Scientists race to study the Arctic before it melts

In February 2025, a team of researchers landed in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Their final destination was a small town called Ny-Ålesund.

Sitting between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Ny-Ålesund is the world’s northernmost permanent settlement. Winters here are normally well below freezing, with the landscape blanketed in snow and ice.

But when the research team arrived, they were in for a shock. Bare rock and ponds formed by the melted ice and snow greeted them.

During winter 2025, the Arctic experienced some of the warmest temperatures ever recorded. Average temperatures in Ny-Ålesund are normally around -15°C at this time of year, but in 2025, it was warmer than -4°C.

Laura Molares Moncayo is one of our PhD students who was part of the research team that set out to study the unique microbial communities that inhabit the snow and glacier surfaces in this remote corner of the world.

Although Laura’s work doesn’t focus on climate change, she and the team were moved to document their experience of this rapidly changing environment and what it will mean for future Arctic scientists.

“We were all completely distraught,” says Laura. “It was just so shocking and emotional for us and the local community, and it also really impacted our research.”

“We knew we needed to say something because these winter warming events are becoming a lot more common in the Arctic, and the consequences are still not well understood.”

The team documented their experience in the journal Nature Communications.

A rapidly changing Arctic landscape

The field station in Ny-Ålesund has been hosting scientific researchers for over 50 years.

During this time, the glaciers that once swept down the valley have been steadily retreating. Now, traces on the rocks and photographs provide the only evidence of where they once sat.

But these changes haven’t stopped. The rapid rate of Arctic warming continues to alter the landscape.

In February 2025, Ny-Ålesund experienced air temperatures above freezing on 14 of the month’s 28 days. Usually, running water at this time of year is rare, but the sustained period of warmth mixed with prolonged rainfall triggered the widespread melting across the region.

The research team observed vast temporary lakes formed by this meltwater. Glacier-fed streams and rivers that usually remain frozen until spring were active, and large areas of tundra normally covered in snow lay bare.

Green hues typically associated with spring and summer spread across the landscape as plants emerged through the melting snow and ice. The landscape was waking up months earlier than it should have been.

To collect soil samples from this part of the world, researchers usually need to use drills and pickaxes to crack open the frozen earth. But this year the ground had thawed so much that they were able to use spoons.

To seasoned scientists who have been visiting the Arctic over the years, this was a shocking and upsetting scene to find.

Dr James Bradley, who joined Laura on the trip, has visited Svalbard several times before. He says, “standing in pools of water at the snout of the glacier, or on bare, green tundra, was shocking and surreal”.

“A thick snowpack covering the landscape vanished within days. We packed all the usual cold-weather gear – thermal layers, thick gloves, insulated down – expecting the harsh Arctic winter conditions we’ve always prepared for. But on the glacier, I was working bare-handed in the rain.”

Why is the Arctic warming faster?

Numerous studies have shown that the Arctic is warming up to four times faster than the global average.

Svalbard is one of the most adversely affected regions. It’s been warming at six to seven times the global average rate since 1979, firmly placing this region at the forefront of the global climate crisis.

The alarmingly fast warming of the Arctic is mainly triggered by the rapid melting of sea ice. Lighter surfaces such as ice and snow have a much greater albedo, which means they reflect more sunlight and so cool these regions. But as the ice melts, more of the dark, underlying ocean is exposed. This much darker surface absorbs sunlight and so allows more heat to enter the Arctic region, hastening the increase in temperature.

Summer Arctic sea ice is shrinking at a rate of more than 12% per decade, but that’s not all. An increasing frequency of winter warming events also threatens the landscape.

“We don’t really talk about winter warming because it’s not as obvious,” says Laura. “It can still be cold even when it’s unusually warm for the season, but it really affects the ecosystem.”

“The polar winter is also not very well studied, mainly because it’s very difficult to access at this time of year. It’s normally very cold and completely dark for six months. The conditions are often dangerous, the weather can be quite extreme, and you have to be more wary of polar bears.”

“So we know very little about these winter-warming events and how the ecosystem is being affected, which is scary when you think about how these events are going to become even more common.”

The effects of a warming Svalbard

Historically, the pristine nature of this extremely remote region has allowed researchers to study environments that are far from the influence of humans.

The ice, snow and soil are full of unique communities of microorganisms that can help scientists understand just how life survives in such extreme environments. Sampling these places requires the researchers to be careful not to contaminate anything.

