SUN IS BACK AT LAST…SCIENTIFICALLY SPEAKING: It was behind clouds and mountains, but after nearly four months of night Longyearbyen gets 27 minutes of sunlight Tuesday
By Mark Sabbatini on February 17, 2022
0
0
Read Time:2 Minute, 12 Second
Image from UNIS webcam
In one of those “naked underneath all those clothes” enticements, the sun revealed itself to Longyearbyen on Tuesday for the first time since late October – if 27 minutes of “exposure” behind a lot of clouds and mountains counts.
A Facebook post by Dario Di Girolamo shows the twilight hues now visible in and around Longyearbyen for several hours a day following the polar night.Still, the end of the polar night in the world’s northernmost town is cause for observance, even if it’s nowhere near the level of celebration that will take place in about three weeks during Solfestuka when most of the town actually glimpses its first sunlight in months. The sun officially rose at 11:59 a.m. and set at 12:26 p.m., adding an extra bit of white at the southern horizon to the “blue light” Longyearbyen residents have been enjoying for the past couple of weeks.
“With the sun coming back, so do the gorgeous colors, before and after sunset,” wrote Dario Di Girolamo, in a post on an Italian Svalbard-themed Facebook page that is among the many filled wit photos showing the horizon hues of the season.
A few posts with peeks of the actual sun are visible thanks to some of the more vigorous sunseekers, who climbed the taller hills surrounding Longyearbyen or ventured far from them. But those efforts will need to be increasingly less vigorous – and rapidly so – during the coming days as the amount of daily sunlight will grow in hours, rather than minutes as seen in most of the rest of the world.
The sun rose at 11:14 a.m. and set at 1:10 p.m. on Wednesday, a gain of 1 hour and 29 minutes from Tuesday. The amount of sunlight will surpass four hours on Sunday and seven hours on Feb. 28.
While the first “day” after the months of polar night in Longyearbyen was almost comically brief, the length of daily sunlight will increase at a comically fast pace compared to most of the rest of the world. Table by dateandtime.com.
However, the surrounding mountains will shield the center of Longyearbyen from direct sunlight until midday March 8, which not-so-coincidentally is the high point of the annual Solfestuka festival when hundreds gather to worship in the literal sunspot. But from there the exposure will continue to grow rapidly, with the town shinning under the 24-hour daylight of the midnight sun starting April 17.
I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation.
Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads.
But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation.
Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads.
But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
Icepeople is again facing an immediate existential crisis due (of course) to hardships largely inflected by the pandemic. In short, 1) the website needs $22 U.S. (190 NOK) to stay online for another month and 2) the editor needs any and all help possible to avoid homelessness in the middle of polar winter (not that it’s legal here any other time of the year).
So if you appreciate Icepeople for its unique stories about Svalbard and/or critical news during these critical times, as well as its features about the more colorful aspects of life here (today’s feature about the upcoming Polarjazz festival is for the event that first drew our editor’s attention to Svalbard way back in 2008) please do whatever you can during what are admittedly incredibly harsh times for many.
0
0
