Hops

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Hops
The weather station on Hopen
The weather station on Hopen
Waters Barents Sea
Archipelago Spitsbergen
Geographical location 76 ° 35 '  N , 25 ° 10'  E Coordinates: 76 ° 35 '  N , 25 ° 10'  E
Hopen (Svalbard and Jan Mayen)
Hops
length 37 km
width 2 km
surface 47 km²
Highest elevation Iversenfjellet
371  m
Residents 4 meteorologists
<1 inh / km²
main place Hopen radio
Topographic map of the island of Hopen
Topographic map of the island of Hopen

Hopen , formerly German also Hope Island or Walrus Island , is an island in the Spitzbergen Archipelago (Svalbard) about 100 km southeast of the island of Spitzbergen .

description

The island is 37 km long in a northeastern direction and only 2 km wide. Hopen lies on the same submarine plateau as Bear Island and the southeastern part of Svalbard. It consists mainly of the table mountains Lyngefjellet, Bläfjell, Kollerfjellet and Iversenfjellet, which are made of limestone and extend from the 150 m high Cape Beisaren in the north to the southern tip of the island, the 371 m high Cape Thor. These mountains are separated by several transverse channels in an east-west direction. The bank drops very steeply, especially on the west side. At a height of about 30 m there are remains of an old coastline with tree stumps and whale bones. Due to the extreme climatic influences, the rock is very soft on the surface and forms rubble and sand, especially towards the east coast, so that the coast there is flatter. The sea around the island is shallow a few hundred meters, so that breakers form quickly. Landing with boats is therefore difficult. The leeward side of Hopen is often used by fishing trawlers for reloading and weathering storms.

history

  • 1596: The island was discovered in the summer of 1596 by Jan Cornelisz Rijp during the Barents expedition in search of the Northeast Passage .
  • 1613 by the British whaler Thomas Marmaduke from Hull after his ship Hopewell named
  • 1869: Emil Bessels reaches the island with his steamer Albert and determines the exact position of the island for the first time
  • 1871: Payer and Weyprecht explored the Isbjörn
  • 1898: Expedition of Prince Albert of Monaco
  • 1908/1909: Six hunters spend the winter for the first time, including Henry Rudi , who later became the “polar bear king”
  • 1920: As a result of the Spitzbergen Treaty , Hopen has belonged to Svalbard and thus to Norway since 1920.
  • 1923/1924: Three hunters overwintered
  • 1930/1931: Two hunters overwintered
  • 1934/1935: Three hunters overwintered
  • 1936/1937: Two hunters overwintered
  • 1924: Thor Iversen , a Norwegian oceanographer and fisheries inspector, visited and mapped the island in 1924 and in the 1950s.
  • 1928: Expedition OI Willoch
  • 1930: Gunnar Horn expedition
  • 1939: Thor Askheim expedition
  • 1942-1945: In the night of 4 to 5 November 1942, the Soviet 7500 fell BRT - steamer Dekabrist after hits from two German torpedo bomber 88 Ju of I / KG reached 30. Of the four with 80 crew members occupied lifeboats only one with 18 people the east coast of the island. The inmates found a fur-catching hut. Before it was discovered on May 1, 1943 by a German He 111 long-range reconnaissance aircraft , 15 people died of cold, illness and exhaustion. On July 25, 1943, the crew of the submarine U 703 found the captain, a sailor and the doctor. However, the submarine only took the captain in, but left food and medicine behind. After a 7-week patrol in the Kara Sea , the doctor and the Russian sailor were also picked up from the submarine on October 7, 1943. Already 20 days later by the submarine U 354 of the weather group Svartisen , dropped to last with material for a stay of up to 20 July 1944 on the island and used the hut on. From June 3, 1944 to August 5, 1945 , the Helhus Air Force weather troop was stationed on the island and used the station. Helhus initially worked until the surrender on May 8, 1945 and then continued on Allied orders. The crew of four were picked up from a Norwegian ship at the end of August 1945 and brought back as prisoners. Today there is a memorial plaque on Hopen for the occupation of the Decembrists .
  • 1947: 9 km north of the cape there is a coast radio station , a magnetometer and a weather station that have been looked after by Norway since 1947 . 4 scientists and 6 sled dogs have kept the station occupied since then and are supplied by ship and helicopter from Spitzbergen. There is also a fuel depot and an emergency landing site for SAR helicopters ( ICAO code ENHO). A 300 m long narrow-gauge track leads from the boat landing point to the station.
  • 1951: On August 3, the FAZ reported in a dpa report that the employees of the weather station on Hopen were able to recover remains of corpses and a barely damaged lifeboat with the name “Dekabrist”.
  • 1978: On August 28, a Soviet TU-16 reconnaissance aircraft crashes on the island. The seven inmates are killed. As a result, political tensions between Norway and the Soviet Union arise around the flight recorder .
  • 2003: The island is declared a nature reserve by Norway in September in order to prevent a base for possible oil and gas production projects in the Barents Sea being created here.
  • 2014: Hopen is designated as an Important Bird Area (SJ012) by BirdLife International .

