Geopolitical Tensions Are Complicating Research Efforts in the Norwegian Archipelago of Svalbar
mrpg writes:
[...] The tensions stymieing the UNIS geologists reflect broader changes unfolding across Svalbard, a jagged, ice-cloaked archipelago consisting of nine larger islands and thousands of islets perched between mainland Europe and the North Pole. For centuries the islands, encompassing an area roughly the size of Latvia, were a no-man's land, inhabited mainly by reindeer and polar bears whose ancestors arrived on drifting pack ice. Today, Svalbard has fewer than 3000 human residents but is home to scientific facilities operated by more than a dozen countries, including China, India, and Russia. Many are clustered at Ny-Alesund, a research outpost on the largest island, Spitsbergen, that Norway promotes as a symbol of collaborative Arctic science.
Researchers have long journeyed to Svalbard to study everything from glaciers to the northern lights. But in recent years the archipelago has become especially important to science because it provides a front-row seat to some of the fastest warming on Earth; since 1991 the region's mean annual air temperatures have risen at roughly seven times the global rate-and twice the Arctic average.
Even as climate change boosts Svalbard's scientific value, however, rising geopolitical tensions in the Arctic are making research more difficult. In its National Threat Assessment for this year, Norway's Police Security Service warned that Svalbard is "especially exposed" to Russian spying, and that "China will try to use research as a gateway to Norwegian territory in the High North."
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