Satellite images show Svalbard’s Arctic ice’s frightening retreat

By Reuters August 15, 2024
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Located between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Svalbard is one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth, with over half its land area covered in ice, accounting for about 6% of the planet’s glaciated areas outside Greenland. (Reuters)

These images show the extent to which Norway’s Svalbard archipelago’s ice caps experienced extreme melting during the summer of 2024, driven by exceptionally high air temperatures. Located between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Svalbard is one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth, with over half its land area covered in ice, accounting for about 6% of the planet’s glaciated areas outside Greenland and Antarctica.

In late July and early August 2024, temperatures in Svalbard were approximately 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) above average for this part of the Arctic Circle. This intense heat caused rapid melting of snow and ice across the archipelago, which is home to some of the northernmost glaciers on the planet.

On August 9, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite captured images of Nordaustlandet, Svalbard’s second-largest island, showing water and sediment draining off the coast into the Arctic Ocean. The striking swirls of colour in the water are likely due to sediment, while the images reveal areas where the melting of seasonal snow and an older, compressed layer called “firn” left glacial ice exposed.

In late July and early August 2024, temperatures in Svalbard were approximately 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) above average for this part of the Arctic Circle.

According to Xavier Fettweis, a climatologist at the University of Liège, Svalbard’s ice caps broke their all-time record for daily surface melt on July 23, 2024, shedding about 55 millimetres of water equivalent—five times the normal rate. The extraordinary melting continued into August, coinciding with a persistent heat dome that affected parts of Scandinavia’s Arctic region.

In Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s capital, temperatures reached a record 20.2°C (68°F) on August 11, surpassing the previous August record by 2.2°C (4°F), according to meteorologist Daan van den Broek. The summer of 2024 follows Svalbard’s warmest summer on record in 2023, as reported by the Copernicus State of the Climate report.

The report highlighted factors such as below-average sea ice cover and above-average sea surface temperatures as contributing to the region’s unprecedented warmth. Where: Svalbard, Svalbard, Norway When: 14 Aug 2024 Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Cover Images