CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Climate Change & Cryosphere

Tracking the Footprints of a Vanishing Glaciers in the Greater Caucasus

June 13, 2025
Aerial image showing the climate change impact on small glaciers in the central Greater Caucasus, Georgia. Slopes are extensive deposits of moraines and loose rock debris, left behind by retreating glaciers. A small glacial lake (near the center-bottom of the image) fed by meltwater from the surrounding ice and snow was developed after glacier retreat [Credit: Levan Tielidze].
Aerial image showing the climate change impact on small glaciers in the central Greater Caucasus, Georgia. Slopes are extensive deposits of moraines and loose rock debris, left behind by retreating glaciers. A small glacial lake (near the center-bottom of the image) fed by meltwater from the surrounding ice and snow was developed after glacier retreat [Credit: Levan Tielidze].

In this week’s blog, Levan Tielidze tells us about his recent glacier study from the Greater Caucasus. By combining geomorphology, remote sensing, and historical cartography, the team reconstructed nearly 200 years of glacier and climate change across one of the world’s most dynamic cryospheric frontiers. Glaciers’ transformation provides a high-resolution archive of post-Little Ice Age climate dy ...[Read More]

Celebrating at UNESCO: the first-ever global day for glaciers

April 18, 2025
Four panalists are sat on a stage for the UNESCO day for glaciers. Larissa is second from the left.
This was a ‘pinch me’ moment for Larissa – being a panelist at UNESCO Headquarters for the first-ever global day for glaciers, part of ‘2025: year of glaciers’ preservation’. [Photo credits: Christoph von Rüdiger]

2025 marks an important year for glaciers, as it’s the official Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, an initiative by UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Part of the initiative is also the official declaration of March 21st as the World Day for Glaciers. UNESCO wants to celebrate this day in the hope that it “urges global action to protect glaciers and their crucial role in sustaini ...[Read More]

Feeling (un)frozen lands: What we can learn from research on ecological grief

and April 4, 2025
Light shines through the edge of melting ice on a rock.
Melting snow. [Credit: Steven Gibbons, distributed by imaggeo.egu.eu]

Retreating glaciers, shrinking sea ice or thawing permafrost – many of you might have witnessed formerly familiar landscapes being transformed by climate change over the last years, maybe even beyond recognition. And perhaps these undeniable changes have left you feeling sad, angry or anxious about the future, fearing what lies ahead. But did you know there is an entire academic field out there re ...[Read More]

Navigating the polar frontier: exploring the effects of sea-ice decline on shipping and sea routes in the Arctic

March 7, 2025
Navigating the polar frontier: exploring the effects of sea-ice decline on shipping and sea routes in the Arctic
Figure 1: Icebreaker traversing the Arctic Ocean, navigating the thick blanket of sea ice which obstructs its path [Credit: Christopher Michel/Flickr, CC BY 2.0].

Sea ice is a critical part of the unique Arctic ecosystem, but climate change is becoming a serious threat. Warming in the Arctic has already resulted in the loss of over 4 million km² of sea ice. But is it all bad? Retreat of Arctic sea ice is allowing more ships to navigate the Arctic Ocean, along shorter, faster and cheaper sea routes, providing emission reductions of 24%. But will the growth o ...[Read More]

Climate Change & Cryosphere – Can the smallest ice make the greatest impact?

June 28, 2024
Climate Change & Cryosphere – Can the smallest ice make the greatest impact?
Figure 1: Aerial view of permafrost peatlands of the Siberian Arctic [Credits: Sergei Loiko]

The cryosphere comprises all the ice on Earth, from glaciers in Antarctica, icebergs floating in the ocean, to millimetric ice found in the soils. Soil can hold ice wedges and ice lenses, but there are small ice reservoirs that are usually overlooked: the pore ice. Pore ice is an unknown compartment whose role regarding matter degradation is yet to be determined… stay with us and you will see that ...[Read More]

Antarctica Uncovered: Exploring the Exposed Surfaces Around the Melting Continent

December 4, 2023
A photo pf a rocky land with an ice mass in the background. The land has brownish plants.
Figure 1. A depicts the Hurd Glacier forefield over Sally Rocks, covered in various terrestrial organisms like lichen and mosses. B shows Livingston Island in relation to the Antarctic continent. Modified from Garrido-Benavent et al., 2020

In 2020, ocean scientists discovered a new island off the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, naming it after the Norse goddess, Sif. The island is one of many new regions being exposed in the wake of increased ice shelf melting and glacial retreat. While these newly-revealed lands have been discussed in the Arctic and alpine ecosystems, the uncovered island and coastlines of Antarctica have been less ...[Read More]

Small step for reindeer – large leap for humankind?

September 22, 2023
Photo of a reindeer looking for food on the snow.
Fig 1 – A reindeer digging through snow to find food. [Credit: T. Windirsch]

Since several decades, there’s a lot of discussion in the permafrost ecosystem community on “rewilding” and “return to a natural state” in order to protect ecosystems and to reduce the impacts of climate change. Reindeer and other herbivores influence the insulation regime of the ground and could thereby preserve the frozen state of permafrost ground. Is there a way to utilise this effect to our b ...[Read More]

Hidden Ice of the Greater Caucasus

June 30, 2023
Hidden Ice of the Greater Caucasus
Figure 1 . The prominent rock glacier in the headwater of the Juta River valley, Kazbegi region, Georgian Caucasus, visited by thousands of tourists each year. [Credit: Levan Tielidze].

In this week’s blog, Levan Tielidze tells us about the first inventory of rock glaciers from the Greater Caucasus as an important basis for further research of geomorphology and palaeoglaciology in this region. What are Rock Glaciers? Rock glaciers are distinctive geomorphological landforms of frozen debris that are supersaturated with ice. The low ice velocity or certain speed of movement and per ...[Read More]

Hidden beneath the surface – what can we learn from an ice sheet’s internal stratigraphy?

October 28, 2022
Hidden beneath the surface – what can we learn from an ice sheet’s internal stratigraphy?
The ski-equipped Polar-6 Basler aircraft from the Alfred-Wegener Institute (AWI) flying an ice-penetrating radar from Rothera research base. The radar antennas are visible under the wings. Photo credit: Michael Fischer, AWI.

Hidden beneath the surface of ice sheets lies an intricate structure carrying a unique fingerprint of past ice flow and climate conditions. Disentangling the drivers of an ice sheet’s enigmatic stratigraphy could theoretically unravel the ice sheet’s past evolution and provide a much clearer picture of things to come in the future. One way to detect this mysterious stratigraphy is to use ice-penet ...[Read More]

The Global Arctic, a personal perspective on interdisciplinary research

October 21, 2022
The Global Arctic, a personal perspective on interdisciplinary research
A not so common vision of the Arctic. The small yellow/red star shows the location of Svalbard, where the summer school took place. This is the triptychial projection of the world. Figure credit: Map modified from Grieger, B. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201834841.

Around the summer solstice of 2022, a small group of twenty young researchers met in Svalbard, a small island lost between Norway and the North Pole. The Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research wanted to bring us together around the theme of “The Global Arctic“. The scope of this summer school was to “produce a better understanding of the significance of the concept of Gl ...[Read More]