Happy birthday to the Cryoblog!

Here are the four interviewed former chief editors from left to right: Giovanni Baccolo, Sophie Berger, Clara Burgard and Nanna Karlsson (Credit: Maria Scheel).

The EGU Cryosphere Blog is now 10 years old: Happy Birthday! It all started in December 2014 with this blog post from Nanna Karlsson, and now counts 452 blog posts across 25 blog categories, including winning three Best EGU blog posts (2016, 2019 and 2021). 881 different (hash)tags were used in our blog posts, with way more counts on Antarctica and climate than the Arctic. Since the start, there have been many chief editors, but today we wanted to celebrate with you by interviewing four of them: Nanna Karlsson, Sophie Berger, Clara Burgard and Giovanni Baccolo. Take a dive into our blog history, the blog as a career push, last-minute posts and more!

Cryoblog: It is great to have you on board with an interview to celebrate what you started and carried on – our beloved Cryoblog! Let’s start by asking you when you were a chief editor for the blog? What made you excited to start doing that?

Nanna: I am not quite sure, but considering that this is a 10-year anniversary blog post, I guess I started 10 years ago, so in 2014! I seem to remember that I was going on fieldwork in the winter of 2015/2016 and convinced Sophie Berger to act as an editorial stand-in. She went on to take over the blog sometime during 2016. The rest is history 😊.

Sophie: At the very beginning of the blog (2015 or so). At the time, Nanna was the only person working for the blog. She recruited me as a ‘guest editor’, then I became permanent. We expanded the team significantly and decided that it was time to have a more ‘hierarchical’ structure, with different levels of time investment.

Clara: I was chief editor for the blog between April 2017 and May 2020. In the beginning of my PhD, I went to a short course at EGU2016 on communicating science through social media and Sophie (Berger) presented the Cryoblog. She made it so enthusiastically that I did not think about it twice and volunteered to join!

Giovanni: It was between early 2021 and May 2023, a bit more than 2 years. Between my first blog contributions and becoming chief editor, not many months passed, as a new editor was being sought. Marie and Violaine (chief editors at that time) proposed and I accepted without hesitation, I couldn’t wait to start. I’ve always enjoyed communicating science, and that role just fell right into place!

I am proud of having planted a tiny seed that led to this inspiring community, primarily thanks to the editors who took over from me.
— Nanna

Can you share your favourite thing about the time spent at the blog?

Nanna: As an editor, I really enjoyed reaching out to potential authors and experiencing all the support and enthusiasm I got from the community. My favourite thing, though, was watching the blog create a strong, well-organised team. I am proud of having planted a tiny seed that led to this inspiring community, primarily thanks to the editors who took over from me.

Sophie: Learning a lot of cool things about the cryosphere and sharing them with others, getting to (e)meet very nice people and having the satisfaction to have a project with quick and tangible outcomes (contrary to my research). Sorry, one favourite thing was not enough.

Clara: I met great people that still inspire me today! The blog team is full of enthusiastic and motivated people that are interested in things beyond their own research topic. Also, the broad range of biographies and personalities is a great pool to discuss problems and thoughts about the future! And, bonus: in my time, the team was mainly women, which became the role models that I did not find in my everyday work.

Giovanni: It was surely being in contact with the many authors of the posts. We all know that one of the most amazing things of being a scientist is that feeling of being part of such an interconnected community and building bridges across continents with other people. Well, I remember that feeling was really strong while I was an editor and I loved it.

We all know that one of the most amazing things of being a scientist is that feeling of being part of such an interconnected community and building bridges across continents with other people.
— Giovanni

Did you face any challenges as a chief editor? If so, how did you address them?

Nanna: In the beginning, I was the only editor and, therefore, the only one to post and coordinate with authors. It took quite some time, and especially when I was traveling, it required a lot of planning. I was really happy that I managed to get more people involved.

Sophie: Moving from a structure of 2-3 people to a network of 10-15 and finding a way to organise the work nicely was quite a challenge.

Clara: As a chief editor, you are the last (wo)man standing when something goes wrong with a blog post. This leads to quite stressful moments, like when a ‘not-so-accessibly-written’ first draft comes in only one day before publication, or an author or editor suddenly does not respond anymore, or you need to check last minute if we have the copyright permissions to share a figure online. In such moments that may feel overwhelming, you need to take things in hand and find another blog team member to help.

Giovanni: The thing I most feared was authors disappearing a day or two before the publication deadline. Fortunately, this did not happen often. But beyond having to replace a post in a short time, I disliked the tactlessness of those who did that. We can all have setbacks, but disappearing is not the best, especially considering that the blog relies on volunteering and free time. In any case, keeping a backup post in the drawer has always helped.

