The Norwegian Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard, situated northeast of Greenland, is seeing a record melt season tied to human-caused global warming, scientists tell Axios.
Satellite image showing rapidly melting glaciers on Svalbard, Norway. Sediment runoff is turning the ocean into milky hues, and the darkened ice surface shows areas where melt is increasing.
Svalbard set a record on July 17 for its highest recorded melt volume, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Fettweis said the meltwater runoff anomaly is five times the variability from year to year during the 1981-2010 period, which he says is "statistically unlikely."Unlike glaciers that terminate in floating ice shelves, most glaciers in Svalbard don't melt at the base, and instead do so from the top down. An early snowmelt this year helped to prime ice surfaces for melting, Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado at Boulder, told Axios in an email.
"May took away much of the fresh snow, exposing the glacier ice and older snow to warm air and sunlight easier in the season than is usual," Scambos said. This has in turn allowed for more rapid ice loss.
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