Longyearbyen

“Last year we got several reports from tourists and scientists that they saw around six walruses dead here on the west side of Svalbard. Unfortunately, we couldn’t sample them as the dead walruses drifted away by the time we got to the place. But it’s not normal to get so many reported dead walruses in such a small area," said Christian Lydersen, senior scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute. Now samples (collected by a Station Manager in July 2023) have tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza.

There have been similar, even larger outbreaks of avian flue in seabird colonies in north Norway. In some cases, the losses were dramatic and major fractions of the colonies were wiped out. In Spitsbergen, avian flu was found for the first time in 2002, but the recent outbreak on Hopen is the largest one so far.

Temperature records are becoming the new normal for summers on Svalbard, the Arctic archipelago halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Summer 2022 saw the average even higher, with 7.4 degrees C for June, July and August at the airport a few kilometers west of Longyearbyen, the main settlement on the archipelago.

A French woman is hospitalized and a polar bear is dead after the bear attacked the woman on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago Svalbard Monday morning. The woman, who was wounded in the arm by the attacking polar bear, was one of 25 people staying at a tent camp in Nordfjorden on the northern shores of Isfjorden.

Rare footage shot by a researcher expedition in Norway shows a polar bear hunting and catching a swimming adult reindeer. The video, captured by Mateusz Gruszka, a cook for an expedition of Polish researchers in August 2021 on the Svalbard archipelago, shows the bear catching the reindeer and drowning it before dragging it ashore.

Global climate warming is most severe in the Arctic. One consequence is a widespread reduction in permafrost. Continuous, stable permafrost can act as a physical glue that helps anchor unstable slopes. Increasingly, scientists are reporting collapse of rock slopes in the High Arctic.

At Longyearbyen airport, the peak temperature reached 9.2 °C for a short period, nearly two degrees warmer than the last November record measured in 1975.

The man, identified as 38-year-old Dutch citizen was attacked in his tent before dawn and died shortly afterwards of his injuries. Svalbard officials say there were seven people on the site at the time and they are being looked after by health services.

After days with record heat at Svalbard, the penetration of water from the above melting glacier is now flooding Norway’s only operating coal mine that supplies the country’s only coal-power plant.

It was hotter today on Svalbard than in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. So much so, that the previous temperature record from 1979 was smashed.

Staff from the governor's office responded and found two bulls entangled on the shore. One lay dead in the water, and another could not move. A third bull had managed to get loose.

People in Longyearbyen have replaced parkas with a shell jacket. They must calculate with rainfall in January and February. Both snowmobiles and dogs must be parked. People are annoyed and disappointed. Others are very concerned.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrates its first decade in operation by accepting its millionth sample—and a grant for work to keep those samples safe despite melting permafrost.

Researchers say the concentration of plastic waste in the European Arctic is now comparable or even higher than in more urban and populated areas.

A lot of water went into the start of the tunnel and then it froze to ice, so it was like a glacier when you went in,” Statsbygg spokeswoman Hege Njaa Aschim told the Guardian of the water breach.

The seed bank designed to preserve the world’s crops and plants in the event of global disaster isn’t prepared to withstand the greatest global disaster facing our planet: global warming. Melting...

Rekordmange båter på fotojakt etter isbjørner. Nå undersøker Sysselmesteren på Svalbard flere mulige brudd på svalbardmiljøloven.

Scientists found that the glaciers are triggering the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that causes global temperatures to rise.

Longyearbyen airport had an average temperature of 6.1°C, which is 2.5°C above normal. Global air and sea surface temperatures were also at record levels.