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

Image of the Week – It’s all a bit erratic in Yosemite!

Image of the Week – It’s all a bit erratic in Yosemite!

When you think of California, with its sun-soaked beaches and Hollywood glamour, glaciers may not be the first thing that spring to mind – even for ice nerds like us. However, Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada is famous for its dramatic landscape, which was created by glacial action. With our latest image of the week we show you some of the features that were left behind b ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Blood Falls!

Image of the Week – Blood Falls!

If glaciers could speak, you might imagine them saying – “HELP!” The planet continues to warm and this means glaciers continue to shrink. Our new image of the week shows a glacier that appears to be making this point in a rather dramatic and gruesome way – it appears to be bleeding! If you went to the snout of Taylor Glacier in Antarctica’s Dry Valley region (see map ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Goodness gracious, great balls of ice!

Image of the Week – Goodness gracious, great balls of ice!

At first glance our image of the week may look like an ordinary stoney beach…but if you look more closely you will see that this beach is not, in fact, covered in stones or pebbles but balls of ice! We have written posts about many different weird and wonderful ice formations and phenomena (e.g. hair ice or ice tsunamis) here at the EGU Cryosphere blog and here is another one to add to the l ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – Prize Polar Pictures!

Image of The Week –  Prize Polar Pictures!

Last week was the Fall APECS International Polar Week, designed to promote and celebrate the great collaborative science that goes on around the world to further our understanding of the polar regions. Part of this celebration was a figure competition, to find the most “eye-catching, informative and inspiring” figures that illustrate aspects of polar science. What better, we thought, t ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – 100 years of Endurance!

Image of The Week – 100 years of Endurance!

The 30th August 2016 marks 100 years since the successful rescue of all (human) member of Shackleton’s Endurance crew from their temporary camp on Elephant Island (see map). Nearly a year prior to their rescue they were forced to abandon their ship – The Endurance – after it became stuck in thick drifting sea ice, known as pack ice, trying to navigate the Weddell Sea. It was the last major e ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – Tumbling Rocks

Image of The Week – Tumbling Rocks

This photo captures a rockfall at the summit of Tour de Ronde, 3792 m above sea level in the Mont Blanc Massif. On 27 August 2015, around 15000 m3  of rock fell from the steep walls of the mountain. Why do mountains crumble ? Rockfalls such as the one on the photo have been linked to thawing permafrost. The exact mechanism that leads to these events is not fully understood, however, it is thought ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – EGU General Assembly 2016

Image of The Week – EGU General Assembly 2016

The EGU General Assembly, which takes place each year in Vienna, Austria, draws to a close today.  Attended by nearly 13,650 participants from 111 countries, with around a third of those being students – a great turn-out for this vital part of the early career scientists (ECS) community! It has been a very productive meeting for the cryosphere division with a huge number and variety of oral ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – The Ice Your Eyes Can’t See!

Image of The Week – The Ice Your Eyes Can’t See!

Ice sheets and glaciers are very visible and much photographed (e.g. here) elements of the Cryosphere but what about the vast, invisible and buried parts?  Around a quarter of the land in the Northern hemisphere remains frozen year round, making up a hugely important part of the cryosphere known as permafrost. Permafrost largely exists at high latitudes (e.g. Siberia and the Canadian Arctic) and t ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – That’s a Damn Fine Ice Dam!

Image of The Week – That’s a Damn Fine Ice Dam!

With today’s image of the week we want to transport you to Patagonia to look at a unique fresh-water calving glacier –  Perito Moreno in Argentina. This is a hot topic at the moment as the glacier did something rather unusual yesterday, read on to find out more….. This large glacier (Fig 2, highlighted red) flows down a valley, calving into the southwestern arm of Lago Argentino ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet Documented by Satellite

Image of the Week – Changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet Documented by Satellite

Monitoring the changing ice mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet provides valuable information about how the ice sheet is responding to changing climate, but how do we make these measurements over such a large area of ice? Using NASA’s GRACE satellites (twin-satellites flying in formation) it is possible to make detailed measurements of the Earth’s gravitational field. As ice is gained/lost from ...[Read More]