CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Ice-hot news

Ice-hot news: The IPCC Special Report on the Oceans and the Cryosphere under Climate Change

October 30, 2019
Ice-hot news: The IPCC Special Report on the Oceans and the Cryosphere under Climate Change
[Credit: Martin Robles on Unsplash]

You have probably heard the name “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” mentioned frequently over the last few years. The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing science related to climate change and it publishes global assessment reports on this topic every 5 to 10 years. Due to the current urgency of the global climate crisis and the need for more information by decision makers ...[Read More]

Image of the Week — Into Iceberg Alley

March 22, 2019

Crew in hardhats and red safety gear bustle about, preparing our ship for departure. A whale spouts nearby in the Straits of Magellan, a fluke waving in brief salute, before it submerges again. Our international team of 29 scientists and 2 science communicators, led by co-Chief Scientists Mike Weber and Maureen Raymo, is boarding the JOIDES Resolution, a scientific drilling ship. We’re about to jo ...[Read More]

Ice-hot news: The cryosphere and the 1.5°C target

December 5, 2018
Ice-hot news: The cryosphere and the 1.5°C target
How will a warming of 1.5°C affect the cryosphere? [Credit: modified from pexels.com]

Every year again, the Conference of Parties takes place, an event where politicians and activists from all over the world meet for two weeks to discuss further actions concerning climate change. In the context the COP24, which started this Monday in Katowice (Poland), let’s revisit an important decision made three years ago, during the COP21 in Paris, and its consequences for the state of the cryo ...[Read More]

What’s on at POLAR18?

June 13, 2018
What’s on at POLAR18?

Next Tuesday (19th June) the POLAR18 Open Science Conference kicks off in Davos, Switzerland. We have put together a quick guide about events that might be of interest to you during the week! Conferences are about the science, of course, but the social side is just as important 🙂 What is POLAR18? The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that the POLAR18 conference is, in fact, a collection of di ...[Read More]

Back to the Front – Larsen C Ice Shelf in the Aftermath of Iceberg A68!

November 8, 2017
Back to the Front – Larsen C Ice Shelf in the Aftermath of Iceberg A68!
Figure 1: A68 sets sail from Larsen C.
Sentinel 1 SAR image [Credit: Adrian Luckman, Swansea University].

Much of the Antarctic continent is fringed by ice shelves. An ice shelf is the floating extension of a terrestrial ice mass and, as such, is an important ‘middleman’ that regulates the delivery of ice from land into the ocean: for much of Antarctica, ice that passes from land into the sea does so via ice shelves. I’ve been conducting geophysical experiments on ice for over a decade, using mostly s ...[Read More]

Ice-Hot News : The “Oldest Ice” quest has begun

November 14, 2016
Ice-Hot News : The “Oldest Ice” quest has begun
There is million-year old ice somewhere deep under the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet! [Credit: Brice Van Liefferinge]

This is it! The new European horizon 2020 project on Oldest Ice has been launched and the teams are already heading out to the field, but what does “Old Ice” really mean? Where can we find it and why should we even care? This is what we (Marie, Olivier and Brice) will try to explain somewhat. Why do we care about old ice, ice cores and past climate? Unravelling past climate and how it responded to ...[Read More]