Polar opposite: how climate change is altering the Arctic?

The Arctic is warming faster than any other place on the planet, while its wildlife is being slowly poisoned by industrial toxins brought by the wind and sea currents. In Svalbard, next to the North Pole, scientists from Europe and around the world are studying these problems. Ocean travelled to the Norwegian archipelago to meet them and find out more. 

Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean is increasingly feeling the heat of climate change. Temperatures here are rising dangerously fast, altering the land, sea and air.

With less than 2,500 permanent residents, Longyearbyen is a popular tourist destination and an important centre for Arctic research.

Founded as a mining town in the early 1900s, it still has a mine and a coal-fired power station - the last in Norway.

But that page in Svalbard’s history is about to turn. With climate change endangering fauna and putting the local communities at risk, Longyearbyen is preparing to shift fully to renewables in the coming years.

The increasingly extreme weather is already taking its toll. The town had to build snow barriers and declare ten percent of its houses unsafe after a local man and a two-year-old lost their lives after a sudden avalanche a few years ago.

Those living in the Arctic see the ground literally shifting beneath their feet. Kim Holmén, a professor of climate and environment and senior advisor at the Norwegian Polar Institute, has been working in Svalbard for 35 years. Just outside Longyearbyen, he shows us large swaths of soil damaged by thawing permafrost.

This process not only endangers roads and buildings across the Arctic but also releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

"Here we can go closer and have a look. Here you see, it is melting and falling down... You cannot