Svalbard. Essence of sea ice
I didn’t know much about sea ice before I first went to Svalbard. But then I did learn a little about it, then I read a bit more, then a bit more still, and now there’s no way back.
I’m not a scientist, so I know I’m not able to explain things about sea ice in too accurate, detailed terms, not to mention that I lack a lot (A LOT) of background knowledge on the subject. But it doesn’t take a scientist to appreciate the vital (literally vital) role of sea ice on this planet and the truly catastrophic impact of its disappearance.
Sea ice is beautiful: rough, raw, frozen beauty in its purest form. Nothing is coincidental in nature: everything plays a role, everything is there for a reason. Beauty in nature is never for beauty’s sake. But sea ice is, above all other adjectives one might use to describe it, necessary, so necessary that it is in fact vital for those who live in, on and around it, as well as those who live thousands of kilometres away, those who don’t even know what sea ice means (is it sea? Is it ice? Choose, it cannot be both). Sea ice is life. It’s our life, it’s everyone’s lives.
Our guide Hans walking on the fjord ice
I think back to the conversation I had with Hans, the amazing guide we had on the boat tour to Billefjorden. The boat stopped at the edge of the fjord ice, off the coast where the Pyramiden settlement sits in the distance, and got off a dozen at a time to take a walk on the ice.
‘How far is Pyramiden from here?’, I asked him, as we stood on the fjord ice next to the boat. ‘About 2 km’, he replied. ‘Is that average?’, I asked. That was the actual question I’d had on my mind for a while that day. ‘Not even close. This has been the worst year so far. When I first came here in 1992, I would leave Longyearbyen by snowmobile, and I could ride all the way to Pyramiden from there, and the ice was everywhere.’ ‘That’s sad.’ ‘It is. They keep talking about 1.5-degree temperature rise, but here it’s already up by 5-6 degrees.’
We are losing sea ice, and that means we’re losing one of the most important things we’ve ever had. We’re losing all of it. We’re losing ourselves.
