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This paper provides an overview of the results of research on changes in ground temperature down to 50 cm depth, on the Kaffiøyra Plain, Spitsbergen in the summer seasons. To achieve this, measurement data were analysed from three different ecotopes (CALM Site P2A, P2B and P2C) -a beach, a moraine and tundra -collected during 22 polar expeditions between 1975 and 2014. To ensure comparability, data sets for the common period from 21 July to 31 August (referred to as the "summer season" further in the text) were analysed. The greatest influence on temperature across the inves− tigated ground layers comes from air temperature (correlation coefficients ranging from 0.61 to 0.84). For the purpose of the analysis of the changes in ground temperature in the years 1975-2014, missing data for certain summer seasons were reconstructed on the ba− sis of similar data from a meteorological station at Ny−Ålesund. The ground temperature at the Beach site demonstrated a statistically−significant growing trend: at depths from 1 to 10 cm the temperature increased by 0.27-0.28°C per decade, and from 20 to 50 cm by as much as 0.30°C per decade. On the Kaffiøyra Plain, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has a greater influence on the ground and air temperature than the Arctic Oscilla− tion (AO).

Humic acids (HAs) and fulvic acids (FAs) of two Polar soils were investigated by13C NMR and ESR spectroscopies, investigating the degree of humification and the molecular structure. One soil, from Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island, contains two humus horizons: modern and buried. The other soil, from Wrangel Island, had only one modern humus horizon. The HAs and FAs of the two soils investigated show essential differences. The HAs show fewer oxygen-containing groups in comparison with the FAs, whereas the degree of aromaticity is two or three times higher in the HAs. The13C NMR data also show that HAs are very different from FAs in terms of their molecular composition and hydrophobicity. Humification in the Arctic is limited by the very low content of lignin-derived compounds, due to the restricted vascular flora. As a result, the HAs, isolated from Polar soils, are more similar to the corresponding FAs than to the typical HAs of temperate soils. This was confirmed by ESR data, which show similar levels of free radical concentration for HAs and FAs and are related to the low level of aromaticity of both materials investigated. Apparently, the humification process in the soils of Polar Arctic deserts is in an initial stage.

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