While the people of the UK are looking forward to an extra hour in bed in the morning as the clocks are about to go back on October 27 – a settlement in Norway has waved goodbye to the sun completely for three months and 20 days.
At 13:13 today, the sun set in Longyearbyen (Svalbard), the world’s northernmost settlement, and is not set to rise again until almost midday on February 15 next year.
It is home to a population of around 1,750 as of 2020 and is the largest inhabited area of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, found in the lower portion of the Longyear Valley along the river of the same name on the biggest island, Spitsbergen.
Longyearbyen experiences midnight sun – also known as a polar day – between mid April and late August (127 days) and polar night from late October to mid February. However, due to shading from mountains, the sun is not actually visible in the town until around March 8.
Svalbard’s climate is a polar tundra climate, tempered by the North Atlantic Current. Snow typically covers the town from November to March. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Longyearbyen was 21.7C in July 2020 and the coldest was −46.3C in March 1986.
Although Alert, Canada, likely has a lower average UV index, Longyearbyen has the lowest recorded average UV index for any current or previously inhabited place on Earth. Between April and September, the UV index typically ranges from one to two, with May, June, and July having the highest UV index of two. All other months average at zero, giving Longyearbyen a mean UV index of 0.75 over 12 months.
By comparison, despite the fact that the British complain about a lack of sun, the UV index in the UK is usually around six or seven in the summer months.
Given the complete lack of sunshine for one part of the year and no darkness for another, it is not surprising that Longyearbyen experiences a very high turnover. In 2008, 427 people (23 percent) moved away. The average person lived in Longyearbyen for 6.3 years, although it is 6.6 years for Norwegians and 4.3 years for foreigners.
Solfestuka (“Sun Festival Week”) takes place each year during the week surrounding March 8, the date sunlight is first visible in most of the town after the polar night.
In recent years, the town has seen a large increase in tourism. Located nearly 560 miles from the Norwegian mainland and 808 miles from the North Pole, Longyearbyen offers excellent conditions to see the Northern Lights. The Svalbard Polar Hotel opened in 1995 to attract visitors. In 2016 it welcomed 115,000 tourists, of which 35,000 arrived by cruise ship from overseas.
However, not all its visitors are humans, as reindeers and whales are often spotted in the area – as are polar bears, which makes it necessary for people to carry weapons when they venture outside the settlement.
While it has been widely reported that it is forbidden to die in Longyearbyen, the reality is that bodies can’t be buried in the town, a regulation which normally prompts residents considered terminally ill to move to the mainland.
The decision to disallow burials was taken in 1950, when it was discovered that bodies buried in the area who had died as a result of the 1918 flu pandemic hadn’t yet begun to decompose due to the freezing temperatures. This has sparked concerns that buried bodies may still contain live strains of deadly viruses.
Svalbard and Longyearbyen are among the places in the world that have warmed fastest in the latest decades. The 1991–2020 averages show that mean annual temperature in Longyearbyen has increased by 3.6C since 1961–1990. With the sea surface temperatures warming, ice formation takes longer in the surrounding waters and thus warms the fastest due to the shorter ice season.
As of 2021, Longyearbyen is the fastest-warming town in the world. Since 1971, temperatures on Svalbard have risen five times faster than the global average, by roughly four degrees celsius. Winters now are more than seven degrees warmer than they were in the 1970s.
