P.S. TLDR? Too long, don’t feel like rea­ding, rather get straight to the point? At the bot­tom of the post are the links to the new pages: Akseløya, Mid­ter­huk­ham­na and the old mines on the north side of Advent­fjord.

The last few weeks have once again been jam-packed, but it was worth it, working on the new edi­ti­on of the Spits­ber­gen gui­de­book. More on this in a few weeks from now.

Polar night atmo­sphe­re in Advent­da­len.
The pic­tu­re shows the illu­mi­na­ted cor­ner sta­ti­on of the old coal-fired cable car at End­a­len.

At the same time, I have been working on a cou­ple of pages dedi­ca­ted to cer­tain are­as and indi­vi­du­al loca­ti­ons on Spits­ber­gen. After all, that’s whe­re you can tra­vel online, get­ting to fan­ta­stic places with just a mous­eclick which other­wi­se are dif­fi­cult to reach, if at all.

Hint of a nor­t­hern light over Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The­se include, among others, four pages that tog­e­ther illus­tra­te the lar­gest more or less con­ti­guous monu­ment of indus­tri­al histo­ry in Spits­ber­gen, name­ly the mining land­scape from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry on the north side of Advent­fjord:

• Advent City was the first ever attempt on Spits­ber­gen to mine coal indus­tri­al­ly.
• Hior­th­hamn fol­lo­wed a few years later and is one of Svalbard’s most remar­kab­le cul­tu­ral monu­ments from the pio­nee­ring days of coal mining with its shore­li­ne com­plex.
• Sne­heim is the old mine belon­ging to Hior­th­hamn. At an alti­tu­de of 582 met­res on Hiorth­fjel­let, incre­di­ble!
• The old mess and accom­mo­da­ti­on area “Ørne­re­det” is part of the Sne­heim mine, the old mine belon­ging to Hior­th­hamn.

Also new are the pages about Rus­selt­ved­tod­den (ever heard of that?) at the sou­thern end of Akseløya (ah of cour­se … the beau­tiful Akseløya in Bell­sund) and Mid­ter­huk­ham­na. And the­re are brand new pages dedi­ca­ted to Sas­senfjord respec­tively Tem­pel­fjord. Oh yes, don’t for­get a quick trip to Agardhbuk­ta on the east coast 🙂

The moon abo­ve the old cable car cent­re in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

A few weeks ago, I wro­te about Record mel­ting of Svalbard’s gla­ciers in 2024, on this site, focus­sing on con­se­quen­ces of cli­ma­te chan­ge on land.

But of cour­se the chan­ges are not limi­t­ed to the land; the sea is also affec­ted. Or, per­haps more accu­ra­te­ly, it plays a major, dri­ving role.

The Gulf Stream

In the North Atlan­tic, much is known to depend on the Gulf Stream. With its com­pa­ra­tively warm water mas­ses, it brings enorm­ous amounts of heat from the south and thus ensu­res the rela­tively mild cli­ma­te in the hig­hest lati­tu­des such as 78 degrees north, whe­re the Isfjord today remains lar­ge­ly ice-free all year round, while some fjords in nor­t­hern­most Green­land or Cana­da (Elles­me­re Island) only beco­me ice-free brief­ly in sum­mer or not at all.

Even small chan­ges in the Gulf Stream have a mas­si­ve impact on the regio­nal cli­ma­te in the north-east Atlan­tic. If the Gulf Stream brings a litt­le more warm water or if the water is a litt­le war­mer, the North Atlan­tic will beco­me con­sider­a­b­ly war­mer. If the sup­p­ly of warm water decrea­ses or no lon­ger rea­ches as far north, a regio­nal coo­ling could also occur that could affect the who­le of north-west Euro­pe. In the long term, this sce­na­rio can­not be ruled out as part of cli­ma­te chan­ge, but the oppo­si­te is curr­ent­ly the case.

