Polar bear standing on the melting sea ice in Svalbard, Norway. (AFP)
Oslo:
The Norwegian arctic archipelago of Svalbard on Saturday recorded its highest temperature in more than 40 years, almost equal to the all-time record, the country’s meteorological institute reported.
Global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as the rest of the planet, according to a scientific study.
For the second day in a row, the archipelago recorded 21.2 degrees Celsius (70.2 Fahrenheit) of heat in the afternoon, just below the 21.3 degrees recorded in 1979, told AFP the meteorologist Kristen Gislefoss.
The island group, dominated by Spitsbergen, the only inhabited island in the archipelago of northern Norway, lies 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the North Pole.
The relative heat wave, which is expected to last until Monday, is a huge spike in normal temperatures in July, the hottest month in the Arctic.
The islands of Svalbard normally expect to see temperatures of 5 to 8 degrees Celsius at this time of year.
The region has seen temperatures five degrees above normal since January, peaking at 38 degrees in Siberia in mid-July, just beyond the Arctic Circle.
According to a recent report “The climate of Svalbard in 2100”, the average temperatures of the archipelago between 2070 and 2100 will increase by 7 to 10 degrees, due to the levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
The changes are already visible. From 1971 to 2017, between three and five degrees of warming were observed, with the largest increases in winter, according to the report.
Svalbard, known for its population of polar bears, is home to both a coal mine, digging the most global warming of all energy sources, and an “apocalyptic” seed vault that has since 2008 collected world agricultural premium stocks in the event of a global disaster
The vault required 20 million euros ($ 23.3 million) of work after water infiltration due to melting permafrost in 2016.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
