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Long-term hydroclimate monitoring in Linnédalen, western Spitsbergen provides a baseline for understanding climate and environmental change in the rapidly warming 21st century climate in Svalbard. Monitoring watershed and climatological processes also provides the means for directly interpreting the annually resolved sedimentation record (varves) in proglacial Linnévatnet, which in turn, will allow for an understanding of the current hydroclimatic regime in a long-term context. Related sediment core data were submitted by our collaboration partners at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. An automated weather station, snow depth and stream water temperature sensors, time-lapse cameras, and moorings in Linnévatnet have been deployed since 2003 in the 31 square kilometer (km2) catchment of Linnédalen. This project (2016-2023) follows hydroclimate studies initiated during the National Science Foundation - Office of Polar Programs (NSF-OPP) sponsored Svalbard Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) which ran from 2003 to 2013 archived and research and teaching in Linnédalen while the project was affiliated with the University Centre in Svalbard 2016-2022. Data from the earlier phase of the Linnedalen monitoring project includes weather station measurements, time lapse photography, and student theses and reports was archived in the Arctic Data Center and can be found here: https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/urn:uuid:1b96e994-20a1-4445-a327-3256c040034f 

The ability to understand and predict environmental changes in Svalbard is highly dependent on the availability of detailed and long-term records of baseline environmental data from a regional network across the archipelago. The Kapp Linné region provides a strategic location for a dedicated long-term environmental observatory in the western coastal region of the Nordenskiöldland Peninsula. This region is greatly influenced by the Atlantic High Arctic maritime climate regime (Eckerstorfer and Christiansen 2011) with higher mean annual air temperature and greater precipitation than the more continental interior regime in central Spitsbergen (Humlum 2002). With the recent intensified Atlantification of the northern Barents Sea (Nilsen et al. 2016; Barton et al. 2018), environmental monitoring studies along the Nordenskiöldland coast may help to serve as an early warning system for climate change and accompanying environmental responses across the Svalbard archipelago.