Scientists conducting fieldwork in the High Arctic during February 2025 encountered a startling reality: collecting fresh snow had become exceptionally difficult even in winter. Researchers led by James Bradley of Queen Mary University of London described standing in meltwater pools at glacier bases and on bare, green tundra as “shocking and surreal” during their mid-winter expedition to Svalbard. Their findings, published in *Nature Communications*, document the dramatic ice melt.
Equipped for extreme cold with thermal layers, thick gloves, and insulated parkas, the team instead found themselves working bare-handed in rain. “Our field campaign aimed to study fresh snow, yet over two weeks, we only managed to collect it once. Most precipitation fell as rain,” explained co-author Laura Molares Moncayo.
These firsthand accounts validate climate models predicting Svalbard is warming six to seven times faster than the global average, with winter temperatures rising nearly twice as fast as annual means. The research underscores that winter warming in the Arctic is no longer exceptional, fundamentally challenging the image of a perpetually frozen winter Arctic.
(Surface air temperature anomaly for February 2025 over the Arctic region. Data source: ERA5, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). nature.com)*
© ANSA