Dieuwertje S. Wesselink
Eirik Malnes
Markus Eckerstorfer
Roderik C. Lindenbergh
Опубликована Июнь 30, 2017
Snow avalanches pose a threat to people and infrastructure in and around Svalbard’s main settlement Longyearbyen. Since January 2016, publically available regional avalanche warnings are issued daily for Nordenskiöld Land, the area around Longyearbyen. Avalanche warning services rely on information of when and where avalanches occur. Systematic field observations of avalanche activity are not feasible across all of the vast area (ca. 7200 km2) of Nordenskiöld Land. Svalbard also experiences over four months of polar night per year. However, using synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a weather- and light-independent technique, large areas can be monitored at once. We have developed a …
Jon Aars
Tiago A. Marques
Karen Lone
Magnus Andersen
Øystein Wiig
Ida Marie Bardalen Fløystad
Snorre B. Hagen
Stephen T. Buckland
Опубликована Окт. 9, 2017
Polar bears have experienced a rapid loss of sea-ice habitat in the Barents Sea. Monitoring this subpopulation focuses on the effects on polar bear demography. In August 2015, we conducted a survey in the Norwegian Arctic to estimate polar bear numbers and reveal population substructure. DNA profiles from biopsy samples and ear tags identified on photographs revealed that about half of the bears in Svalbard, compared to only 4.5% in the pack ice north of the archipelago, were recognized recaptures. The recaptured bears had originally been marked in Svalbard, mostly in spring. The existence of a local Svalbard stock, and …
Christian Lydersen
Kit M. Kovacs
Jade Vaquie-Garcia
Espen Lydersen
Guttorm N. Christensen
Опубликована Окт. 6, 2017
Ringed seals (Pusa hispida) are the most ice-associated of all Arctic pinnipeds. In the Svalbard area, this species has always given birth, moulted and rested on sea ice. In addition, much of their food has been comprised of ice-associated prey. Recently, ringed seals have been reported to be using terrestrial substrates as a haul-out platform in some fjords on the west coast of Spitsbergen. In many cases the seals involved are harbour seals (Phoca vitulina), which are extending their distribution into new areas within the Svalbard Archipelago and which are being misclassified as ringed seals. However, this study reports that …
Ole Arve Misund
Опубликована Апрель 25, 2017
Svalbard, a High-Arctic archipelago over which Norway practises sovereignty in accordance with the terms of the Svalbard Treaty, has become an increasingly important area for Arctic research and higher education. There are four more or less permanent settlements with substantial research infrastructure, and a few manned observatories for special purposes. Several Norwegian and foreign research institutions have established stations and installations in the archipelago. With coal mining activity scaling down because of economic difficulties and lack of political support for subsidies, Norwegian policy will prioritize research and higher education as a way of maintaining Norwegian settlements in Svalbard. I give …
Evgeny Gusev
Pavel Rekant
Valery Kaminsky
Alexey Krylov
Andrey Morozov
Sergey Shokalsky
Sergey Kashubin
Опубликована Апрель 10, 2017
Geological and geophysical studies undertaken during the Russian Arktika-2012 Expedition of 2012 produced evidence of basement outcrops on the steep slopes of the Mendeleev Rise seamounts. Observations of the outcrops from research submarines showed that part of the steep slopes interpreted as basement outcrops based on seismic data were overlain by a light sediment cover. The actual areas of the basement outcrops are therefore much less than indicated by the seismic data alone. The outcrops found are of 5–10 to 100–200 m and are often stretched along some hypsometric level or arranged obliquely, crossing a slope at an angle to …
Agnieszka Promińska
Waldemar Walczowski
Eva Falck
Опубликована Сен. 6, 2018
Progressing warming in the Arctic and increased extreme weather events can significantly influence the hydrography of Svalbard fjords, leading to changes towards more Atlantic-type waters in the fjords. In this paper, we look into the hydrographic conditions in Hornsund, the southernmost fjord on the west coast of Svalbard, by analysing high-resolution CTD measurements collected in July during cruises with the RV Oceania between 2001 and 2015. These observations revealed high interannual variability in temperature, salinity and distribution of water masses, mainly due to differences in timing of the transition between winter and summer conditions but also as a result of …
Jenny Maccali
Claude Hillaire-Marcel
Christelle Not
Опубликована Март 22, 2018
Under modern conditions, sediments from the large continental shelves of the Arctic Ocean are mixed by currents, incorporated into sea ice and redistributed over the Arctic Basin through the Beaufort Gyre and Trans-Polar Drift major sea-ice routes. Here, compiling data from the literature and combining them with our own data, we explore how radiogenic isotopes (Sr, Pb and Nd) from Arctic shelf surface sediment can be used to identify inland and coastal sediment sources. Based on discriminant function analyses, the use of two-isotope systematics introduces a large uncertainty (ca. 50%) that prevents unequivocal identifications of regional shelf signatures. However, when …
Создана Авг. 7, 2023
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Luke Storrie
Christian Lydersen
Magnus Andersen
Russell B. Wynn
Kit M. Kovacs
Опубликована Июнь 1, 2018
This study used 13 years of cetacean sighting data (2002–2014) from waters around the Svalbard Archipelago to determine key habitats for year-round resident species as well as seasonally resident species, and to explore spatial overlap between these groups via a combination of kernel density estimation and Maxent modelling. The data set consists of observations made by research vessels conducting various marine studies, coast guard ships and marine-cruise tourist operators. Data are reported from the seasonal period in which there is daylight (March-November), though 95% of the observations occurred June- September. Changes over the study period were investigated, within the limits …
Catherine L. Docherty
Tenna Riis
David M. Hannah
Simon Rosenhøj Leth
Alexander M. Milner
Опубликована Март 19, 2018
Permafrost thaw induced by climate change will cause increased release of nutrients and organic matter from the active layer to Arctic streams and, with increased water temperature, will potentially enhance algal biomass and nutrient uptake. Although essential for accurately predicting the response of Arctic streams to environmental change, knowledge of nutrient release on current Arctic in-stream processing is limited. Addressing this research gap, we quantified nutrient uptake of short-term releases of NO 3− , PO 43- and NH 4+ during peak snowmelt season in five streams of contrasting physiochemical characteristics (from unstable, highly turbid to highly stable, clear-water systems) in …