Shocking satellite images show how the Norwegian archipelago has, according to NASA Earth Observatory (NEO), "suffered extreme episodes of melting in summer 2024".
In late July and early August 2024, temperatures hovered around 4 degrees Celsius above average for this part of the Arctic Circle.
The heat took its toll on Svalbard, home to some of Earth’s northernmost glaciers, causing snow and ice to rapidly melt.
The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, operated by NASA and the United States Geological Survey, captured images of the second largest island in the archipelago. (Landsat 8/OLI/NASA via SWNS)
According to the Laboratory of Climatology and Topoclimatology at the University of Liège , in early August, snow and ice melting on the surface of the Svalbard ice caps reached the highest levels ever recorded, while temperatures remained up to 5°C above average for this area of the Arctic Circle.
Xavier Fettweis, a climatologist at the University of Liège , says Svalbard’s ice caps broke their all-time record for daily surface melt on 23 July. Svalbard shed about 55 millimeters of water equivalent that day, a rate five times larger than normal.
The exceptional melting continued into August, corresponding with a persistent heat dome that baked parts of Scandinavia’s Arctic.
(Landsat 8/OLI/NASA via SWNS)
In Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s capital on the main island of Spitsbergen, temperatures reached 20.2°C (68°F) on 11 August, its highest August temperature on record and about 2.2°C (4°F) above the previous monthly record, according to meteorologist Daan van den Broek.
Svalbard had experienced its warmest summer on record in 2023, according to the Copernicus State of the Climate report. The report cited several contributing factors for the warmth, including below-average sea ice cover and above-average sea surface temperatures.
NEO explain: "Situated between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Svalbard is one of the fastest-warming places on the planet. Over half of its land area is covered with ice, composing about 6 percent of the planet’s glaciated area outside of Greenland and Antarctica."
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