On 22 March 2018, large amounts of Saharan dust were blown off the Libyan coast to be further deposited in the Mediterranean, turning the usually white snow-capped Mountains of Turkey, Romania and even Caucasus into Martian landscapes. As many people were struck by this peculiar color of the snow, they started documenting this event on social media using the “#orangesnow hashtag”. Instagram and t ...[Read More]
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]
Image of the Week – Icy expedition in the Far North
Fig.1: Mooring in the fjord next to Qaanaaq [Credit: Measurement campaign team].
Many polar scientists who have traveled to Svalbard have heard several times how most of the stuff there is the “northernmost” stuff, e.g. the northernmost university, the northernmost brewery, etc. Despite hosting the four northernmost cities and towns, Svalbard is however accessible easily by “usual-sized” planes at least once per day from Oslo and Tromsø. This is not the case for th ...[Read More]
Image of the Week – Polar Prediction School 2018
Happy students and lecturers at the Polar Prediction School 2018 [Credit: F. Tummon, APECS]
Early career scientists studying polar climate are one lucky group! The 29 young scientists who took part in the 10 day Polar Prediction School this year were no exception. They travelled to Arctic Sweden to learn and discuss the challenges of polar prediction and to gain a better understanding of the physical aspects of polar research. The Year of Polar Prediction The Year of Polar Prediction (YO ...[Read More]
Image of the Week – Antarctica: A decade of dynamic change
Whilst we tend to think of the ice flow in Antarctica as a very slow and steady process, the wonders of satellites have shown over the last two decades it is one of the most dynamic places on Earth! This image of the week maps this dynamical change using all the satellite tools at a scientist’s disposal with novel statistical methods to work out why the change has recently been so rapid. Why do ...[Read More]
Image of the Week — Biscuits in the Permafrost
In Svalbard, the snow melts to reveal a mysterious honeycomb network of irregular shapes (fig. 1). These shapes may look as though they have been created by a rogue baker with an unusual set of biscuit cutters, but they are in fact distinctive permafrost landforms known as ice-wedge polygons, and they play an important role in the global climate. Ice-wedge polygons: Nature’s biscuit-cutter In wint ...[Read More]
Image of the Week – Cure from the Cold?
Fig. 1: A sample of ‘cryoconite’ from glacier surfaces contains a diverse collection of bacteria and fungi that may be sources of new antibiotics [Credit: A. Debbonaire].
Humans rely on antibiotics for survival, but over time they are becoming less effective. So-called ‘superbugs’ are developing resistance to our most important drugs. The key to this global issue may be found in the cryosphere, where extreme microbiologists are hunting for new compounds in the cold that could help us win the war against antimicrobial resistance. Discovering drugs in Earth’s coldest ...[Read More]
Image of the Week – Why is ice colourful?
Figure 1: Thin sections (~9 cm in height) from Alpine glacier ice at 1 mm thickness before polishing photographed under crossed polarisers [Credit: Johanna Kerch]
When you think of glacier ice, what colour first springs to mind? Maybe white, blue or transparent? Well, glacier ice can, in fact, be mesmerising and multi-coloured! Our image of the week shows thin sections of glacier ice under polarised light. These sections were cut from block samples of two Alpine glaciers in Switzerland (Chli Titlis and Grenzgletscher). In these images the individual ice c ...[Read More]
Image of the week — Making pancakes
It’s pitch black and twenty degrees below zero; so cold that the hairs in your nose freeze. The Arctic Ocean in autumn and winter is inhospitable for both humans and most scientific equipment. This means there are very few close-up observations of sea ice made during these times. Recently, rapidly declining coverage of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean due to warming climate and the impending likelihood ...[Read More]
Image of the Week — Seasonal and regional considerations for Arctic sea ice changes
The Arctic sea ice is disappearing. There is no debate anymore. The problem is, we have so far been unable to model this disappearance correctly. And without correct simulations, we cannot project when the Arctic will become ice free. In this blog post, we explain why we want to know this in the first place, and present a fresh early-online release paper by Ingrid Onarheim and colleagues in Bergen ...[Read More]