Climatic studies show that mean annual temperature in the Arctic increased by up to 2º C within the last 30 years (Chapman and Walsh in Weller 1998). In Scandinavia, however, the temperature change was slightly negative during summer and slightly positive during winter. Looking closer to the site of this investigation in the Abisko Region (Northern Sweden), the temperature data from Abisko Scientific Research Station shows an increase in the annual mean temperature during the last 100 years of nearly 1º C. The biggest increase took place in mean summer and spring temperature of more then 1º C, while the mean winter and autumn temperature increased less then 0.5º C.
Where as a lot of climatic impact studies were done for glaciers, there are only a few studies focusing on the interaction of global change and snow patches. As we know the distribution and extend of snow patches varies from year to year with the individual yearly weather conditions. The question is whether the trend of these variations can be used as a fast indicator for changes in the regional weather pattern?
To look closer at this question a first mapping of the snow patch extent was done in the period from 18th till 20th July 1999 in the Abisko region between Kargevagge, Gohpascorru, Luaktacohkka and Latnjacohkka. The mapping was done photographically and provided a base for generating a map with the distribution and extent of the snow patches.
This point evaluation was combined with Landsat 7 TM scenes to study the regional snow patch evolution during summer 1999. For this area six cloud free images are available. These images were acquired during the time period from 30th of June 1999 till 25th of September 1999. The image from the 9th of September 1999 shows that a new accumulation period started already with a fresh snow cover in the higher elevations.