Kongsfjord

Jør­gen Ber­ge from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø has been kee­ping a clo­se eye on Kongsfjord for more than 20 years. As the rese­arch sett­le­ment of Ny-Åle­sund is loca­ted in Kongsfjord, this fjord has been stu­di­ed clo­se­ly for a long time, with deca­des of data available on all kinds of details. In addi­ti­on, the fjord is loca­ted on the part of the west coast that is most stron­gly influen­ced by the Gulf Stream, so it can ser­ve as an ear­ly war­ning sys­tem for chan­ges in the­se curr­ents and their local effects.

Kongsfjord near Ny-Åle­sund: an ocea­no­gra­phic and mari­ne bio­lo­gy rese­arch labo­ra­to­ry.

Ber­ge told Barents­ob­ser­ver about his work and obser­va­tions. The result anti­ci­pa­ted: a ‘radi­cal chan­ge in the mari­ne eco­sys­tem.’

Accor­ding to Ber­ge, the water mas­ses in the Kongsfjord are warm­ing by 0.1 degrees per year across the enti­re water column, i.e. by no less than 2 degrees in just 20 years. Two degrees is quite enough to dra­sti­cal­ly chan­ge the ocea­no­gra­phic-eco­lo­gi­cal cha­rac­ter of a sea area – and the warm­ing does not stop. The cha­rac­ter of the Kongsfjord has chan­ged from ‘arc­tic’ to ‘Atlan­tic’ during this time. In ocea­no­gra­phic terms, this initi­al­ly means that the water is war­mer and sal­tier.

The eco­sys­tem: plank­ton and sea­birds

Of cour­se, this is not wit­hout con­se­quen­ces for the eco­sys­tem. High-arc­tic, fat-rich plank­ton such as the cope­pod Cala­nus gla­cia­lis is incre­asing­ly being dis­pla­ced by its sub­arc­tic and less fat-rich rela­ti­ves Cala­nus finn­mar­chi­cus and Cala­nus hyper­bor­eus, which has con­se­quen­ces for sea­birds that feed on plank­ton. The high Arc­tic Litt­le auks in par­ti­cu­lar, which used to be – and still are, as of now – very num­e­rous, pre­fer to feed on the ener­gy-rich Cala­nus gla­cia­lis. If they have to rely more and more on their less ener­gy-rich rela­ti­ves, their diet will beco­me incre­asing­ly pro­ble­ma­tic.

Litt­le auks on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen.

Recent histo­ry shows that the bree­ding popu­la­ti­ons of sea­birds are shrin­king almost ever­y­whe­re in the North Atlan­tic. The litt­le auks still seem to be doing quite well, but it is very dif­fi­cult to count the­se very small birds that breed invi­si­bly under rocks. The case is clear for guil­l­emots, puf­fins and gulls, whe­re some colo­nies in nor­t­hern Nor­way have prac­ti­cal­ly col­lap­sed sin­ce the 1980s. Dis­ap­peared.

Fjord ice: rin­ged seals and har­bour seals

Ano­ther aspect is that the Kongsfjord has hard­ly fro­zen over for around 15 years. Rin­ged seals, once the most num­e­rous seals in the fjords of Spits­ber­gen, need the fjord ice in spring to give birth to their young and to rest. The har­bour seal, which is also known from the sou­thern North Sea, is now much more com­mon on the west coast of Sval­bard than the rin­ged seal, which is very simi­lar in appearance. Seals have been natu­ral­ly occur­ring in Sval­bard for thou­sands of years and this obser­va­ti­on may be coin­ci­den­tal, but it fits in with the sci­en­ti­fi­cal­ly con­firm­ed deve­lo­p­ment of the fjords from a high­ly arc­tic eco­sys­tem to an Atlan­tic one.

High Arc­tic rin­ged seal (left), sub­arc­tic har­bour seal.
Both live on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen.

