August 21, 2022 - Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land
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Sitting at the northern-most tip of Russia and only 600 miles (970 km)
away from the North Pole, the archipelago known as Franz Josef Land
remains coated in ice year-round. With such a northerly location,
frigid temperatures are the norm. In summer, the average high is just
35˚F (2˚C) and it plummets to about -8˚F (-22˚C) in winter. The steady
freeze helps maintain the presence of glaciers, which cover roughly 85
percent of islands.

Despite the harsh climate, life finds a way to flourish. Vegetation
includes lichens, mosses, and Arctic flowering plants. Polar bears
thrive on land, while sea birds such as guillemots, kittiwakes, and
little auks breed in abundance on the cliffs. Atlantic walrus, bowhead
whales, shark, seals, and even tiny copepods and phytoplankton live in
the waters around and between the islands.

Franz Josef Land was included in the Russian Arctic National Park in
2016, due to its pristine nature and biodiversity. Given that the ice
on and around Franz Josef Land depends on frigid temperatures
year-round, and island life depends on ice, the nature of these islands
is at particular risk in a warming climate, despite preservation
provided by classification as a park. A study published in June 2022 in
the journal Scientific Reports found the Northern Barents Sea to be an
exceptional warming hot spot, with warming rates up to twice as high as
previously estimated. The study states, “The regional warming rate for
the Northern Barents Sea region is exceptional and corresponds to 2 to
2.5 times the Arctic warming averages and 5 to 7 times the global
warming averages."

On August 17, 2022, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of
the northern section of Franz Josef Land. The islands remain covered
with glaciers, but sea ice is scarce around and between most of the
islands. Scant ice floats to the east of the islands while copious
broken ice covers the Barents Sea north the of the archipelago.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 8/17/2022
Resolutions: 1km (140.5 KB), 500m (407.2 KB), 250m (749.4
KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-08-21

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