At the world's northernmost year-round research station, scientists are racing to understand how the fastest-warming place on Earth is changing – and what those changes may mean for the planet's future.
Reporting by Lisi Niesner and Gloria DickieAt the world’s northernmost year-round research station, scientists are racing to understand how the fastest-warming place on Earth is changing – and what those changes may mean for the planet’s future.
While the Arctic is warming about four times faster than the rest of the world, in Svalbard temperatures are climbing even faster — up to seven times the global average. Jean-Charles Gallet, a glaciologist with the Norwegian Polar Institute who has been coming to Ny-Aalesund for about 12 years, said that, whereas scientists could once travel into June, they cannot plan fieldwork after mid-May now.Gallet, 41, speaks to his team before heading to the Ice Memory drilling camp in the Holtedahlfonna icefield, 70 kilometers from Ny-Aalesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 10, 2023.
Norway was granted sovereignty over Svalbard during the Versailles negotiations at the end of World War I. This arrangement allows citizens from any of the 46 countries that have signed the treaty to reside in the archipelago. Today, 11 countries, including China and India, have a presence in Ny-Aalesund. But the town has only about 35 year-round residents.
“One of the special things about this place is there are a lot of different scientists. I’m a chemist. There are biologists, geologists,” said visiting researcher Francois Burgay of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. “It’s one of the few places in the world where these kinds of exchanges are so informal and so spontaneous.”
Four buildings damaged by thawing permafrost have seen repairs over the past decade, Kings Bay AS operations manager Espen Blix told Reuters, including the town store, which contractors are fixing this year on a budget of 6.9 million crowns . Another five are in need of repairs.
An ice core from the Broggerbreen glacier, extracted by CNR scientists, shows cryoconite layers made of a combination of bacteria, soot and small rock particles that build up on the snow and glaciers near Ny-Aalesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 7, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner The Ice Memory drilling camp is seen in the Holtedahlfonna icefield, near Ny-Alaesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 10, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi NiesnerPaleoclimatologist Carlo Barbante, vice chairman of the Ice Memory Foundation, said melting ice can distort the evidence in glaciers from years past: “It’s like putting water on a book and having all the ink diluted so you can't read what is written.”
CNR station leader Ombretta Dell’Aqua, 43, stands lookout for polar birds while Burgay prepares to take a snow sample to detect molecules connected to Phytoplankton bloom, next to Gruvebadet aerosol sampling station in Ny-Aalesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 5, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is seen near Ny-Aalesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 5, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Blue ice is seen at frozen Kongsfjord near Ny-Aalesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 8, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner Gallet and CNR glaciologist Federico Scoto ride sleds loaded with boxes of ice cores for Ice Memory from the Holtedahlfonna icefield waiting to be brought back for storage to Ny-Aalesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 10, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Lion statues decorate the entrance of the Chinese Yellow River scientific station in Ny-Aalesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 6, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
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