Warmest June in the world's northernmost settlement
With the melting Kongsbreen glacier visible on the horizon, Ny-Ålesund at 79° North recorded a mean monthly temperature of 5.7°C.
This is the second time in five years that the average June temperature in Ny-Ålesund has reached 5.7°C. The previous occurrence was in 2022.
The former coal-mining settlement now serves as the world's northernmost year-round research station, hosting international research projects and maintaining long-term observation programmes. Scientists based here are witnessing first-hand some of the most rapid warming occurring anywhere in the circumpolar Arctic.
Ny-Ålesund lies on the shores of Kongsfjorden, an important research area because it is in the centre of transition between cold Arctic climate and warmer Atlantic water masses. Variations in the sea‑ice cover - and water temperatures - here therefore provide early indicators of climate change in the Arctic.
While temperatures across the Arctic are rising approximately two to four times faster than the global average, the Barents Sea region is warming at an even more dramatic rate—up to seven times faster than the global average.
Of the 17 all-time high or joint-high temperature records measured in Norway during June, 10 were recorded in the Svalbard archipelago, according to the June weather report from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
"Unfortunately, it is not surprising that there are temperature records in Svalbard, since it is in the Arctic that warming is occurring most rapidly," said climate researcher Helga Therese Tilley Tajet.
Northern Norway also experienced temperatures well above normal compared with the average for the past two decades. Vesterålen, Troms and the western coastal areas of Finnmark were all classified as experiencing "extreme heat" in the June weather report.
Climate change is also affecting the waters north of Svalbard. Melting began early this spring across the Arctic marginal seas, with sea ice extent particularly low along the Atlantic ice edge. On 10 June, Arctic sea ice extent stood at 11.18 million square kilometres, the fifth lowest on record for that date.
Satellite observations also show exceptionally thin sea ice across the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, according to a briefing by the UK Met Office.
The photographs in the gallery below were taken during the final week of June along the west coast of Svalbard and in the sea ice north to 80°40′N, illustrating the conditions observed during the expedition.
