CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Fieldwork

Memories from the Field – The Vastness of the Greenland Ice Sheet

March 16, 2026
Below a clear blue sky, ridges of ice undulate towards the horizon in stripes of white, blue, and black.
A view on the Greenland Ice Sheet close to Kangerlussuaq [Credit: Mirjam Paasch - July 2025].

I remember the day very well. It was the first time we drove up to the glacial ice from our base station in Kangerlussuaq (Western Greenland), where we had patiently been waiting for two days for the  weather to clear.  I took this photo during a three-week fieldwork campaign in July of 2025 as part of the Deep Purple project. As part of the project, we were in the field to collect glacial ice-alg ...[Read More]

When August Brought Snow: Unseasonal Snowfall Disrupts Life in Ladakh’s High Valley Village

, and November 21, 2025
When August Brought Snow: Unseasonal Snowfall Disrupts Life in Ladakh’s High Valley Village
(a) Regional map showing the study area (red box). (b–c) Satellite-derived snow/no-snow classification for August 2024 and August 2025, highlighting a substantial snow cover in 2025. (d) Field photograph of unexpected late-summer snowfall over agricultural fields and settlement areas. (e) Close-up showing freshly fallen snow over standing crops. Color legend indicates snow (light blue) and no-snow (dark blue).

August in Ladakh is a time of golden fields and harvest songs, not snowstorms. Yet in 2025, this rhythm broke. Panikhar village in Ladakh woke beneath fifteen centimetres of snow, an unseasonal blanket that changed the functioning of the valley and stunned its people. What began as a glaciological field trip turned into a firsthand encounter with climate uncertainty. This blog captures those extra ...[Read More]

The Proglacial Puzzle: Sampling of Glacier-fed Lakes in Greenland

July 11, 2025
The Proglacial Puzzle: Sampling of Glacier-fed Lakes in Greenland
Figure 1: Sampling on top of a frozen proglacial lake - April 2025, 67° 7′ 46.95″ N, 50° 6′ 41.21″ W . Photo: Joost van Genuchten

Would you like to follow the endeavours of a small team working in the ice-marginal terrain in South-West Greenland? They set out to investigate proglacial lakes using sediment coring, water sampling and gas collections (figure 1), aiming to better understand methane dynamics, proglacial terrain development and the environmental drivers behind methane production in glacially influenced lake system ...[Read More]

Dreaming & reading about fieldwork – summer blog break 2024

July 29, 2024
A person is kneeling down at a brown pond, all covered in mosquito net, waterproof gear, kitchen gloves and a pancake flipping spatula.
Maria during an Arctic Microbiomes PhD Summer school in Nunavut, Canada. Yes, sometimes, kitchen utensils help you stay away from mosquitos and discover some amazing bacterial mats (you can find them in your non-Arctic ponds, as well! (Photo Credit: Pascal Paradis)

  As we are starting into our annual blog summer break, we reflect on what summer can mean for polar researchers (including some fieldwork saudades). As an Arctic or Alpine cryo-scientist, chances are that you are somewhere in between vacation, fieldwork or trying to work through data while everyone else is free. If you, like us, did not have your vacation yet or do not have any fieldwork com ...[Read More]

Women of Cryo VII: Making Fieldwork More Inclusive

July 12, 2024
a drawing of women doing different scientific activities, with the words 'women of cryo' written

Women make up 50.8% of the world’s population, yet fewer than 30% of the world’s researchers are women. Of this percentage, women of colour comprise around 5%, with less than 1% represented in geoscience faculty positions. Women are published less, paid less, and do not progress as far in their careers as men. Even within our EGU community, women account for only one third of all members, and make ...[Read More]

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]