In Svalbard Islands (Norway) i glaciers are reduced to the margins of over 800 square kilometers in less than 40 years: the alarming study, led byUniversity of Bristol (United Kingdom), shows how the climate crisis advance “undisturbed”.
There sad situation in the ArcticUnfortunately, this is nothing new. Recent work has reported, in fact, that this area of the Earth could see its first completely ice-free day within a decade, and by the middle of the century the first entire month completely free of sea ice.
However, the new study revealed for the first time the worrying extent of glacier reduction over the last 40 years in a global warming hotspot, as well as the largest retreat ever observed.
Glacier calving is a process poorly modeled and understood which plays a crucial role in the health of a glacier,” comments co-author Jonathan Bamber. “Our study provides valuable insights into what controls calving and how it responds to climate forces in an area on the front lines of global warming.”
The results showed in particular that the vast majority (91%) of the glaciers of the Svalbard in the Arctic has shrunk significantly, with an area loss of more than 800 square kilometers at the margins since the 1985 measurements.
And they also highlighted how more than half of glaciers (62%) experience seasonal cycles in glacier calving, with large chunks of ice breaking off due to higher ocean and air temperatures.

The scale of glacier retreats in recent decades is surprising, covering almost the entire Svalbard system – explains Tian Li, lead author of the research – This highlights the vulnerability of glaciers to climate changeparticularly in Svalbard, a region that is experiencing rapid warming up to seven times faster than the global average
In fact, the low altitude of the archipelago’s ice fields and the geographical position in the upper North Atlantic make the area particularly sensitive to climate change. And for this reason a crucial point for the study of global warming.
This new study was conducted using theartificial intelligence to quickly identify glacier patterns over large areas. With the new AI model, in particular, millions of satellite images containing the final positions of the glaciers throughout the region were analyzed. Svalbard.
And the results provided a level of unprecedented detail on the scale and nature of glacier loss in this region: the largest spike in glacier retreats was detected in 2016, when calving rates were double the average between 2010 and 2015, in response to warming events extreme.

With increasing frequency of freezing and continued regional warming, future glacier retreats are expected to accelerate, resulting in greater loss of glacial mass. This would modify ocean circulation and the marine biodiversity in the Arctic
On World Snow Day which is celebrated today January 19th with a worrying -50% snow in the Alps compared to the last 100 yearsthis research only adds to the often ignored cries of scientists.
The work was published on Nature Communications.
Sources: University of Bristol / Nature Communications