The mammoth, ethereally beautiful glaciers of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, near the North Pole, bear the scars of climate change more than almost anywhere else on the planet. Over the past three decades, Svalbard has warmed twice as quickly as the rest of the Arctic region and seven times the global average. For a long time, though, predicting how quickly future warming might cause the ice to retreat took guesswork. In Svalbard and other places, most field measurements started only in the mid-20th century, and satellite observations even later. Now, advances in computing are helping scientists bring old ice back to life in astonishing detail.

Source: thestar January 19, 2022 22:00 UTC