Environmental Changes in Svalbard at the Beginning of the 21st Century. Part 2. Cryosphere and Hydrology

This isthesecond part ofthereview ofthesame authors published inthis issue/Both parts present theassessment of Svalbard’s natural environment in the early 21st century. Here, we analyze glaciers, periglacial lakes, river discharges, snow cover and permafrost, and demonstrate that the Svalbard Archipelago is undergoing a noticeable transformation caused mainly by influence of the climate warming on hydrology, terrain, and ecosystems. There are about 1,600 glaciers on Spitsbergen, covering 33,200 km² (~60% of the archipelago) with a total ice volume of 6,700–6,800 km³ and average thickness 205 ± 7 m. Some glaciers are polythermal with a presence of temperate basal ice. In 2000–2019, the glacier mass balance averaged annually 7 ± 2.1 Gt yr–¹, with the largest losses observed in small glaciers at low altitudes. The climate warming intensifies ablation and reduced accumulation. Formations of zero accumulation zones are projected by 2030–2050. Since the end of the Little Ice Age, 705 periglacial lakes were formed. In 2008–2012, they covered 187.4 km², with 274 km of glacial seashores. The area of lakes increased by 47% from 1990 to 2022, mainly between 1990 and 2012. Moraine-dammed and thermokarst lakes dominant. A special global dataset with another methodology having been used, identified 1,375 lakes in 2020, thus testifying increase of the area by 36% since 1990. Monitoring of the river streamflow is concentrated on western catchments. Runoff proceeds from June to October. Volume of annual discharge is strongly correlated with the proportion of glaciation in the catchment. Summer discharge is expected to be increased in glaciated areas by 2071–2100. Snow depth, its density, and water equivalent have very weak or no trends in recent decades. Duration of snow cover varies slightly due to later beginning of autumn; but melting time remains stable. The chemical composition of snow is determined by marine aerosols and mineral dust, with local sources dominating at lower altitudes, and distant sources — at higher altitudes. During the last Pleistocene glaciation, the valley permafrost on Svalbard did likely disappear, while plateaus and peaks still retained permafrost up to 700,000 years old. In the Holocene, permafrost had been formed up low altitudes reaching thickness of 400–540 m with its ground temperatures ranging approximately from −2.2 to −5.2 °C below the layer of seasonal temperature variation. Warming destabilizes permafrost mostly along the western coast; the eastern regions remain more stable. Further degradation is expected under continued climate warming.

Arctic, climate changes, polar amplification, atlantification, glacier retreat, sea ice,

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