Record mel­ting of Svalbard’s gla­ciers in 2024

It will hard­ly sur­pri­se anyo­ne, con­side­ring the warm sum­mer with new tem­pe­ra­tu­re records, such as the war­mest tem­pe­ra­tu­re ever mea­su­red in Sval­bard in August: the arc­tic gla­ciers have suf­fe­r­ed mas­si­ve­ly this year. Espe­ci­al­ly in Sval­bard, whe­re cli­ma­te chan­ge is hap­pe­ning seven (!) times fas­ter than the glo­bal avera­ge, as gla­cio­lo­gist Emma Wad­ham from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø told the Barents Obser­ver. Just on 23 July 2024, a record-warm day, the gla­ciers lost 55 mil­li­me­t­res of water equi­va­lent or five times the nor­mal value, accor­ding to cli­ma­to­lo­gist Xavier Fett­weis from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Liè­ge, who ana­ly­sed satel­li­te images. And that was just one day in a week-long peri­od in which tem­pe­ra­tures were on avera­ge around 4 degrees abo­ve the long-term avera­ge for this peri­od.

Melt­wa­ter on a gla­cier sur­face.

The trend towards mel­ting is par­ti­cu­lar­ly pro­no­un­ced in Sval­bard, but it is pre­sent throug­hout the Arc­tic. The loss of ice on land in turn has feed­back effects on the cli­ma­te: land absorbs more solar radia­ti­on than ice and snow and the­r­e­fo­re warms up even fas­ter; to a les­ser ext­ent, this also appli­es to expo­sed ice com­pared to snow.

Edge of a small ice cap on Storøya in nor­the­ast Sval­bard. Num­e­rous small melt­wa­ter chan­nels are visi­ble on the sur­face of the ice cap. Wet firn and expo­sed ice absorb more solar radia­ti­on than dry, white snow, which leads to increased mel­ting. The ice-free land that is now expo­sed next to the ice cap is also bet­ter able to con­vert solar radia­ti­on into heat.

The impact on the mari­ne eco­sys­tem is yet ano­ther issue: incre­asing amounts of sedi­ment-laden melt­wa­ter are flowing into the pre­vious­ly most­ly clear water of the fjords and coas­tal waters. Due to its sedi­ment load, the melt­wa­ter is mur­ky and opaque, allo­wing litt­le light to pass through. This in turn has an impact on algae growth, which is depen­dent on light for pho­to­syn­the­sis.

Melt­wa­ter with sedi­ment load at Mona­co­b­reen in Lief­defjord.

But the chan­ges of the mari­ne eco­sys­tem of the Arc­tic are ano­ther sto­ry. More about that later.

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