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Environment

How a Norwegian island is already living our climate change future

By Adam Vaughan

30 July 2021

91av. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

A summer view over the town of Longyearbyen in Svalbard

Arterra Picture Library / Alamy

One year on, the people of Svalbard are still talking about July 2020. The biggest town of this Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic, Longyearbyen, is surrounded by snowy hills and is sub-zero for much of the year. But last July, temperatures in a month that rarely sees a day above 10°C. This July, by contrast, has been slightly cooler than normal.

“There is a general feeling that things are not like they used…

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