Abstract
The thermal, anemometric and bioclimatic conditions on the topoclimatic scale
were investigated in the summer season in the EbbaValley region in central Spitsbergen. Eight
measurement sites, representing different ecosystems and different types of active surfaces
typical of Spitsbergen, were chosen and automatic, hourly recorded, measurements were per−
formed at the sites between 11 and 25 of July 2009. The analysis of the spatial distribution of
the air temperature and thewind−chill temperature, both for the dayswith radiation and non−ra−
diation weather, indicates that the most favorable regions in the interior of Spitsbergen are
those situated in the shielded central parts of the valleys and in the lower parts of the slopes
with southern exposure. The thermal and wind conditions are definitely less favorable at the
tops of elevations and on the glacier. Large differences between the air temperature and the
wind−chill temperature were noted, particularly during the unfavorable non−radiation weather,
on the glacier and on open peaks due to a large horizontal and vertical wind−chill temperature
gradient. The thermal inversions observed in the Ebba Valley in July 2009 were not of the typi−
cal, glacier katabatic wind origin. They appeared during the western air circulation, which
brings advection of cooled air from above the cold waters of Petunia Bay. The cold air pene−
trates into the valley and pushes upwards themass of warmer air in the valley, creating a rather
thin inversion layer, whose upper edge is marked with thin Stratus clouds.
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