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Changes in the ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic continent are responsible for most of its current contribution to sea-level rise. Although they are already afloat and do not contribute to sea level directly, ice shelves play a key role through the buttressing effect. But which ice shelf regions are most important for this? The role of ice-shelf buttressing In architecture, the term “buttress” ...[Read More]
Crew in hardhats and red safety gear bustle about, preparing our ship for departure. A whale spouts nearby in the Straits of Magellan, a fluke waving in brief salute, before it submerges again. Our international team of 29 scientists and 2 science communicators, led by co-Chief Scientists Mike Weber and Maureen Raymo, is boarding the JOIDES Resolution, a scientific drilling ship. We’re about to jo ...[Read More]
The cryosphere can be found in various places in many forms and shapes… in the atmosphere, on land and sea. A lesser known part of the cryosphere is hidden deep in the dark, in the cold-karstic areas of the planet: Ice caves! The ongoing climate change affecting ice all over the world is now rapidly melting these hidden ice masses as well. We therefore need to hurry up and try to collect as ...[Read More]
Bowie and Queen said it first, and Vanilla Ice brought it back. But now, I’ve set out to quantify it: Pressure. Rocks in glacial landscapes can experience many different kinds of pressure (forces), from sources like regional tectonics or even the weight of the glacier itself. Our hypothesis is that smaller-scale pressures, caused by the formation of ice in small bedrock cracks (frost-weathering), ...[Read More]
Having spent most of my life in places where the temperature hardly ever falls below zero, my first winter in Sweden was painful. Especially for my bum, who met the ice quite unexpectedly. Reading the news this week, from reports of emergency services overwhelmed after so many people had slipped to a scientific study on how no shoes have a good enough grip, via advice on how to walk like a penguin ...[Read More]
On September 15th, 2018, at 18:02 local time, NASA launched its newest satellite – the second generation Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat-2). ICESat-2 only contains one instrument – a space laser that fires 10,000 pulses per second to Earth to measure elevation. Its primary purpose is for monitoring the ever changing cryosphere, so naturally there are plenty of ice enthusiasts ...[Read More]
Every year again, the Conference of Parties takes place, an event where politicians and activists from all over the world meet for two weeks to discuss further actions concerning climate change. In the context the COP24, which started this Monday in Katowice (Poland), let’s revisit an important decision made three years ago, during the COP21 in Paris, and its consequences for the state of the cryo ...[Read More]
The Antarctic ice sheet stores a large amount of water that could potentially add to sea level rise in a warming world (see this post and this post). It is currently losing ice, and the ice loss has been accelerating in the past decades. All this is linked to the melting of ice – not at the surface but at the base, underneath the so-called ice shelves which form the continuation of the Antarctic i ...[Read More]
Common images associated with climate change include sad baby polar bears, a small Arctic sea ice extent, retreating glaciers, and increasing severe weather. Though slightly less well-known, river ice is a hydrological system which is directly influenced by air temperature and the amount and type of precipitation, both of which are changing under a warming climate. Ice impacts approximately 60 % o ...[Read More]
What do Chile and Jupiter’s moon Europa have in common? If you like astronomy, you may reply “space missions!” – Chile’s dry air and clear skies make it an ideal location for telescopes like the VLT or ALMA, while Europa’s inferred subsurface ocean will be studied by the upcoming mission to Jupiter JUICE, due to launch in 2022. But Chile’s high altitude Atacama desert and Europa’s frozen surface a ...[Read More]
