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Cryospheric Sciences

Did you know?

Did you know? We can see what’s going on inside an ice shelf using geophysics!

April 2, 2024
Did you know? We can see what’s going on inside an ice shelf using geophysics!
Figure 1: Halley VI research station, glowing in the late summer sun.

Understanding what is going on inside an ice shelf is important for many reasons. But mostly, it allows us to better understand their contribution to sea level rise, and to understand how they are changing and evolve over time, with our changing climate. Geophysical methods offer a means to be able to see inside an ice shelf, and get an idea of their properties. Read on to find out a bit more abou ...[Read More]

Did you know that a lack of Arctic shipping regulation has detrimental environmental effects?

February 20, 2024
Did you know that a lack of Arctic shipping regulation has detrimental environmental effects?
Figure 1: Ship in polar waters. [Credit: 12019 from Pixabay]

Increased maritime transport in the Arctic, facilitated by the reduction in sea ice cover, is causing tremendous harm to an already vulnerable part of the world. Insufficient regulation of Arctic shipping has detrimental environmental effects on a global scale. These effects include, e.g. underwater noise pollution, oil spill risk and threats to the global climate. But did you know what role regul ...[Read More]

You can’t unsee it – the impact of a good visual for scientific data

January 22, 2024
You can’t unsee it – the impact of a good visual for scientific data
From iconic album cover of Joy Division to depicting relevant updates on annual temperature anomalies. The way we depict our data, impacts how far it will be seen. [Credit: image left from Joy Division album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ from 1979 & right ERA4, C3S/ECMWF; edited by Maria Scheel].

We are visual learners after all and for many of us, creating visual content is far more out of our comfort zone than the already hard earned skills of writing itself. Still, creating an accessible image can be pivotal to not only the success of your paper, but also the reach of your science in general. Today’s post started with a climate figure that went viral because of its similarity to the ico ...[Read More]

The search for the Antarctic giants!

October 13, 2023
The search for the Antarctic giants!
The Southern Ocean, a place of wonders and giants. At the surface we are amazed by giant icebergs, but it is in the deep that the true mystery persists! [Credits: José Queirós]

The deep Southern Ocean is full of giants! Some of them scared the sailors for centuries, like the colossal squid or, as they called it, The Kraken. They thought it was a huge monster capable of sinking ships! Far from it, these giants ran away from us, and we still know very little about them! They live in depths where the light cannot penetrate, the largest ecosystem on Earth, the Deep-Sea! They ...[Read More]

Highlighted Paper: Breaking the ice – what’s new in modeling sea ice deformation

October 9, 2023
Highlighted Paper: Breaking the ice – what’s new in modeling sea ice deformation
Figure 1: What might look like art is actually an image of Arctic Ocean sea ice data from different days and with different lines and angles of deformation. [Credits: Ringeisen et al., 2023, Fig.3]

  Most of the time when we speak or read about sea ice it is probably about its extent or thickness or the decline in both, or maybe even about the microorganisms living inside and underneath it. How sea ice breaks and deforms is normally not so much the topic of general discussions. This is actually a really important process that we do not know enough about, at the same time it is pretty co ...[Read More]

Did you know… about worms surviving in permafrost for at least 46000 years?

September 29, 2023
Did you know… about worms surviving in permafrost for at least 46000 years?
Fig. 1 Shatilovich and colleagues discovered some (rather unexpectedly) still surviving eukaryotes, such as amoeba and this roundworm (nematode) in the long-term survival state called cryptobiosis (adapted from Shatilovich et al. 2023).

Lately permafrost makes the news more and more because of its enormous carbon stocks and its vulnerability to climate change. While permafrost greenhouse gas budget calculations are complex and harbour an ever-growing research community, its microbial ecology is still on the rise. A recent star are tiny roundworms that survived frozen in permafrost for 46’000 years. Take a short dip into this new ...[Read More]

Did you know there’s a (relatively new) treaty for the Central Arctic Ocean?

September 8, 2023
Did you know there’s a (relatively new) treaty for the Central Arctic Ocean?
Figure 1: Arctic Sea Ice. [Credits: Lisa Winberg von Friesen, private archives]

Even as regular readers of the Cryosphere Blog , you might still be unfamiliar with the large amount of regulation that surrounds the cryosphere – and the research that’s being done on it. As effective regulation of our environment is needed, we need more scientists to understand the law and more lawyers to understand the science. So, brace yourselves and hold on tight, while we run through one of ...[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]

Did You Know That It Ain’t Easy Being Greenland?

June 16, 2023
Did You Know That It Ain’t Easy Being Greenland?
The shape of Greenland changes depending on the map projection. [Credit: Kate Berg]

As a reader of the Cryosphere blog, you may have spent a lot of time looking at the Greenland Ice Sheet, but do you really know what Greenland looks like? This “It Ain’t Easy Being Greenland” map is something I made for fun during the #30DayMapChallenge (an international project to complete one map a day during the month of November) and highlights how different the island country appears dependin ...[Read More]

Did you know about Antarctic snow megadunes?

May 19, 2023
Maps showing areas on East Antarctica that have megadunes made of snow and ice.
Location map of megadune area adapted from (Traversa et al. 2023)

When we think of dunes our thoughts automatically go to deserts and sand. But on Earth, as well as on other celestial bodies of the solar system, dunes exist also in a completely different environment. I am talking about gigantic dunes consisting of snow. On Earth they are called megadunes and you can find them only in East Antarctica, where they extend for thousands of km. If you want to know mor ...[Read More]