British tourists injured as ice hits sightseeing boat

This photo is not from Svalbard, but Jokelfjordbreen, Southern Norway.

18 people injured, three
seriously, after blocks of ice from a glacier hit a sightseeing boat with British tourists on Svalbard Island.
The passengers were on deck when the ice fell on the ship.

The Svartisen glacier

In winter it can fall more than 10 meters of snow in the Arctic Circle area of Norway, and we have several glaciers. The most famous is Okstindan and Svartisen.

The Svartisen glacier is the second largest glacier in Norway. The Svartisen glacier is a park of Saltfjellet/ Svartisen national park, wich is Norway's most various national park. The Svartisen glacier is 375 square kilometer, an thereby covers quite a bit of land.

Svalbard ice melting

The glaciers on arctic Svalbard are melting faster than researchers believed and the pace has accelerated over the past five years.

Over 16 cubic kilometers of ice from the many Svalbard glaciers vanishes each year. At thei same time record summer temperatures have been measured in Longyearbyen, and snowfall has declined.
Svalbard is now a greater contributor to the world's rising sea level than we previously believed.

Glaciers melting at record rate

It's been a warm summer in Norway, and that's sped up the shrinking process that already had hit the country's glaciers. Experts say the glaciers are breaking up and literally running away at a record tempo this summer.

The melting of the glaciers will make them more dangerous, experts warn, adding that some may even disappear entirely within the next 50 years.
This summer marks the third time in the last six years that scientists are registering a considerable reduction in the glaciers. Measurements taken in Jotunheimen, in the mountains of western Norway, at Svartisen and in West Finnmark show that the snows that fell last winter have disappeared quickly. Only at Svartisen were larges areas of the glacier still covered with the past winter's snow.