climate

Hopen is only ice-free from July to October and has no sheltered bay or harbor, making it very difficult for the Norwegian Coast Guard , who come with supplies in July and September, to land here. The annual average temperature is −6.4 ° C and the weather is often foggy and rainy. The average annual precipitation on Hopen is 476 mm.

Average monthly temperatures and precipitation for Hopen
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Max. Temperature ( ° C ) −10.6 −9.9 −10.2 −8.1 −2.7 1.2 3.9 3.9 2.1 −1.4 −6.1 −9.1 O −3.9
Min. Temperature (° C) −17.5 −17.1 −16.9 −14.2 −6.6 −1.6 0.5 1.0 −0.5 −5.1 −11.0 −15.1 O −8.6
Temperature (° C) −14.2 −13.7 −13.7 −11.3 −4.7 −0.4 1.9 2.3 0.7 −3.3 −8.6 −12.2 O −6.4
Precipitation ( mm ) 39 42 41 32 24 30th 35 39 46 47 47 54 Σ 476
Rainy days ( d ) 9.8 9.0 8.9 7.1 5.5 6.2 7.2 8.0 11.2 11.2 10.4 9.8 Σ 104.3
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
−10.6
−17.5
−9.9
−17.1
−10.2
−16.9
−8.1
−14.2
−2.7
−6.6
1.2
−1.6
3.9
0.5
3.9
1.0
2.1
−0.5
−1.4
−5.1
−6.1
−11.0
−9.1
−15.1
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
N
i
e
d
e
r
s
c
h
l
a
g 		39
42
41
32
24
30th
35
39
46
47
47
54
  Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Source: Norwegian Meteorological Institute eKlima , normal period 1961–1990

Flora and fauna

The land fauna is limited to polar bears and arctic foxes . Twice a year up to 400 polar bears come over Hopen during their polar journey. During this time in particular, scientists can only leave the station with a firearm. During the short summer, various sea ​​birds breed on Hopen . In 2012, 63,000 breeding pairs of the kittiwake , 725,000 adult thick-billed lumbares , 480 black guillemots and 425,000 breeding pairs of other bird species were counted.

The flora is quite sparse and consists of about 30 species, mainly lichens and mosses .

literature

Web links

Commons : Hopen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hopen . In: The Place Names of Svalbard (first edition 1942). Norsk Polarinstitutt , Oslo 2001, ISBN 82-90307-82-9 (English, Norwegian).
  2. ^ Helmut W. Malnig: The Austro-Hungarian Arctic Expeditions 1871-1883 and the International Polar Year . In: Troop Service 6/2007.
  3. ↑ Rupert Holzapfel : German Polar Research 1940/45 (PDF; 1.7 MB). In: Polarforschung 21 (2), 1951, pp. 85-97.
  4. ^ Soviet Union: Military Plane Crashes in Norway (PDF; 63 kB). Stanford Web, October 27, 1978, accessed September 14, 2015.
  5. ↑ a b Hopen Island , BirdLife International.