A climate-change frontier in the world's northernmost town, alexnfraser reports
Since 1979, the Arctic sea ice extent has declined by nearly 12% per decade, with the most pronounced winter reduction in the Svalbard and Barents Sea area.
Ivar Smedsroed is the summer vicar at Svalbard Church, a red wooden building with white trim and a weathervane-topped bell tower. Inside the Lutheran house of worship, which claims to be the world's northernmost church, stained glass paints the snow-topped mountains nearby in a pastel hue. "As the permafrost thaws, things that are in the ground tend to be pulled up," Smedsroed says matter-of-factly as he sits on the ground near the graves. "That is happening more or less all of the time, so we might see that the graves literally come up, the coffins."
Thawing permafrost isn't just a problem for the dead: It has caused problems for current residents of Longyearbyen too.
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