On an island deep within the Arctic Ocean, where temperatures are soaring up to seven times faster than the global average, the very fabric of the food chain is unraveling.
Vast kelp forests are now flourishing in waters that were once perpetually frozen, displacing indigenous species. Reindeer, cut off from traditional foraging routes over vanishing sea ice, are now forced to consume seaweed when they can’t access their usual inland grasses and lichen.
Meanwhile, polar bears, once formidable hunters of seals from expansive ice platforms, are increasingly moving inland. These apex predators are now raiding bird nests, hunting reindeer, and, alarmingly, coming into more frequent conflict with humans.
This dramatic ecological shift is unfolding in real-time under the watchful eyes of scientists at an international research station in Svalbard, a cluster of islands close to the North Pole. The changing environment has added a perilous dimension to their work.
Researchers must now carry rifles for protection. A new safety brochure starkly warns: if confronted by a polar bear, “Stay calm. DO NOT RUN.” If the bear charges: “Be prepared to use any possible deterrence (shovels, ski poles, rocks, blocks of ice, water in a thermos, etc.).”
A polar bear walking on sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, in April.
Warning of polar bear danger outside the research settlement at Ny-Alesund.
Svalbard, though controlled by Norway, operates under an international treaty allowing global citizens to live and work there. At Ny-Alesund, the world’s northernmost human settlement, scientists meticulously study every facet of the Arctic ecosystem.
As this critical region continues its rapid warming trend, primarily fueled by the burning of fossil fuels, the full implications of this transformation remain unknown. A pressing question looms: will local flora and fauna manage to adapt?
“The question is can they find a winning strategy that will let them survive given those changes?” pondered Gil Bohrer, an environmental engineer at The Ohio State University. He contributed to an extensive archive of animal movement data across the Arctic, designed to track how wildlife adapts to swift environmental shifts.
Vanishing Ice
One chilly, sun-drenched spring morning, two scientists — one German, one Russian-born — prepared their boat. They meticulously loaded drills, snow testing kits, over 20 pounds of protective gear, and, crucially, two rifles and two flare guns.
“We are always watching for polar bears,” explained Sebastian Gerland as he donned his layers. “They can swim and they can dive.”
For almost three decades, Dr. Gerland has been a regular visitor to Ny-Alesund, a town that transitioned from a coal mining hub in the early 20th century to an international research center after a series of fatal accidents in the 1960s led to the closure of its mines.
Every spring, scientists here drill into the same fjord’s sea ice, extracting cylindrical samples to measure its thickness, temperature, and salinity.
Sebastian Gerland, a scientist with the Norwegian Polar Institute, stepped onto sea ice to take measurements.
Dmitry Divine measured an ice core in the Kongsfjord.
Their collected data paints a stark picture: the ice forms later, melts earlier, and thins year by year, accompanied by a lighter snow cover. What was a glacier just 17 years ago has now melted into the sea. As the ice vanishes, the dark fjord water absorbs more heat, accelerating warming and further shrinking the following year’s ice.
Over decades, Dr. Gerland and his colleagues have witnessed this relentless feedback loop – a once-frozen world steadily receding. “Collapsing ice affects everything,” Dr. Gerland emphasized.
Without sufficient snow cover, seals cannot build their breeding dens, leading to less food for polar bears and foxes. Arctic Indigenous communities also lose the traditional frozen pathways they’ve relied on for hunting and travel for generations.
After an hour of collecting samples under a brilliant blue sky, the two scientists navigated their boat back through iceberg-dotted waters, reaching the research base just in time for lunch.
The canteen buzzed like a lively school cafeteria: boots stacked by the door (next to a large stuffed polar bear), snow coats hanging in the lobby, and scientists queuing with trays for steaming meals. The recent cargo ship delivery meant a rare treat: fresh grapefruits, bananas, tomatoes, and lettuce in a place often cut off from such basic provisions.
A cheerful cacophony of languages filled the air. Germans and French often clustered together, while the numerous Norwegians formed their own groups. At another table, four Indian scientists dined quietly.
India has been sending scientists to Svalbard since 2008, with some members of the current team returning annually. Pradeep Kumar, director of the Geological Survey of India, was on his seventh visit. He recounted a fresh polar bear paw print spotted just yesterday, unsettlingly close to the canteen. “Maybe we just missed the bear by half an hour,” he mused. A viral video, showing a polar bear chasing a man in a Russian settlement in Svalbard, underscored the growing tension. In the clip, the man dramatically escapes onto his snow scooter, speeding away just in the nick of time.
The research station’s cafeteria.
The Ripple Effect
Dr. Kumar’s roommate, Vipindas Kavumbai, an Indian microbiologist, dedicates his days to a marine lab near Ny-Alesund’s small port. He meticulously analyzes bacteria from the fjord water, filtering, sampling, and freezing them before shipping his specimens to India for DNA sequencing.
As Arctic waters warm, the cold-adapted bacteria are diminishing, replaced by species that thrive in rising temperatures.
