CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Loeka Jongejans

Loeka Jongejans is a science communicator. During her PhD at the Alfred Wegener Institute, she worked on Arctic permafrost sediments and the impact of permafrost thaw on stored carbon. Now, she is doing a PostDoc at the Ruhr-University Bochum where she works on geographic topics such as light pollution and aerospace. E-Mail: loeka.jongejans@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Friday the 13th – an unlucky day for sea ice?

and September 13, 2024
Thin, small sea ice floats on the dark waters.
Image credit Andrew Elvidge (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

On this September 13th, coinciding to be a “Friday 13th”, we wanted to scan the cryo-history for expeditions started, sunken ships that day, and mountain myths. And we did find that. But as autumn approaches in the Northern hemisphere, the spookiest story of all was this one: the unlucky timing of the Arctic sea ice in September. TGIF – but not for sea ice Although the median min ...[Read More]

Did you know there is light pollution even in the Arctic?

July 7, 2023
Did you know there is light pollution even in the Arctic?
Light pollution exists even in the Arctic from, for example, cruise ships, cargo ships and research vessels. [Credit: Michael O. Snyder]

Light emissions are increasing worldwide and much of the world is light polluted due to excessive and inefficient light use. This has negative consequences for many organisms, such as birds, insects, fish, plants and humans. Even in the high Arctic, which is remote and sparsely populated, and experiences the polar night for a large part of the year, there are artificial light sources which disturb ...[Read More]