CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Cryospheric Sciences

Will the ice break out? – a story from the farthest north ice trails

November 26, 2021
Man on snow machine looks bake to the canoe he is towing across ice.
A family traveling up the coast with a traditional Umiaq skin boat on an ice trail only days before the ice broke out in 2014. Photo: Dyre Dammann

"For over two decades, the sea ice group at the University of Alaska has worked with the community of Utqiaġvik, establishing an integrated observing network. This network includes local observations, a coastal radar system to monitor ice conditions, an in-situ mass balance site monitoring environmental change such as ice growth and snow cover, and the mapping of community sea ice trails." In thi ...[Read More]

Cryo-adventures: Ninja goes south – Life and science onboard an icebreaker in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)

November 19, 2021
Cryo-adventures: Ninja goes south – Life and science onboard an icebreaker in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)

Hello there! I’m Ninja – a curious little LEGO-figure who doesn’t know much about the cryosphere, but who’s learning! Maybe you read about me in the blogpost by ice sheet modeler Petra Langebroek a few years ago? She brought me to the ice-core drilling camp called EASTgrip, on top of the Greenland icesheet. Together, we wrote a photo-novel to tell her sons and all of you about life and science at ...[Read More]

Women of Cryo V: Women and Glaciers in the Chilean Andes (Part I)

November 12, 2021
Women of Cryo V: Women and Glaciers in the Chilean Andes (Part I)

Women make up 50.8% of the worlds population, yet fewer than 30% of the world’s researchers are women. Of this percentage, BAME (Black Asia and Minority Ethnic) comprise around 5%, with less than 1% represented in geoscience faculty positions. The divide between women in the population and women in STEM needs to be addressed. Through a series of blog posts we hope to raise the voice of women in th ...[Read More]

Climate change and the Cryosphere – With ice we are also losing a piece of our cultural heritage: a glaciologist’s perspective

November 5, 2021
Climate change and the Cryosphere – With ice we are also losing a piece of our cultural heritage: a glaciologist’s perspective
The most famous glacier of the Dolomites (in the Eastern Alps): the Marmolada glacier. Its retreat has been ongoing for over a century and the glacier has now become a distant memory of what it used to be at the end of the Little Ice Age, in the late 19th century. [Credits: Giovanni Baccolo]

Glaciers are shrinking and disappearing in many regions of the Earth. Did you know? I am joking of course. We are flooded with news talking about this. The decline of glaciers has manifold and severe consequences and is one of the most powerful icons of climate change. Here I want to talk a little bit about one of the less talked about impact of glacier decline: the loss of culture and knowledge r ...[Read More]

Of Polar Bears and Sediment Cores: a Scientific Cruise in the Arctic

October 29, 2021
Of Polar Bears and Sediment Cores: a Scientific Cruise in the Arctic
One of the most stunning views of the trip, and one every glaciologist dreams of: a calving front in the sunshine. This is the terminus of Etonbreen, a glacier that is part of the Austfonna ice cap, an ice cap located on the island of Nordaustlandet, northeastern Svalbard. Photo credit: Agust Gustavsson.

Through the scientific excursion part of the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) course ‘Arctic Late Quaternary Glacial and Marine Environmental History’, a few lucky grad students got to visit Nordaustlandet, northeastern Svalbard. This is the story of our research adventure in this beautiful, remote part of the Arctic. On a bright and early morning in late August, a group of 16 students, 4 prof ...[Read More]

It’s getting hot in here: Ancient microbes in thawing permafrost

October 22, 2021
It’s getting hot in here: Ancient microbes in thawing permafrost
Figure 1: You wondered what can live in frozen, ancient soil? Here you can see intact (A) and thawing permafrost (B). While Bacilli (red) and spore formers (green) can survive in the frozen and thawed permafrost, other species, such as Actinobacteria (blue) do not like it too much when it thaws. Carbon gets digested into carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), of which most is released into the atmosphere. Little is known about fungi (light brown) but they do exist. [Credit: Maria Scheel, created with biorender.com]

Did you know that the oldest organism on Earth is believed to be a microorganism found in 3-million-year-old permafrost in Siberia? There, it was living at a cosy average temperature of -10 °C at 14 m depth. Or did you hear that some other Arctic soil microorganisms can happily live at extreme temperatures down to -40 °C? Scientists often use these “extreme” microorganisms to get an idea on how ex ...[Read More]

Vernagtferner: My First Encounter with an Alpine Glacier

October 15, 2021
Vernagtferner: My First Encounter with an Alpine Glacier
A: The start of our first climb to the Vernagtferner Glacier; B: The Vernagtferner Valley in the Ötztal Alps; C: Late afternoon in the Austrian Alps; D: The ice flows carrying, among other things, rock debris and scratching the surface of other rocks with increasing erosive power. Figure credit: Eduardo Q Alves.

In July 2021, together with a group of MSc students from the University of Bremen, I set off from the flat plains of Northwest Germany and embarked on a journey to the mountainous regions of Austria, with the Vernagtferner Glacier as our final destination. My aim was to learn as much as I could in the glaciology field course offered by the university. During my student days in Brazil, glaciers fil ...[Read More]

Cryo-Adventures – Hunting snow algae in the Alps

October 8, 2021
Cryo-Adventures – Hunting snow algae in the Alps
Figure 1. Researchers and students measuring snow optical properties during a snow algae bloom in the beautiful landscape of the Brenta Dolomites (Rhaetian Alps). [Credit: Cristian Ferrari]

We are used to think of algae as marine or lacustrine organisms, but they are actually able to thrive also on the cryosphere. In a previous post, we learnt how snow algae live and reproduce on snow. Now we will explore how and why scientists study snow algae, and how social media can be used for identifying new study areas. Snow algae in the Alps Snow algae in the Alps have been overlooked or conf ...[Read More]

Women of Cryo IV: Virginia ‘Ginny’ Fiennes (1947 – 2004)

October 1, 2021
Women of Cryo IV: Virginia ‘Ginny’ Fiennes (1947 – 2004)

Women make up 50.8% of the worlds population, yet fewer than 30% of the world’s researchers are women. Of this percentage, BAME (Black Asia and Minority Ethnic) comprise around 5%, with less than 1% represented in geoscience faculty positions. The divide between women in the population and women in STEM needs to be addressed. Through a series of blog posts we hope to raise the voice of women in th ...[Read More]

Let’s go to School of Sustainability!

September 24, 2021
Let’s go to School of Sustainability!
Logo of School of Sustainability, showing on the background our evident love for the Cryosphere [Credit: FAWLTS]

Next generations will not only see impacts of climate change first-hand, but they will also deal with the associated societal implications. Implementing climate solutions and orienting themselves in a growing, green job market need cutting-edge knowledge, which is often hard to get through the ordinary, high-school syllabus. As early-career cryo-scientists (Federica is a PhD student in glacial geo ...[Read More]