Fish, mus­sels and tem­pe­ra­tu­re records

Ber­ge also speaks of a chan­ge in the spe­ci­es com­po­si­ti­on of fish and mus­sels. Spe­ci­es such as her­ring and cape­lin, which one would not expect to find in high Arc­tic fjords, are spre­a­ding, as are mus­sels.

More and more com­mon in Sval­bard: blue mus­sels.

Glo­bal warm­ing is more noti­ceable at the poles than at lower lati­tu­des; it is esti­ma­ted that the Arc­tic is warm­ing by a fac­tor of three to four more than other regi­ons. If one hopes that cli­ma­te chan­ge can somehow still be limi­t­ed to a warm­ing of 1.5-2 degrees, then this figu­re is the glo­bal avera­ge. For the Arc­tic, you can mul­ti­ply that by three or four.

In recent years, record tem­pe­ra­tures have been regu­lar­ly mea­su­red in Sval­bard, most recent­ly on 11 August at 20.3 degrees, the hig­hest value ever mea­su­red on an August day near Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Even the pre­vious­ly high Arc­tic fjords in the north-east of Sval­bard will not remain unaf­fec­ted by this deve­lo­p­ment. This is con­firm­ed both by a regu­lar look at the ice map and by per­so­nal expe­ri­ence in the fjords of Nord­aus­t­land and in Hin­lo­pen Strait, whe­re the pre­vious­ly wide­spread water tem­pe­ra­tures of around 0 degrees are now rather rare and small-sca­le, espe­ci­al­ly in the sou­thern Hin­lo­pen Strait and on the sou­thern side of Nord­aus­t­land, whe­re the cold East Spits­ber­gen Cur­rent from the Arc­tic Basin is still exer­ting its influence. In the nor­t­hern Hin­lo­pen Strait and in the fjords in the west and north of Nord­aus­t­land and up to Sjuøya­ne, water tem­pe­ra­tures of 6-8 degrees are incre­asing­ly com­mon, indi­ca­ting the incre­asing influence of mild Atlan­tic water (Gulf Stream).

Rare­ly ice-free in the past, now regu­lar­ly in sum­mer:
Fjords on the north coast of Nord­aus­t­land.

The Arc­tic Oce­an: from white to blue

The sea ice of the Arc­tic Oce­an is both a vic­tim and a dri­ver of this deve­lo­p­ment. This is one of tho­se feed­back effects in the glo­bal cli­ma­te sys­tem whe­re the effect rein­forces the cau­se. In this case, an area of water that has beco­me ice-free due to warm­ing no lon­ger reflects the sun’s rays, but absorbs them and con­verts them into heat, which in turn melts even more ice and even lar­ger are­as of water absorb the sun’s rays … and so it goes on.

Accor­ding to a stu­dy recent­ly published in Natu­re Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, the Arc­tic Oce­an could beco­me ice-free on a dai­ly basis by around 2030. This stu­dy is the first to look at the deve­lo­p­ment on a dai­ly rather than a month­ly basis. The Arc­tic Oce­an could the­r­e­fo­re be ice-free on a dai­ly basis in a few years’ time if warm win­ters with litt­le ice for­ma­ti­on are fol­lo­wed by warm ear­ly sum­mers with high ice loss.

The Arc­tic Oce­an of the future: incre­asing­ly blue ins­tead of white.

On the other hand, the stu­dy also descri­bes sce­na­ri­os accor­ding to which an ice-free Arc­tic Oce­an will not be obser­ved by the year 2100. Both pos­si­bi­li­ties are rather extre­me sce­na­ri­os; the real deve­lo­p­ment may lie some­whe­re in bet­ween. Or not, the extre­me sce­na­ri­os are also pos­si­ble accor­ding to the sci­en­ti­fic models.

As Jør­gen Ber­ge told Barents­ob­ser­ver: ‘It is likely that the cen­tral Arc­tic Oce­an will evol­ve from a white (ice-cover­ed) oce­an to a blue (open water) oce­an. What that means, we don’t know.’