CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week : 63 years of the Muir Glacier’s retreat

October 30, 2015
Image of the Week : 63 years of the Muir Glacier’s retreat
Three repeat photos of the Muir Glacier, Alaska taken on 13 August 1941, 4 August 1950 and 31 August 2004 . Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

The Muir is a valley glacier (Alaska) that has significantly retreated over the last 2 centuries. The 3 pictures have the same field of view and record the changes that occurred during the 63 years separating 1941 and 2004. In the 1941, the terminus of the glacier is on the lower right corner of the photo. The Muir is then a tidewater glacier up to 700m thick and is well connected to its tributary ...[Read More]

Filling the Gap between Science and Politics

October 26, 2015

Have you ever wondered how results from scientific studies make their way into policy and influence government decisions? Read about the experiences of Sammie Buzzard, University of Reading, who spent her summer working for a government body in Westminster, London, UK. This summer I had the opportunity to take some time away from my usual Ph.D. work and spend 3 months working for the Government Of ...[Read More]

Image of Week: Inside the Greenland Ice Sheet

October 23, 2015
Image of Week: Inside the Greenland Ice Sheet
Cross-section of the age of the Greenland Ice Sheet from radar data. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio and MacGregor et al., 2015.

The image shows a cross section of the Greenland Ice Sheet, where a recent study by MacGregor et al. have mapped the layers imaged by radar. Thanks to ice core measurements the age of the layers have been determined, and in the image the layers from the Holocene period (the past 11.700 years) are shown in green. The ice formed during the last ice age, that spanned 11.700 to 115.000 years ago are c ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: Under a Glacier

October 16, 2015
Image of the Week: Under a Glacier
Under the Hochjochferner glacier. Credit: Ilkka Matero.

What is happening under a glacier? This is a difficult questions to answer as accessing the glacier bed is usually not that easy. Here, we are getting a rare glimpse of the different processes and materials that are often found at the ice-bed interface. The photograph shows both sediments and hard rock, clear ice and dirty ice, and of course flowing water. No wonder these processes are complicated ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: Antarctic ice-shelf thickness

October 9, 2015
Image of the Week: Antarctic ice-shelf thickness
Thickness of the Antarctic ice shelves. Credit: M. Depoorter

Thickness of floating ice shelves in Antarctica. Ice thickness is greatest close to the grounding line where it can reach 1000 meters or more (red). Away from the grounding line, the ice rapidly thins to reach a few hundreds of meters at the calving front. Ice thickness varies greatly from one ice shelf to another. Within ice shelves, “streams of ice” can be spotted originating from in ...[Read More]

Riding the Storm: The Arctic Circle Traverse 2015

October 8, 2015
Riding the Storm: The Arctic Circle Traverse 2015
Stormy day at Dye-2, 20th of May. Credit: Babis Charalampidis.

In the morning on the 19th of May, we – the Arctic Circle Traverse 2015 – found ourselves in a great dilemma; to stay or to go? On our check-in conversation with the KISS crew, we were informed that an east front from Kulusuk was expected to hit our location up on the ice sheet sometime in the afternoon. The relatively low winds that we were experiencing would get stronger, and the visibility woul ...[Read More]

Image of the Week : SAFIRE team getting ready to drill in Greenland

October 2, 2015
Image of the Week : SAFIRE team getting ready to drill in Greenland
The SAFIRE team sets up the drilling device on the Store Glacier, Western Greenland. Credit : T.J. Young

How do you get a hot water drill onto an ice sheet? The Subglacial Access and Fast Ice Research Experiment (SAFIRE) uses a hot water drill to directly access and observe the physical and geothermal properties where the ice meets rock or sediment at the glacier-bed interface. Here, SAFIRE principal investigator Bryn Hubbard and post-doc Sam Doyle help fly in the drill spool at the start of the Summ ...[Read More]

Karthaus Summer School 2015

September 29, 2015
Karthaus Summer School 2015
The 15th Karthaus Summer School (Credit: C. Reijmer)

After a train, the London Underground, another train, a flight, three more trains and a taxi (shared with people I had met on my way); I had arrived in a small Alpine village in the very north of Italy. The reason for this rather convoluted journey? To attend the Karthaus Summer School on ice sheets and glaciers in the climate system. I’m pleased to say it was definitely worth the trip getting the ...[Read More]

Image of the week : formation of an ice rise

September 25, 2015
Image of the week : formation of an ice rise

Deglaciation and formation of an ice rise with the ice-sheet model BISICLES.  The simulation starts with an ice sheet in steady state that overrides a topographic high in the bed, close to the calving front. The sea level is then forced to rise steadily with 1 cm per year during 15 thousand years, and the simulation goes on until the ice sheet reaches steady state. The animation below shows that t ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: Hochjochferner

September 18, 2015
Image of the Week: Hochjochferner
The margin at Hochjochferner in the fog. Credit: N. B. Karlsson.

The margin of the glacier “Hochjochferner” on the border between Austria and Italy. This glacier has been monitored with an Automatic Weather Station for several years by the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research in Utrecth, NL.It is also the destination of the field trip that takes place during the annual Karthaus summer school in ice and climate. Here, students are exploring ...[Read More]