On the O2 atmospheric (0--1) band at 8645 ¿ has been observed in the airglow during the 1982/1983 winter solstice from the ground at longyearbyen, West Spitsbergen (78.4 ¿N latitude, 15 ¿E longitude, geographic). The average (0--1) band intensity for the continuous 18-hour period of the observations is found to be 445 R¿40 R. The mean temperature deduced from the O2 (0--1) atmospheric band rotational structure is found to be 254 K¿3 K compared to a mean of 249 K¿2 K for the OH (8--3) band rotational temperature. This indicates a shallow mesopause with an upper temperature gradient of ~1 K/km. Comparison with previous observations shows little or no latitude dependence, although there is considerable scatter in the data indicating that the O2 airglow is highly variable in time of the order of hours or less.