Emma C. Smith

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

Emma C. Smith January 13, 2017

Figure 1: Glacial erratic rocks in Yosemite National Park [Credit: Yuvak Sadeh via Imaggeo]

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!

Emma C. Smith December 9, 2016

Blood Falls, Antarctica. Red coloured water emerges from the front of Taylor Glacier. For scale - the tent at the left of the image is around 4 m long. [Credit: Peter Rejcek , NSF]

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!

Emma C. Smith November 18, 2016

Ice balls on Stroomi beach, Estonia. [Credit: Aleksandr Abrosimov, Wikimedia ].

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!

Emma C. Smith September 30, 2016

Permafrost thawing and its impacts on reindeer breeding.. This figure was created by Noémie Ross - a young graphic designer and illustrator from Montréal, Canada., as part of the ‘A Frozen-Ground Cartoon’ project. It won 1st place at the 2016 Fall APECS International Polar week figure competition. Click here to enlarge the image.

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!

Emma C. Smith August 26, 2016

Shakleton's Endurance finally sinks to the bottom of the Weddell sea in November 1915. [Credit: Royal Geographical Society via Wikimedia Commons]

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

Emma C. Smith May 20, 2016

A 15,000 m³ rockfall during the 2015 summer heat wave at Tour de Ronde summit, Mont Blanc Massif. (Photo credit: Ludovic Ravanel.)

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

Emma C. Smith April 22, 2016

The sun sets over the Austria Center Vienna (ACV), where the 2016 EGU General Assembly is being held this week. Photo Credit: Nanna B. Karlsson.

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!

Emma C. Smith April 15, 2016

Figure 1: Soil carbon map of the Northern Hemisphere, averaged over top 3 m. Produced using the SiBCASA model, initialised with with spatially varying permafrost carbon density from the NCSCDv2 data set (Figure 6b from Jafarov and Schaefer, 2016 ) .

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!

Emma C. Smith March 11, 2016

Figure 1: Perito Moreno Glacier terminus, Argentina. The glacier's continual advance disconnects the Brazo Rico (on the left) from the greater Lago Argentino (right), preventing drainage. Photo Credit: Evan Miles.

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

Emma C. Smith February 19, 2016

Changes in mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet over 10 years from GRACE satelite data (Luthcke et al., 2013).

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]