CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Emma C. Smith

Emma is a Postdoc at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, using geophysics to investigate ice dynamics in East Antarctica. Prior to that she studied at The British Antarctic Survey and University of Cambridge. She is interested in all things icy and geophysical, especially when they involve fieldwork and is the current ECS Rep for the EGU Crysophere Division. She tweets as @emma_c_smith

A brief guide to Navigating EGU 2019!

A brief guide to Navigating EGU 2019!

Are you going to the EGU General Assembly in Vienna next week? If so, read on for a quick guide to navigating the week: Where to start, what to see and how to meet people and enjoy yourself! After all, the meeting is as much about the opportunities to meet scientists from all over the world as it is about the science itself. How on Earth do I know what is going on?! The EGU General Assembly (GA) i ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Inspiring Girls!

Image of the Week – Inspiring Girls!

What, you may ask, are this group of 22 women doing standing around a fire-pit and what does this have to do with the EGU Cryosphere blog? This group of scientists, artists, teachers, and coaches gathered 2 weeks ago in Switzerland to learn how to become instructors on an Inspiring Girls Expedition. But what, you may ask again, is an Inspiring Girls Expedition? Well read on to find out more… ...[Read More]

What’s on at POLAR18?

What’s on at POLAR18?

Next Tuesday (19th June) the POLAR18 Open Science Conference kicks off in Davos, Switzerland. We have put together a quick guide about events that might be of interest to you during the week! Conferences are about the science, of course, but the social side is just as important 🙂 What is POLAR18? The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that the POLAR18 conference is, in fact, a collection of di ...[Read More]

A brief guide to Navigating EGU 2018!

A brief guide to Navigating EGU 2018!

Are you going to the EGU General Assembly in Vienna in just over a week? If so, read on for a quick guide to navigating the week: Where to start, what to see and how to meet people and enjoy yourself! After all, the meeting is as much about the opportunities to meet scientists from all over the world as it is about the science itself. How on Earth do I know what is going on?! The EGU General Assem ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Vibrating Ice Shelf!

Image of the Week – Vibrating Ice Shelf!

If you listen carefully to the Ekström ice shelf in Antarctica, a strange sound can be heard! The sound of a vibrating truck sending sounds waves into the ice. These sound waves are used to “look” through the ice and create a seismic profile of what lies beneath the ice surface. Read on to find out how the technique works and for a special Cryosphere Christmas message! What are we doing with this ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – See sea ice from 1901!

Image of the Week – See sea ice from 1901!

The EGU Cryosphere blog has reported on several studies of Antarctic sea ice (for example, here and here) made from high-tech satellites, but these records only extend back to the 1970s, when the satellite records began. Is it possible to work out what sea ice conditions were like before this time? The short answer is YES…or this would be a very boring blog post! Read on to find out how hero ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – A rather splendid round-up of CryoEGU!

Image of the Week – A rather splendid round-up of CryoEGU!

The 2017 edition of the EGU general assembly was a great success overall and for the cryospheric division in particular. We were for instance thrilled to see that two of the three winning photos of the EGU Photo contest featured ice! To mark the occasion we are delighted to use as our image of this week,  one of these pictures, which  shows an impressive rapid in the Pite River in northern Sweden. ...[Read More]

A brief guide to navigating EGU 2017!

A brief guide to navigating EGU 2017!

Are you going to the EGU General Assembly in Vienna next week? If so, read on for a quick guide to navigating the week: Where to start, what to see and how to meet people and enjoy yourself! After all, the meeting is as much about the opportunities meet scientists from all over the world as it is about the science itself. How on Earth do I know what is going on?! The EGU General Assembly is a mass ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Ice on Fire (Part 2)

Image of the Week – Ice on Fire (Part 2)

This week’s image looks like something out of a science fiction movie, but sometimes what we find on Earth is even more strange than what we can imagine! Where the heat of volcanoes meets the icy cold of glaciers strange and wonderful landscapes are formed.  The Kamchatka Peninsula, in the far East of Russia, has the highest concentration of active volcanoes on Earth. Its climate is cold due ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – The Pulsating Ice Sheet!

Image of The Week – The Pulsating Ice Sheet!

During the last glacial period (~110,000-12,500 years ago) the Laurentide Ice Sheet (North America) experienced rapid, episodic, mass loss events – known as Heinrich events. These events are particularly curious as they occurred during the colder portions of the last glacial period, when we would intuitively expect large-scale mass loss during warmer times. In order to understand mass loss m ...[Read More]