some buil­dings are in are­as at risk and would not be built now whe­re they are today. But it is assu­med that the situa­ti­on can be con­trol­led tech­ni­cal­ly, wit­hout moving or tearing down buil­dings.