Cryospheric Sciences

Climate Change & Cryosphere – The tropical fingerprint in Arctic climate

Michelle McCrystall February 7, 2020

Figure 1: A schematic to illustrate an atmospheric bridge whereby connecting one part of the climate system with another [Credit: M. McCrystall].

We know that climate change is being felt worldwide, but it is especially prominent in the Arctic, where temperatures are warming twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet. This especially sensitive environment, whose icy, snow-covered land and sea is so important in the global climate system, is really starting to feel the heat. But where is this heat coming from? In this blog post, we will ex ...[Read More]

Water plumes are tickling the Greenland Ice Sheet

Johanna Beckmann January 31, 2020

Figure 1. Cross section of a schematic representation of a glacier. Surface water is penetrating into the glacier through crevasses at its surface, reaching its base where it flows towards the ocean. Once this freshwater has entered the ocean, it rises up creating a so-called water plume. Credit: Stefan Hollenbach.

7 meters of sea-level rise – what you would get if the whole Greenland Ice Sheet melted. But the tricky question is: how much of this ice will be melted in the next decades, and how fast will it occur? This piece of information is critical in order to plan for present and future populations living in coastline areas, all around the world. How much and how fast can the Greenland Ice Sheet melt ? In ...[Read More]

Climate Change & Cryosphere – The fate of Georgian Glaciers

Levan Tielidze January 24, 2020

Display "The fate of Georgian Glaciers" from YouTube Click here to display content from YouTube. Learn more in YouTube’s privacy policy. Always display content from YouTube Open "The fate of Georgian Glaciers" directly Last week, we learned about the dramatic fate of the Hochjochferner, which has strongly retreated in the past years due to climate change. It represented just on ...[Read More]

Education in glaciology: Witnessing the death of a glacier

Olaf Eisen and Carleen Tijm-Reijmer January 17, 2020

Fig.1. View of the Hochjochferner and its prominent medial moraine during the “Almabtrieb” in September 2003. The bumps on the glacier are from support pillars of a ski lift. Photo credit: Carleen Tijm-Reijmer

The Karthaus summer school on Glaciers and Ice Sheets in the Climate System has a long history of training many generations of PhD students, thus forming professional networks that have lasted throughout their careers. The Karthaus summer school has been described in detail in a previous Cryoblog post. Here we want to focus on the story of a glacier… Hochjochferner, a retreating glacier One ...[Read More]

Did you know? – Ocean bathymetry can control Antarctic mass loss!

Sainan Sun January 10, 2020

Ice shelves (the floating parts of the Antarctic ice sheet) play a fundamental role in the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet (see this post) and, therefore, its contribution to global sea-level rise. They lose mass primarily through melting at their bases, which are in contact with the ocean. This thins them and makes them more vulnerable, reducing their stabilising potential and causing more i ...[Read More]

Did you know about… nature’s street lights for Santa Claus?

Clara Burgard December 20, 2019

Only a couple of days left until Santa Claus’ big night! Once again the beardy guy in the red and white suit will fly around the world with his sledge pulled by his strong reindeers to make young and old children happy! But how does he navigate in the dark? Luckily, nature provides some solutions, for example light pillars… Light pillars form when ice particles are suspended in the air. These part ...[Read More]

Cryo History – How airborne glaciologists measured the movement of glaciers before the satellite era

Niels Korsgaard and Baptiste Vandecrux December 13, 2019

Recent work published in my department at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) focused on solid ice discharge into the ocean from the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1986 to 2017 (Mankoff et al. 2019). Solid ice discharge is the ice that is lost from a glacier as it flows towards the coast and eventually breaks off as icebergs into the ocean (i.e. calving). Solid ice discharge is an impo ...[Read More]

Cryo Adventures – What’s currently going on in Antarctic science?

Andy Smedley, Jenny Arthur and Sofia Kufner December 6, 2019

Map of the various locations mentioned in the text. Green markers are bases, red markers measurement campaign locations [Credit: Andy Smedley].

As Christmas gets closer, days are getting shorter in the northern hemisphere. A good excuse to get cosy inside on the sofa, drinking tea and eating Christmas biscuits. Meanwhile, a few thousand of scientists are heading “South”, to Antarctica, where the lengthening days provide the perfect conditions to conduct a whole variety of scientific field expeditions… Science in Antarctica Just last ...[Read More]

Did you know…? Antarctica Day 2019 – 60 years of peace

Jenny Turton November 29, 2019

Figure 1: Scientists fly the flags for the school children who designed them for Antarctica Day [Photo credit: UK Polar Network].

December 1st 2019 marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic treaty. To celebrate the signing of the treaty, ‘Antarctica Day’ now occurs each year on December 1st. But what is the Antarctic Treaty? How do people celebrate? This week’s blog post will tell you everything you need to know, just in time for celebrations! Antarctic Treaty The Antarctic Treaty was originally signed by 12 ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Desert Varnish, Antarctica Style

Violaine Coulon November 22, 2019

If you had to describe Antarctica with one colour, red is probably the last one you would pick. However, some parts of the so-called white continent can be surprising in their colours. Today’s Image of the Week shows us that some parts of Antarctica — Beacon Valley in this case – can be strikingly similar to landscapes in hot deserts…. … speaking of deserts, did you know that: Antarcti ...[Read More]