Abstract
The Arctic region is considered to be most sensitive to climate change, with warming in the Arctic occurring considerably faster than the global average due to several positive feedback mechanisms contributing to the “Arctic amplification”. Also the maritime and mountainous climate of Svalbard has undergone changes during the last decades. Here, the focus is set on the current atmospheric boundary conditions for the marine ecosystem in the Kongsfjord area, discussed in the frame of long-term climatic observations in the larger regional and hemispheric context.
During the last century, a general warming is found with temperature increases and precipitation changes varying in strength. During the last decades, a strong seasonality of the warming is observed in the Kongsfjord area, with the strongest temperature increase occurring during the winter season. The winter warming is related to observed changes in the net longwave radiation. Moreover, changes in the net shortwave radiation are observed during the summer period, attributed to the decrease in reflected radiation caused by the retreating snow cover.
Another related aspect of radiation is the intensity of solar ultra-violet radiation that is closely coupled to the abundance of ozone in the column of air overhead. The long-term evolution of ozone losses in the Arctic and their connection to climate change are discussed.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank all technical and scientific staff at Ny-Ålesund who has been taking care of the atmospheric measurements described in this article, in particular the station staff of the Sverdrup and AWIPEV stations. The authors are grateful to the three reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions.
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Maturilli, M., Hanssen-Bauer, I., Neuber, R., Rex, M., Edvardsen, K. (2019). The Atmosphere Above Ny-Ålesund: Climate and Global Warming, Ozone and Surface UV Radiation. In: Hop, H., Wiencke, C. (eds) The Ecosystem of Kongsfjorden, Svalbard. Advances in Polar Ecology, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46425-1_2
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