 Arctic islands north of Norway , Finland and Russia have all shown evidence of glacier retreat . In the Svalbard archipelago , the island of Spitsbergen has numerous glaciers . Research indicates that <unk> ( Hans Glacier ) on Spitsbergen retreated 1 @.@ 4 km ( 0 @.@ 87 mi ) from 1936 to 1982 and another 400 m ( 1 @,@ 300 ft ) during the 16 @-@ year period from 1982 to 1998 . <unk> , a glacier in the King 's Bay area of Spitsbergen , has retreated approximately 2 km ( 1 @.@ 2 mi ) in the past 80 years . Since 1960 the average retreat of <unk> has been about 35 m ( 115 ft ) a year , and this average was enhanced due to an accelerated rate of retreat since 1995 . Similarly , <unk> <unk> retreated 200 m ( 660 ft ) between 1977 and 1995 . In the Novaya Zemlya archipelago north of Russia , research indicates that in 1952 there was 208 km ( 129 mi ) of glacier ice along the coast . By 1993 this had been reduced by 8 % to 198 km ( 123 mi ) of glacier coastline . 