As a result, lots of time and effort goes into carefully planning these expeditions so that the team can get the most out of their short time there. But this winter, many of these plans were scuppered by the unexpected conditions.

“We had all these plans of the things we wanted to collect and to do, but we found we couldn’t get out as much as we wanted to,” says Laura. “I wanted to collect at least five days of snow, but in the end I only managed to collect on one day because every other day it rained. In the two weeks we were there, it only snowed once.”

“In the future, we are going to have to plan for the possibility that we will face these conditions because they are no longer becoming one-off events.”

The perils of permafrost

While the researchers are usually there for a few weeks at a time, it’s the small number of residents who live in Ny-Ålesund throughout the year who are feeling the effects of climate change the most.

Their houses are built on permafrost, which as the name suggests typically stays frozen throughout the year. But with winter temperatures beginning to creep above freezing, the very ground they live on is at risk of becoming unstable, causing the buildings to sink into the mud.

Local wildlife is also noticeably impacted, as what was once a delicate system that operated like clockwork is becoming more unpredictable.

“The temperatures are above zero, but sometimes they will dip below again, creating these freezing and refreezing events,” says Laura.

“Vegetation begins to bloom due to the warmer temperatures but then freezes over again. Deer also find it more difficult to get to the vegetation that normally lies under snow but is instead covered in ice, which is harder to penetrate.”

“We also don’t know how microbial communities are responding to this winter warming. Even under typical winter conditions, it’s not fully understood whether bacteria remain active or if they enter a state of dormancy to survive the season. With winter warming, they might become active for a few hours during a period of warmth and may not have the capacity to withstand these quickly changing conditions.”

These frequent cycles of warming and thawing of the microbes might also be creating something of a feedback loop.

“The more microbial activity there is, then the more greenhouse gases they start producing. So, the temperature continues to get warmer and warmer.”

Vanishing ice shelves

It’s not just Svalbard that’s feeling the effects of a warming climate. Many scientists working across the Arctic have also reported similar changes. In some cases, whole ice shelves are disappearing.

Dr Anne Jungblut is one of our researchers who has been studying microscopic life in the polar regions for decades. During this time, she has witnessed firsthand some of the effects of our warming planet.

One moment that particularly stood out to her was during the collection of samples from the Markham Ice Shelf. Markham was once one of Canada’s major ice shelves and was believed to be around 4,500 years old. It was up to 30 metres thick and about the size of Manhattan.

“My first trip to the Markham Ice Shelf was in 2007,” recalls Anne. “We were only the second research team to collect material from this ice shelf to analyse the communities of microscopic life that lived there using DNA sequencing.”

The team returned the next year to gather more samples, but things then took a shocking turn. “We travelled to the town of Resolute in the far north of Canada where we waited for good weather to continue our journey. But then we received a dramatic message one morning by our team leader. It said, ‘I think the Markham Ice Shelf is gone’.”

“Collaborators of our team leader tried to look at the ice shelf using satellites. A day or so later, the weather broke and we were sent a clearer satellite image. The whole ice shelf had slipped out of the fjord and disintegrated.”

It had been a very warm year in the Canadian Arctic, which led to the shockingly rapid collapse of the ice shelf. It took with it a unique environment that was important for the algae and bacteria that thrived on its surface.

“It was strange because we had been there and stood on the ice shelf the previous year and it felt so solid, like standing on land. But within one week, it had gone and with it the whole ecosystem of microorganisms that lived there.”

“The changes we see in the Arctic often feel like they are happening slowly, but then you get these big events that are a massive wakeup call.”

A need for Arctic winter research

The Arctic winter is changing faster than any other season, yet it remains one of the least studied periods of the year.

A lack of comprehensive baseline data for the season makes it difficult to assess the scale and implications of current changes. This gap in knowledge severely limits the ability for scientists to predict, prepare for or respond to emerging risks.

Laura says that to understand what’s already happening during the Arctic winter and what is likely to happen into the future, we first need to study it.

“Scientific research is the foundation for informed decision-making, but climate change may be altering Arctic ecosystems at a faster pace than we are able to fully study or understand them,” Laura explains.

“Policymakers must recognise the critical need to support winter-focused scientific research. Without sustained monitoring, field-based research and investment in wintertime observation, we risk facing impacts that we neither understand nor anticipate.”

“We need to understand what’s happening now while we still have the opportunity to study these delicate systems, and before the changes are beyond our ability to reverse, mitigate or understand what we’ve lost.”