CR
Cryospheric Sciences

EGU Guest blogger

This guest post was contributed by a scientist, student or a professional in the Earth, planetary or space sciences. The EGU blogs welcome guest contributions, so if you've got a great idea for a post or fancy trying your hand at science communication, please contact the blog editor or the EGU Communications Officer to pitch your idea.

Image of the Week – Storing water in Antarctica to delay sea-level rise

April 29, 2016
Image of the Week – Storing water in Antarctica to delay sea-level rise
Difference in ice thickness from the initial equilibrium state after 100 years of ice addition (upper panels) and 1000 years after the end of the forcing (lower panels). Two scenarios are shown, 200 km (left panels) and 800 km (right panels) from the coastline, both corresponding to a sea-level mitigation of 10 mm per year (credit: Frieler et al., 2016, fig 3) .

  Sea level rise Sea-level rise is one of the main impacts of the current global warming and its rate has dramatically increased in the last decades (the current rate is about 3 mm per year). Even if greenhouse gas emissions were stopped today, sea level would continue to rise due to the slow Earth climate system response (IPCC, 2013, chap. 13). It is therefore a considerable threat for popul ...[Read More]

When Cryospheric Research Transforms Lives

April 22, 2016
When Cryospheric Research Transforms Lives

My name is Kathi Unglert, and I’m reporting from the EGU 2016 General Assembly as part of the EGU student reporter programme. Below is my second contribution to the Cryosphere Blog – this time about how cryosphere research can have a real impact on people’s lives. Antoni Lewkowicz – he’s famous, according to a comment I overheard in Tuesday’s PICO session on applied geophysics in cryosphere ...[Read More]

The art of surviving a week of conferencing

April 12, 2016
The art of surviving a week of conferencing

Hello everyone! My name is Kathi Unglert and I’m a PhD student in volcanology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I will be reporting for the Cryospheric Sciences blog during the upcoming EGU General Assembly as part of the “Student Reporter Programme”. With the meeting only a few days away, I thought I’d put together a quick guide how to make the most out of a whole week of confer ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: The Bipolar Seesaw

April 8, 2016
Image of the Week: The Bipolar Seesaw
Ice core records from the WAIS core showing fast millennial-scale climatic variability. Reprinted by permission from Macmillan (Publishers Ltd: Nature, WAIS Divide Project Members, 2015, vol. 520).

The colourful graphs above show how the climate changed in the period from 65 to 25 thousand years ago when Earth was experiencing an ice age. A wealth of information on the dynamics of our climate is embedded in the curves, especially how the northern and southern hemisphere interact, and how fast climate can change. The figure represents thousands and thousands of hours of work by scientists, te ...[Read More]

What to do at EGU  — a guide for early-career scientists

April 7, 2016
What to do at EGU  — a guide for early-career scientists
The Young Scientists' Meeting Corner at the EGU 2015 General Assembly (Credit: EGU/Stephanie McClellan)

Are you going to the EGU General Assembly in Vienna next week? Check out these events for early career scientists. To remind you when and where all these nice events and activities take place, you can directly view and import them in your electronic calendar (Isn’t it wonderful?! :-)) Social event for Early Career Cryosphere Scientists! If you cannot make it to anything else; make it to our ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – When Glaciers Fertilize Oceans

March 25, 2016
Image of The Week – When Glaciers Fertilize Oceans
Figure 1: Sediment rich meltwaters from Leverett Glacier pour over a waterfall in south west Greenland (credit: Jon Hawkings)

Today’s Image of the Week shows meltwaters originating from Leverett Glacier pouring over a waterfall in southwest Greenland. We have previously reported on how meItwater is of interest to Glaciologist (e.g. here) but today we are going to delve into how and why Biologists also study these meltwaters and how the cryosphere interacts with biogeochemical cycles in our oceans. Where? Leverett G ...[Read More]

Image of Week: Blue Ice in East Antarctica

January 22, 2016
Image of Week: Blue Ice in East Antarctica
Blue ice area in front of the northernmost part of the Heimefrontfjella, East Antarctica. Credit: N. B. Karlsson

The blue ice areas of Antarctica are one of the most fascinating parts of the ice sheet. In these regions, snowfall is so low that the ice is laid bare by the wind and consequently sublimates. This exposes beautiful, blue ice surfaces, like an ocean frozen in time. This picture was taken at a site named “Windy Corner” by the Kottas Mountains, in the northernmost part of the Heimefrontf ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: Ice Sheets in the Climate

December 11, 2015
Image of the Week: Ice Sheets in the Climate
The interaction of ice sheets with the atmosphere and the ocean. Excerpt from Figure 1 in Box 5.2, IPCC AR5.

Ice sheets play a central role in the climate system. They store significant amounts of fresh water and are the conveyor belts for transporting snow that accumulates on land back into the oceans. The figure above shows a few of the ice-climate interactions. In the figure below (click on the figure for full resolution) we see the complete picture of the processes taking place between ice sheets, so ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: Atmospheric CO2 from ice cores

December 9, 2015
Image of the Week: Atmospheric CO2 from ice cores
CO2 concentrations from EPICA and Vostok ice cores. The red bar at the side shows the Mauna Loa measurements. Credit: The IPCC AR 4 report Fig. 6.3

The measurements of atmospheric CO2 levels at Manu Loa, Hawaii read 401.01ppm on the 7th of December this year. To understand the significance of this number, you just need to look at the figure above from the 4th IPCC report. It shows the changes in CO2 concentrations during the past 800,000 years based on ice core measurements. Values have fluctuated between 190ppm and 280ppm. In other words, bo ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: Changes in Snow Cover

December 4, 2015
Image of the Week: Changes in Snow Cover
Northern Hemisphere spring (March to April average) relative snow-covered area by dividing the simulated 5-year box smoothed spring snow-covered area by the simulated average spring snow-covered area of 1986–2005 reference period.

Who is dreaming of a white spring? In daily life we might be more interested in the chances of a white Christmas, but the amount of snow-covered ground in the spring is a very good indicator of climate change. The figure above shows the projected change in snow cover extent in the Northern hemisphere in March-April according to different future scenarios (i.e. Representative Concentration Pathways ...[Read More]