ST. PETERSBURG, April 3. /TASS/. The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) specialists found the rapid melting of glaciers on the Spitsbergen Archipelago. Similar processes developed about 4,000 years ago and may have major climatic consequences for the planet, the institute's press service said.
"Scientists of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute have found that over the past five years, glaciers in the archipelago's southwestern part every year have been losing the ice layer of almost 2.5 meters. Spitsbergen is at the center of climate change: a similar reduction in glaciers developed last time about 4,000 years ago, at the time of the Pyramid of Cheops and last mammoths," the press service said.
The glaciers' melting affects directly the Arctic ecosystems' changes in the volume of freshwater runoff, the rivers regimes, the permafrost dynamics and bays' water area composition, the press service continued. Moreover, according to modern research, in addition to shrinking volume and area of glaciers, there are changes in their hydrothermal structure, pulsation and movement.
"The glacier melting's rate is very high," the press service quoted the institute's researcher Anton Terekhov as saying. "While maintaining the current dynamics of mass loss, our reference glacier Aldegonda in the vicinity of the Barentsburg village, which has an average thickness of about 80 meters, may disappear completely in thirty years. Literally as we witness it."
The Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen, which the Norwegians call Svalbard, is located between the 76th and 80th parallels. It was transferred under Norwegian sovereignty after World War I in accordance with the Spitsbergen Treaty, to which more than 40 countries are parties. Only Norway and the Russian Federation have the economic presence there. About 2,600 people live permanently on the archipelago. Norway's Longyearbyen and Russia's Barentsburg on Western Spitsbergen, the archipelago's biggest island, are the largest settlements.
AARI is the world's leading scientific center to study the Earth's polar areas. The institute carries out the entire cycle of work in high latitudes in the interests of the Russian Federation and businesses. The institute's departments are engaged in fundamental and applied research on climate, processes in the atmosphere, near space, marine environment and ice cover. AARI is a state operator for activities in the Arctic.