Fieldwork during the winter season in Svalbard usually comes with a built-in advantage: snow. It acts as a natural transport layer, making it possible to move efficiently across large distances with snowmobiles and sleds. You plan your campaign around that mobility: how far you can go, how much you can bring, how many sites you can visit in a day.
Most years, that assumption holds. But this year turned out to be an exception.
When Dr. Jakob Schwalb-Willmann and Dr. Mirjana Bevanda outlined the winter field campaigns for 2026 in Svalbard they accounted for the typical challenges of working under Arctic winter conditions. However, when snowmelt starts much earlier than expected, things change quickly.
At first, it doesn’t seem like a major issue. A bit less snow, some exposed ground. But very soon, the consequences become practical. Snowmobiles can no longer be used reliably. Routes that were straightforward only days before become patchy and unpredictable.
Still, it is nothing that can stop us. Equipment, safety gear, food. Everything that would normally be distributed across snow scooters and sleds ends up on your back.
Together with our dedicated interns Marlene Sehrbrock and Aoibhin Murphy as well as our former Msc student Ronja Seitz, the equipment is redistributed, loads are shared, spikes are put on and off we go. It’s slower, but it works.
Early snowmelt is not just a logistical inconvenience. It reflects a broader environmental shift in both the timing and duration of snow cover, as well as growing variability in Arctic seasonal patterns.