“When the sea ice melts and more heat comes, these organisms cannot survive,” he explained. “Other organisms replace them.”
This phenomenon, at the microscopic level, is what scientists refer to as a “community shift.”
Just offshore, burgeoning underwater brown kelp forests are thriving in the newly ice-free waters. Carlos Smerdou, a Spanish ecologist who has studied Arctic seaweed for 23 years, noted that these expanding forests are “reorganizing everything.”
Indian scientists and engineers carrying supplies to their research station.
Héloïse Caraty, left, and Theodor Kindeberg, working with kelp in a lab.
Intriguingly, some of these vast underwater forests have attracted an unexpected new visitor: hungry reindeer. Ashild Onvik Pedersen, a Norwegian ecologist, has witnessed this transformation firsthand.
A dog musher from a small southern Norwegian village, she divides her time between Svalbard’s capital, Longyearbyen, and Ny-Alesund, where she studies coastal reindeer. For decades, these reindeer were considered beneficiaries of climate change. That’s no longer the case.
“The sea ice is the glue here,” she explained. “They don’t have it anymore. So they are stuck.”
These reindeer once roamed freely across Svalbard’s extensive coastline, using frozen fjords to access richer grazing grounds. Now, with those routes gone, they are confined by mountains and glaciers.
Dr. Pedersen navigates the frozen terrain by snowmobile, meticulously tracking reindeer movements, body condition, and survival rates. The biting cold, often dipping to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit), leaves her cheeks flushed.
As she described her work, a small group of reindeer appeared in the distance, trotting along a ridge. A curious young one even approached her.
“They’re very curious,” she remarked, observing them through binoculars.
Indeed, they are discovering new food sources. Reindeer typically dig through snow to reach nutrient-rich lichens. However, Svalbard’s changing climate brings more frequent freeze-thaw cycles, creating thick ice crusts over the snowy ground. This makes digging for lichens incredibly difficult. Trapped and facing starvation, the reindeer have resorted to eating kelp, Dr. Pedersen noted. But seaweed offers significantly less nutritional value than their traditional diet.
She aptly terms it “survival food.”
Yet, the narrative isn’t uniform across the archipelago. In Svalbard’s inland valleys, reindeer populations have nearly quadrupled, hitting record highs in 2018. Warmer summers extend the growing seasons, leading to more abundant vegetation and thriving inland herds.
This has resulted in what Dr. Pedersen describes as “diverging population trends” within an ecosystem that historically functioned as a cohesive whole.
Ashild Onvik Pedersen, a scientist with the Norwegian Polar Institute, looking for reindeer.
Reindeer near Ny-Alesund.
Adapting a Hunt
With the disappearance of sea ice, polar bears are appearing in unexpected locations and adopting new hunting strategies.
For centuries, their diet consisted almost exclusively of seals, whose abundant blubber sustained them through the harsh Arctic winter. However, as the ice recedes, many of Svalbard’s approximately 300 bears have shifted their focus to land-based prey and an array of novel hunting tactics.
One such method is the “cliff strategy,” where bears ascend below reindeer on steep terrain, herding them higher up the slopes until they fall. Alternatively, they ambush reindeer from above, using their considerable mass to descend hills faster than their prey anticipates. Others have been observed chasing and outswimming reindeer in the water.
“I have been surprised with how they’ve found ways to catch reindeer,” commented Jon Aars, a Norwegian ecologist who has studied polar bears for over two decades.
Dr. Aars noted that polar bears now come ashore nearly a month earlier than they did in the 1990s. This earlier arrival means they can decimate up to 90 percent of seabird nests if they reach them before the eggs hatch.
Encounters with humans are also increasing, with more sightings near Ny-Alesund compared to five or 10 years ago. The settlement now employs armed guards to patrol its perimeter. In July, a four-year-old male bear was tragically shot and killed near the settlement after it was deemed a threat to human safety.
A polar bear on sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen this past spring.
Since the ban on polar bear hunting in 1973, Svalbard’s bear population has recovered and stabilized. Some bears are even recolonizing areas they had abandoned a century ago, making Svalbard one of the prime locations in the Arctic to observe these magnificent animals.
During the three-month seal hunting season, bears typically acquire about 70 percent of their annual energy requirements. Currently, they supplement this diet with reindeer meat, bird eggs, grass, and seaweed.
Dr. Aars expressed uncertainty about whether these alternative food sources will provide sufficient nutrition if the bears’ access to seals continues to decline.
Meanwhile, across the Arctic in Hudson Bay, polar bear populations are facing a severe decline. Extended ice-free seasons are leaving them dangerously thin too early in the year, pushing many towards starvation.
“I think a lot of what we have today will be lost,” Dr. Aars admitted.
Nevertheless, he maintains a degree of optimism, believing that some ecosystems will endure in certain areas, or new ones will emerge, showcasing different species and behaviors in adaptation to a warmer world.
“I’m less pessimistic than others,” Dr. Aars concluded. “I think we will have polar bears in parts of the Arctic quite far into the future.”