CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week: GISP II Borehole

September 11, 2015
Image of the Week: GISP II Borehole
The GISP II (Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two) borehole at Summit Station, Greenland. Credit: N. B. Karlsson

Climate records from ice cores have helped scientists understand the past changes in climate.The GISP II (Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two) ice core was more than 3km long and was drilled during a five year period in the 1990s. After the drilling ended the casing of the borehole was extended above the surface, so that the borehole can still be accessed for remeasurements of, for example, temperatur ...[Read More]

Camping on the Svalbard coast

September 9, 2015
Camping on the Svalbard coast
In the field (credit: A. Lourenço)

In early April 2015, a small team of 2 Belgian and 2 French researchers went to Svalbard. The goal? Testing new methods to measure sea-ice thickness and ice algal biomass, but also measuring greenhouse gases in the sea ice in relation with the ‘STeP’ (Storfjorden Polynya multidisciplinary study) campaign. With funding from the French Polar Institute (IPEV) and IPSL and logistical arrangements by t ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: Greenland Ice Streams

September 4, 2015
Image of the Week: Greenland Ice Streams
Credit: Copernicus data (2015)/ESA/Enveo

This image is from the west coast of Greenland and it shows several glaciers flowing towards the sea (upper part of the image), transporting ice into the ocean. The colours show the velocity of the ice. As the ice gets nearer to the coast it speeds up reaching speeds over 15m/day. The velocities were calculated using two Sentinel-1A radar scans from 3 and 15 January 2015. You can download a high r ...[Read More]

Cruising for mud: Sediments from the ocean floor as a climate indicator

August 24, 2015
Cruising for mud: Sediments from the ocean floor as a climate indicator
The Norwegian research vessel G.O. Sars after arriving in Tromsø with more than 200 m of sediment cores to document past abrupt climate change. Photo credit: Iben Koldtoft

Going on a cruise for a month sounds tempting for most people and that is exactly how I spent one month of my summer. Instead of sunshine and 25 degrees, the temperature was closer to the freezing point on the thermometer and normal summer weather was replaced by milder weather conditions. The destination of the cruise was the western Nordic Sea and the east Greenland Margin. The ice2ice cruise wa ...[Read More]

Science and Shovels: Traversing across the Greenland Ice Sheet.

July 13, 2015
Science and Shovels: Traversing across the Greenland Ice Sheet.
The Case tractor pulling the dome. Credit: N. B. Karlsson.

Moving 150 tonnes of equipment more than 450km across the Greenland Ice Sheet sounds like a crazy idea. In that context, moving a 14-metre high, dome-shaped, wooden structure seems like a minor point, but it really is not. I do not think I realised what an awesome and awe-inspiring project I was part of, until I was out there, in the middle of the blindingly white ice sheet, and I saw the enormous ...[Read More]

From the Poles to Paris — An interview with Erlend Moster Knudsen

June 29, 2015
From the Poles to Paris — An interview with Erlend Moster Knudsen

What do polar bears and emperor penguins have to do with the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame? Pole to Paris has the answer.   Erlend Moster Knudsen earned his PhD in climate dynamics after four years of research from the University of Bergen, Colorado State University and University of Alaska Fairbanks on Arctic sea ice and its interaction with atmospheric circulation. He took some time to answer ...[Read More]

Ice Nomads: The iSTAR traverse of Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica

May 27, 2015

It’s the 2nd December 2013 and I find myself in one of those rare occasions in life where I feel I need to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming. Why? Somehow I’m in control of a British Antarctic Survey De Havilland Twin Otter aircraft flying over the white featureless expanse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. I’m part of a team of 12 heading to Pine Island Glacier, a remote ice stream 75°S and arou ...[Read More]

My first journey to Antarctica – Brice Van Liefferinge

May 8, 2015
My first journey to Antarctica – Brice Van Liefferinge
(Credit B. Van Liefferinge)

19 November 2014, the Iliuchine 76 gently lands on the runway of the Russian Antarctic station, Novolazarevskaya, in Dronning Maud Land. For the first time, I’m in Antarctica! It is 4 o’clock in the morning and we need to hurriedly offload 2 tons of material intended for our field mission near the Belgian Princess Elisabeth Station. I’m deeply impressed by the landscape although it is dotted with ...[Read More]

Young Scientist Events at the EGU General Assembly

April 12, 2015

Are you going to the EGU General Assembly in Vienna next week? Check out these events for young scientists (YS). Short courses The idea behind the young scientist short courses is to give an insight into a certain area and/or the applications/uses/pitfalls in and around the topic. There are a lot of very interesting courses at this year’s meeting. I would like to highlight two short courses in par ...[Read More]

Glaciers on Mars

April 7, 2015
Glaciers on Mars
Image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera shows that the glaciers are covered by a layer of dust (Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin).

“I did not know that there is water on Mars!” This a sentence I hear surprisingly often when I talk about glaciers on Mars. In fact, it has been known for some time that water exists in the form of ice and water vapour on the planet. For example, water ice layers several kilometres thick cover the Martian poles, and the ground close to the Polar Regions has permafrost patterns very similar to what ...[Read More]