As a chief editor, you are the last (wo)man standing when something goes wrong with a blog post.
— Clara

A snowflake-shaped word cloud of the blog words ever used.

A word cloud created from our EGU CR blog posts across time. While “ice”, “cryospheric” and “sciences” are no surprises, maybe “mental” and “health” are? We also love the “journey”, “fieldwork” and “learning” being so present (Credit: Maria Scheel).

Now, after a while of editing, all of you at some point moved on. So we are curious: are you still in academia now or did you take a different pathway? And of course: are you still involved with the cryosphere?

Nanna: Yes, I am now a Professor at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and still working in cryospheric science.

Sophie: No, I left academia, I now work at the science-policy interface (European Commission), for a climate adaptation initiative.

Clara: Yes, I am currently a senior postdoc. I am still involved with the cryosphere… thanks to the Cryoblog! After finishing my PhD on Arctic sea ice, I applied to a postdoc on ice-sheet-ocean interactions in Antarctica, a quite different topic. The expertise I had gathered through editing blog posts on this topic in my time as a chief editor helped tremendously to convince (me and others) that I knew something about the topic. How else would I know about ‘buttressing’?

Giovanni: Since I started collaborating with the blog, I moved to two different countries and three positions, but I am still in academia and finally with a bit more stable perspective. Of course, I am still studying ice and glaciers! It’s been many, many years since a day has gone by without turning my thoughts to ice for at least a few minutes. It’s really part of me.

It’s been many, many years since a day has gone by without turning my thoughts to ice for at least a few minutes. It’s really part of me.
— Giovanni

Are you still active in science communication? How did working for the blog help you with that?

Nanna: To some extent. Working in science, science communication is part of the job!

Sophie: Not strictly speaking, but the skills I learned as a blog editor are very useful to me, as I have to review/edit a lot of texts. Furthermore, in my previous job as a science officer for the IPCC, science communication was a key part of my work. (Shameless self-promotion: checkout the very nice communication products from IPCC working Group I: Frequently Asked Questions – you will learn a lot about climate sciences – and Summary for all: how to talk about climate change with cats.)

Clara: I still like doing science communication, but unfortunately I don’t have as much time as I would like to. When I do, I mainly concentrate on the development of educational games about climate change. Working for the blog really made me think a lot about the breaking-down of complex subjects and about the structure of stories. Beside my work on games, this is a skill that helps a lot for scientific papers and presentations as well.

Giovanni: Yes, I keep dedicating part of my time to communication. I admit that I don’t do it much for an international audience anymore. On the international side, there are several institutions/groups such as EGU blogs that do a lot. But there are audiences that are not reached effectively through English. That is why I am communicating science through my native language. But yes, collaborating with the EGU blog was definitely the ideal starting point.

Working for the blog really made me think a lot about the breaking-down of complex subjects and about the structure of stories.
— Clara

Thank you all for sharing your current activities. What would you like to say to someone interested in starting (cryo)science communication?

Nanna: Do it in a team! Find a group of people and build something together.

Sophie: Do it, you have more to gain than to lose. It’s fun and it might offer unexpected opportunities. In my case, getting involved with the blog (and EGU more widely) has directly or indirectly contributed to my greatest career achievements so far: going to the field in Antarctica, being interviewed on the national television, working for the IPCC (as a researcher, I would have considered myself lucky to just be cited in their reports, one day).

Clara: Do it! It will never be a waste of time! You will learn so much about making things accessible, which will be useful for scientific presentations, papers and proposals! Also, science communication can go through so many channels: art, theater, blogs, long videos, short videos, social media, serious games… Choose the one that fits you best and don’t force yourself to do things you don’t like. You usually do it for free after all…

Giovanni: I would recommend them to take the plunge and not hesitate. The support of the editors makes everything friendly. We need to tell as large an audience as possible what is happening to the climate and glaciers. We should not forget that for those for whom this is not a job, it is not obvious. If you feel this passion, it’s important to indulge it and it also brings a lot of satisfaction.

Do it, you have more to gain than to lose. It’s fun and it might offer unexpected opportunities.
— Sophie

A word of thanks!

If these were not perfect final words for our ten year anniversary, let’s say it one more time: TEN years of Cryoblog! Like our former chief-editors, we as the current team of (chief) editors, and surely speaking for all other past (chief) editors, are super happy and extremely proud of how this blog has developed, how important it is with the topic it covers and what a great community it has created. With this, there is only one thing left to say:

If this (or any other post) inspired you to join our team as author or editor, please do not hesitate to contact us! We are happy to welcome you to a team that has even more to offer beyond this blog (coffee breaks, community, career brainstorming and much more – as you just read)!

Interviewers: Maria Scheel, David Docquier, Lina Madaj