Svalbard became Norwegian territory in 1925, though the Russians and others have kept mineral rights here and continue to mine coal. Svalbard is an archipelago of islands: three major ones, and lots of smaller ones and is the furthest northern settled land. The largest community is Longyearbyen, where I am at the University in Svalbard, but the town was named for an American who started the first coal mine here: John Longyear.The latitude of the islands runs from 74 to 81 degrees N, and Longyearbyen is at 78 degrees. They do a small bit of coal mining here but all the coal is used to run the power plant for town, and it is the only coal-fired plant in Norway. Like our research area in Antarctica, there are about 4 months of continuous darkness in winter and 4 months of continuous daylight in summer. The temperature is a bit warmer due to the Gulf Stream, particularly on the west coast: the summer average is 40 deg F (5 deg C) and the winter is 10 deg F (-12 deg C).
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