Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – How ocean tides affect ice flow

Teresa Kyrke-Smith July 8, 2016

(a) Shaded relief map of Rutford Ice Stream (West Antarctica) and surrounding area. Red box indicates the region shown in b. (b) Horizontal velocity where colors indicate speed, arrows show flow direction, and grayscale background is horizontal speed from Rignot et al. (2011). (c) Detrended along-flow displacements measured with GPS stations beginning December 2003. Locations of stations are indicated in (b). ( Credit : Brent Minchew )

Ice streams discharge approximately 90% of the Antarctic ice onto ice shelves , and ultimately into the sea into the sea (Bamber et al., 2000; Rignot et al., 2011). Whilst flow-speed changes on annual timescales are frequently discussed, we consider here what happens on much shorter timescales! Previous studies have shown that ice streams can respond to ocean tides at distances up to 100km inland ...[Read More]

Ice on fire at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

Thorbjörg Águstsdóttir July 6, 2016

In 2010 thick ash poured from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano after an explosive eruption. Find out more about why this happened at the Explosive Earth Exhibit at this weeks Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition. Photo Credit: Eyjólfur Magnússon

The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition (RSSSE) is a free public event 4-10th July 2016 in London. This is a yearly event that is made up of 22 exhibits, selected in a competitive process, featuring cutting edge science and research undertaken right now across the UK. The scientists will be on their stands ready to share discoveries, show you amazing technologies and with hands-on interactive ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – A Game of Drones (Part 1: A Debris-Covered Glacier)

Matt Westoby July 1, 2016

Figure 1: Down-glacier view of debris-covered Miage Glacier, Italy, taken from a low-altitude lightweight UAV in June 2016 (Credit: M. Westoby). As the summer progresses, the melting of winter snow cover prompts the development of a surface drainage network, characterised as a network of streams and ponds, which are concentrated in intermoraine troughs and drain into open crevasses or moulins. Snowmelt in this area will eventually reveal a glacier surface covered by a continuous mantle of supraglacial debris, comprised predominantly of mica-schist

What are debris-covered glaciers? Many alpine glaciers are covered with a layer of surface debris (rock and sediment), which is sourced primarily from glacier headwalls and valley flanks. So-called ‘debris-covered glaciers’ are found in most glacierized regions, with concentrations in the European Alps, the Caucasus, Hindu-Kush-Himalaya, Karakoram and Tien Shan, the Andes, and Alaska and the weste ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Canyons Under The Greenland Ice Sheet!

Michael Cooper June 24, 2016

Figure 1: The calculated drainage network for southern Greenland (interpreted from airbourne ice penetrating radar data). It shows an extensive flow network of channels beneath the ice. Which can be interpreted as a possible configuration for water flow pre-glacially, as well as in an ice-free future. The main channel within the catchment area of Jakobshavn Isbræ is marked by the red line. Bed elevation (between 300 and 1300 m above sea level (asl)) is also shown. Inset: location of study area within Greenland.

The Greenland Ice Sheet contains enough water to raise sea level by 7.36 meters (Bamber, et. al. 2013) and much of this moves from the interior of the continent into the oceans via Jakobshavn Isbræ – Greenland’s fastest flowing outlet glacier. An ancient river basin hidden beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, discovered by researchers at the University of Bristol, may help explain the loca ...[Read More]

Marine Ice Sheet Instability “For Dummies”

David Docquier June 22, 2016

MISI is a term that is often thrown into dicussions and papers which talk about the contribution of Antarctica to sea-level rise but what does it actually mean and why do we care about it? MISI stands for Marine Ice Sheet Instability. In this article, we are going to attempt to explain this term to you and also show you why it is so important. Background The Antarctic Ice Sheet represents the larg ...[Read More]

Image of The Week – Ballooning on the Ice

Nanna B. Karlsson June 17, 2016

One man and his balloon. Field leader Prof. J. P. Steffensen (Centre for Ice and Climate, University of Copenhagen) in front of one of the balloons used in camp. Credit: S. Kipfstuhl.

A curious experiment is taking place in Greenland. An experiment involving very large balloons and – of course – a lot of snow. Read on to discover why balloons are an environmentally friendly tool when constructing an ice core drill camp. Last year, a small team traversed 400km from northwest Greenland to the EastGRIP site (read more about the traverse here). This year another strenuous task is w ...[Read More]

Image of the week — The warming effect of the decline of Arctic Sea Ice

Chris Horvat June 10, 2016

Decreasing sea ice and its effect on the albedo in the Arctic (credit: I. Eisenman, K. Pistone, V. Ramanathan, and NASA/GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio)

One of the most dramatic signals of Earth’s recent warming has been the precipitous decline of the Arctic sea ice. While the sea-ice decline is in response to warming ocean and atmosphere, it also has an important feed-back on the climate itself. Solar radiation and albedo Earth’s main energy source is solar radiation. This solar radiation is either absorbed in the atmosphere or at the ...[Read More]

An Antarctic Road Trip

Nanna B. Karlsson June 8, 2016

Arriving at our first drill site with our sledge containing drill equipment, survival box and of course our lunch. Credit: N. B. Karlsson

Working in the Arctic and Antarctic presents its own challenges. It is perhaps easy to imagine how a station situated close to the coast is resupplied: during the summer, one or more ships will arrive bringing fuel, food and equipment, but what about stations inland? Flying in supplies by aircraft is expensive and, in the case of large quantities of fuel, unsustainable. Besides, many stations are ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Mushrooms at zero degrees = hair ice?!

Sophie Berger June 3, 2016

Hair ice in a forest near Moosseedorf, Switzerland (Credit: Christian Mätzler)

When you go down to the woods today you’re in for a big surprise….. hair ice! Did you know that there is a type of ice called hair ice? It is shaped like fine, silky hairs and looks like white candy floss. It grows on the rotten branches of broad-leaf trees during humid winter nights when the air temperature drops slightly below 0°C. A 100-year-old theory states that hair ice a ...[Read More]

Image of the Week — Historical aerial imagery of Greenland

Mette Bendixen May 27, 2016

Aerial photo of the Zackenberg delta in North-East Greenland taken in 1932. (Credit: Danish Geodata Agency)

A few month ago, we were taking you on a trip back to Antarctic fieldwork 50 years ago, today we go back to Greenland during 1930s! When geopolitics serves cryospheric sciences The Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague awarded Danish sovereignty over Greenland in 1933 and besides geopolitical interests, Denmark had a keen interest in searching for natural resources and new opportun ...[Read More]