Ice sheet models are awesome tools that help us learn and predict the fate of ice sheets under human-induced climate change. However, all models have errors. What types of uncertainties exist in an ice sheet model and how can we quantify some of them efficiently? Check out our recipe to quantify one type of uncertainty …[Read More]
Does measuring the surface of the ice sheets provide more than superficial knowledge of their current status? Read further to find out why the answer is definitely yes! Measuring surface elevation changes actually tells us where Greenland and Antarctica are thinning or thickening and how much they contribute to sea level rise. Scientists have been …[Read More]
In this post, I will talk about two famous characters of the climate system; I will define them and see how they have changed in the current context of climate change. I will also show you how these two characters interact, one influencing the other, and vice versa. Finally, let’s see how the future looks …[Read More]
Greetings! My name is Reza. I’m (still) A PhD candidate in Geophysics and Glaciology at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Today, I will tell you all about a device named pRES, a radar system designed to study ice. Well, pRES and I have had an immense love/hate relationship during the last four years. It …[Read More]
Glaciers are mostly made of water. Sometimes, perhaps more than we’d like, some of that water makes a break for it by melting, the inconstant molecule… It might pootle around on the surface of the glacier a bit and get a lot of remote sensers very excited, but it’s what it does once it gets …[Read More]
Perhaps you have stumbled upon the word ‘hysteresis’ before, for example in connection with the stability behavior of our Earth’s large ice sheets and their long-term effect on global sea-level rise, or the long-term stability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or even in another context outside earth/climate science. Or you might have come across …[Read More]
As Antarctica’s mass loss increases, the threat of crossing tipping points both in the ice sheet and the surrounding Southern Ocean is increasing. But what actually is a tipping point? Have tipping points already been crossed in the past? And what might the future hold? What do we mean by a “tipping point”? Scientifically speaking, …[Read More]
Climate models help us understand processes occurring in and between atmosphere, oceans, land and ice-covered regions of our planet. One important process impacting all of us is sea level rise, and the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland (currently losing more and more ice) play a crucial role in future sea level rise projections. Even …[Read More]
![For Dummies – How do wildfires impact permafrost? [OR.. a story of ice and fire]](https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2019/10/DJI01011-1024x768.webp)
Wildfire – like the ones observed in the Northwest Territories, Canada in 2014 (Fig. 1) – is a natural part of permafrost landscapes, but fires are expected to get more frequent and severe as the climate warms. This could accelerate the degradation of permafrost, with negative consequences on the local and global scale! We have …[Read More]
Ice cores are important tools for investigating past climate as they are effectively a continuous record of snowfall, which preserves historical information about climate conditions and atmospheric gas composition. In this new “For Dummies” post, we discuss the history and importance of ice-core science, and look at the way we can use ice core chemistry …[Read More]
