#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Mesyatsev island has disappeared on Franz Josef Land in the Arctic. This was determined from space images by schoolchildren and students from the RISKSAT interregional project group led by MAI associate professor and candidate of technical sciences Alexey Kucheyko.
“An ice formation, previously called Mesyatsev island, has disappeared in the area of Eva-Liv Island on the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic. We monitored it in 2020–2022. Now the island has completely melted, which requires correction of navigation charts,” Kucheyko said, as quoted by TASS.
According to satellite imagery, Mesyatsev Island was formed from the peninsula of the same name as a result of the Eva-Liv island glacier melting before 1995. This fact was confirmed by the expedition of the Arctic Archipelagoes project in 2018, and by the Russian Arctic National Park staff in 2021.
“On old and Soviet maps of the mid-20th century, there was a peninsula in the north of Eva-Liv island. In the 1990s, a strait appeared, as a result of which the peninsula became Mesyatsev island. Using satellite images, we constantly recorded a decrease in its size”, explained Evgeny Ermolov, head of the historical and cultural heritage preservation department of the Russian Arctic National Park. “Most likely, it was a glacier that descended from Eva-Liv island to the shallows, which is why an ice peninsula was formed. Due to global warming, the isthmus first melted, and now the island itself has disappeared”.
On August 19, 2015, the Mesyatsev island area was 53 hectares; on August 12, 2024, a small ice island measuring three hectares was recorded in the image. A month later (September 13, 2024), it finally disappeared from the images.
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Text: Polina Bardik, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
