On a rugged mountain plateau of snow-dusted rocks, in the remote archipelago of Svalbard, a glaciologist, Andy Hodson, points out the \u201cears\u201d of ice, white against the rock, that gave Foxfonna glacier its name, after the arctic fox.<\/p>\n
The small glacier, on a mountain 8 miles (15km) outside the Norwegian village of Longyearbyen, is a popular summer hike for tourists who come here seeking the Arctic<\/a> experience.<\/p>\n But in Svalbard, where glaciers cover 57% of the land<\/a> and temperatures are rising up to seven times faster<\/a> than the global average, making it one of the fastest-warming places on Earth, Foxfonna is changing rapidly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is slowly dying,\u201d says Hodson, a professor at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). The telltale signs include a concave profile: Foxfonna is no longer accumulating snow. Precipitation here is increasingly falling as rain. Its thinning rate is between 1 and 4 metres a year, making it unrecognisable from when Hodson was last here a few years ago.<\/p>\n Out in the fjords, on the other side of the coastal village, the large glacial fronts extending into the sea that are characteristic of the islands are melting at an even faster rate: over the past two years, 10 have retreated entirely on to land<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2024, \u201cthings went crazy\u201d, Hodson says, after record-high summer temperatures led to a big ice loss, of 1%<\/a>, across the archipelago. It is affected by Arctic amplification \u2013 a feedback loop in which sea-ice retreat and atmospheric warming make each other worse.<\/p>\n Andy Hodson points to Foxfonna\u2019s concave profile, a sign that the glacier no longer accumulates snow. Photograph: K McVeigh\/Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cPretty much the whole island is losing ice now,\u201d says Hodson.<\/p>\n Longyearbyen, a scatter of brightly coloured houses, research institutes and tourist hotels at the bottom of a steep valley, lies at a latitude of 78 degrees north, the last stop in the high Arctic before the north pole. An important outpost of Arctic science, it attracts explorers, adventurers and nature lovers.<\/p>\n The village\u2019s 2,600 inhabitants are used to extremes: winter temperatures can drop as low as -20C (-4F) and, from late October to early March, the sun does not rise, plunging the valley into more than 100 days of darkness.<\/p>\n Marjolaine Verret takes water samples. Photograph: Tonje Emilie Stenstad\/The Guardian<\/p>\n But they are now facing new and unsettling challenges \u2013 things that many point out should serve as a warning for other Arctic regions. Not only is snow melting faster but now the permafrost \u2013 ground that once remained frozen all year \u2013 is thawing.<\/p>\n This is having unexpected but significant consequences. People have recently been warned not to drink from their taps<\/a> due to heavy metals contained in the bedrock leaching into the village\u2019s water supply. Instead, they now have to fill up containers from a central tank of filtered water in the village\u2019s supermarket, while the municipality investigates and works out what to do in the long term.<\/p>\n The thaw has also caused landslides, damaged foundations and cracked walls, rendering some homes uninhabitable and threatening the long-term stability<\/a> of other buildings. As a consequence, there are no longer enough homes for the number of people who need them.<\/p>\n The authorities in Longyearbyen have been forced to learn lessons, acclimatise and try to adapt to the changing conditions.<\/p>\n Search crews with shovels worked to free people from buried houses in Longyearbyen after an avalanche in 2015. Photograph: EPA<\/p>\n On the rooftop of the Svalbard Science Centre, which featured in the opening scenes of Vigil, the recent BBC thriller<\/a> set in Svalbard, Gunhild B S\u00e6tren points out the scene of the most devastating avalanche in the archipelago\u2019s history. The avalanche, in December 2015<\/a>, buried nine people, killing one man and an infant in their homes in the shadow of Mount Sukkertoppen.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was terrible,\u201d says S\u00e6tren, a professor of safety psychology, who manages the Unis Arctic Safety Centre (ASC), established after the tragedy to focus on hazard management and climate adaptation. \u201cClimate change is impacting us in very many ways. The greatest risk is avalanches. The area used to be an Arctic desert, but now there is more rain.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The melt is starting earlier,\u2019 says tour guide Matilda Weihs. Photograph: K McVeigh\/Guardian<\/p>\n The tragedy, which was followed by another, non-fatal avalanche that damaged two houses in 2017, happened as the result of warming strong easterly winds and drifting snow. At the time, the avalanche danger from Sukkertoppen was known about, but no avalanche warning system was in place<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since then, snow fences to reduce drift and a wall of avalanche traps have been installed on the mountain and some houses pulled down, including S\u00e6tren\u2019s own. The centre now provides weekly snow observations for the municipality\u2019s avalanche warning system.<\/p>\n S\u00e6tren also works on a programme with other high Arctic remote settlements in Iceland and Greenland, to look at common problems, such as evacuation procedures for avalanches. A new tour guide approval system, introduced by the governor of Svalbard<\/a> to better assess climate and other risks, is expected to be in force by 2027.<\/p>\n Arctic geology is complex and changing fast, with tour operators saying the changes are curtailing certain activities. At the Husky cafe, Matilda Weihs, 30, a guide for Svalbard Wildlife Expeditions who was trained by the ASC, says that this year they had to move the snowmobiles seven miles out of the village to find enough snow cover for tours.<\/p>\n Longyearbyen in Svalbard, pictured a few days before the return of the sun on 8 February this year. Photograph: Oriane Laromiguiere\/AFP\/GettyLongyearbyen is the largest populated area on Svalbard. Photograph: Nigel Killeen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWe are losing snow earlier and the melt is starting earlier,\u201d says Weihs. \u201cThere are big changes in the fjords. You need to stay away from glacier fronts due to the danger of glaciers calving into the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n