CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Climate Change & Cryosphere

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]

Winds and Antarctic sea-ice cover: what is the role of human activities?

September 23, 2022
Winds and Antarctic sea-ice cover: what is the role of human activities?
Sea ice, i.e. frozen ice, at the surface of the ocean © flickr.com.

We may not often think about it, but climate in Antarctica can be very different depending on where we are exactly (do not expect palm trees though!). Winds play a big role in shaping these differences, which are reflected – among other things! – on sea ice. But how are these winds related to the large-scale atmospheric circulation, and are we having an impact on them? Dear readers, pl ...[Read More]

Why the 2022 Italian snow drought matters to you

September 16, 2022
Why the 2022 Italian snow drought matters to you
2022 was a particularly poor snow season across the Italian Alps, with estimated anomalies in Snow Water Equivalent compared to the last 12 years well below -75% at places. Photo credit: S3M Italy by CIMA Research Foundation, background layer is from the ESRI Satellite Theme.

June 2022: I was discussing the ongoing drought with my family over lunch, when my dad pointed to me and summarized things as follows: “You know, less snow in winter means less water in summer!” I almost choked … what? Not only was it the first time I realized my family had been listening to my scientific anecdotes for years, but I also had concrete evidence now that snow was entering public ...[Read More]

A new glacier chronology from New Zealand

July 15, 2022
A new glacier chronology from New Zealand
Figure 1. An example of a dated moraine landform from the Southern Alps. Yellow dots indicate the location of the samples. The black ages are from boulders while the blue ages are from bedrock. The dimension of each age is a thousand years old. The red initials indicate sample names (Credit: Tielidze et al., 2022).

In this week’s blog, Levan Tielidze tells us about the new glacier history from the Southern Alps of New Zealand, an important piece of information to better understand the climatic history of Earth during the Quaternary, the current geologic period. Quaternary glaciations Geochronological dating of glacial moraines is useful for determining the extent and timing of past glaciation and for reconst ...[Read More]

Summer 2022: A perfect storm for Alpine glaciers

July 1, 2022
Summer 2022: A perfect storm for Alpine glaciers
The Kleinfleiss glacier in the Hohe Tauern region of the Eastern Alps. Credits: https://www.foto-webcam.eu/.

The summer of 2022 is shaping up to be a perfect storm for Alpine glaciers. By a strange coincidence, all the factors that could adversely affect glacial dynamics seem to have come into agreement. Let’s find out why. What controls the behavior of Alpine glaciers? Snow, temperature, weather conditions and the properties of snow and ice. These are the most important factors governing the life ...[Read More]