CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Highlighted Paper

Will the Arctic be ice free earlier than previously thought?

September 17, 2021
Will the Arctic be ice free earlier than previously thought?
Figure 1: Polar bear on sea ice in Chukchi Sea, Arctic Ocean. Figure credit: Alla Khan, NSIDC, CC BY 2.0.

There is no doubt that the Arctic is currently losing its sea ice as our climate is warming. And this process will carry on as temperatures continue climbing. But the rate at which sea ice will melt in the future and the exact date when the Arctic will be free of sea ice is not known due to several factors (which will be briefly discussed in this post). Torben Koenigk and I have selected climate m ...[Read More]

Questions from space: what is snow and what is ice on the Greenland ice sheet?

July 2, 2021
Questions from space: what is snow and what is ice on the Greenland ice sheet?
Fig.1: Extremely dark bare ice at QAS_U automatic weather station on August 4, 2014. Credits: Jason E. Box

We usually think of a glacier as a white, clean surface. Well, this is only an idealized vision because in reality glaciers are far from immaculate, they can be colored! And this is extremely important since colored (dirty) ice absorbs more solar radiation than clean ice, accelerating melt. One of the places on Earth where it is fundamental to understand these processes is Greenland, where ice is ...[Read More]

It’s not you, it’s me(lange): ice shelf break-up triggered by mélange and sea-ice loss

May 21, 2021
It’s not you, it’s me(lange): ice shelf break-up triggered by mélange and sea-ice loss
Fig. 1. Mélange (a mixture of calved icebergs, sea ice and material) in Porpoise Bay, East Antarctica, located ~100 km east of Voyeykov Ice Shelf [Credit: NASA Operation IceBridge].

Between March and May 2007, a total of ~2,445 km2 (equivalent to over 17 football pitches) of ice mélange (a mixture of sea-ice types, icebergs and snow) and part of Voyeykov Ice Shelf in East Antarctica rapidly broke up. Observations of the timing and triggers of such events are relatively rare in East Antarctica, compared to ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula. Recent work highlights the impo ...[Read More]

Atmospheric Rivers: A blanket for Antarctic winter sea ice

January 22, 2021
Atmospheric Rivers: A blanket for Antarctic winter sea ice
Figure 1: The Weddell Polynya in the Weddell Sea as seen from space on 25 September 2017, a few days after the initial opening on 14 September 2017. Figure credits: NASA.

The mysterious appearance and disappearance of the Weddell Polynya, a giant hole in the sea ice cover, has long puzzled scientists. Recent work reveals that the polynya is initiated and maintained by gigantic and formidable atmospheric currents: atmospheric rivers! Read on to find out more… Each year, approximately 15 million square kilometers of ice forms in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica d ...[Read More]

Lost in transl[ice]tion…

October 9, 2020
Lost in transl[ice]tion…
Further understanding of the Arctic sea-ice evolution is gained through satellite observations and climate models. Figure credit: C. Burgard & T. Finn.

Three years have passed since sea-ice scientists from both climate modeling and remote sensing backgrounds met for an international workshop in Hamburg. The goal was to discuss how to further improve our understanding of sea ice and reduce uncertainties in climate models and observations (see this previous post). One suggestion was to work on observation operators. Let’s see what has happened in t ...[Read More]

Climate Change & Cryosphere – Glacier retreat poses new challenges in the Central Andes

August 28, 2020
Climate Change & Cryosphere – Glacier retreat poses new challenges in the Central Andes
Glaciers on the slopes of San Jose Volcano, Maipo River Basin [Credit: Thomas Schatte].

When you hear of Chilean glaciers, you probably think about the large glaciers of Patagonia. However, glaciers can be found further north in Chile as well (see this previous post). While the melting of the Patagonian glaciers mainly affects the global human population by contributing to sea level rise, the retreat of glaciers in central Chile affects the local human population directly in terms of ...[Read More]

Climate Change & Cryosphere – Caucasus Glaciers Receding

June 7, 2019
Climate Change & Cryosphere – Caucasus Glaciers Receding
Fig. 1: Tviberi Glacier in 1884 (left) and 2011 (right) [Credit: Fig. 2d and 2e in Tielidze, 2016]

The Tviberi Glacier valley is located in the Svaneti Region – a historic province of the Georgian Caucasus. Between 1884 and 2011, climate change has led to a dramatic retreat of the ice in this valley. Other glaciers in the Greater Caucasus evolved in a similar way in past decades. We investigated glaciers and their changes both in-situ and with remote sensing techniques in the 53 river bas ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Kicking the ice’s butt(ressing)

May 10, 2019

Changes in the ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic continent are responsible for most of its current contribution to sea-level rise. Although they are already afloat and do not contribute to sea level directly, ice shelves play a key role through the buttressing effect. But which ice shelf regions are most important for this? The role of ice-shelf buttressing In architecture, the term “buttress” ...[Read More]

Image of the Week — Cavity leads to complexity

April 19, 2019

  A 10km-long, 4-km-wide and 350m-high cavity has recently been discovered under one of the fastest-flowing glaciers in Antarctica using different airborne and satellite techniques (see this press release and this study). This enormous cavity previously contained 14 billion tons of ice and formed between 2011 and 2016. This indicates that the bottom of the big glaciers on Earth can melt faster tha ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Delaying the flood with glacial geoengineering

February 1, 2019

As the climate is currently warming, many countries and cities are preparing to cope with one of its major impacts, namely sea-level rise. Up to now, the mitigation of climate change has mainly focused on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Large-scale geoengineering has also been proposed to remove carbon from the atmosphere or inject aerosols into the stratosphere to limit the rise in tem ...[Read More]