Claim: Svalbard glaciers lost their protective buffer in the mid-1980s and have been melting ever since

Rising air temperature in the mid-1980s considerably increased the amount of water that was melting across the glaciers and rapidly filled the air pockets in the firn, progressively weakening its buffer capacity. To make matters worse, the firn layer retreated fast inland to reach the elevation of 450 metres – a critical point that left more than half of the archipelago’s glacier area unprotected.