As the world searches for practical innovations that can mitigate the impact of climate change, traditional methods of environmental management can offer inspiration. In Hindu Kush and Karakoram region, local people have been growing, or grafting, glaciers for at least 100 years. Legend has it that artificial glaciers were grown in mountain passes as early as the …[Read More]
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Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week — Climate change and disappearing ice
The first week of the Climate Change summit in Bonn (COP 23 for those in the know) has been marked by Syria’s decision to sign the Paris Accord, the international agreement that aims at tackling climate change. This decision means that the United States would become the only country outside the agreement if it were to …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Back to the Front – Larsen C Ice Shelf in the Aftermath of Iceberg A68!
Much of the Antarctic continent is fringed by ice shelves. An ice shelf is the floating extension of a terrestrial ice mass and, as such, is an important ‘middleman’ that regulates the delivery of ice from land into the ocean: for much of Antarctica, ice that passes from land into the sea does so via …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week – Bioalbedo: algae darken the Greenland Ice Sheet
Most of the energy that drives glacier melting comes directly from sunlight, with the amount of melting critically dependent on the amount of solar energy absorbed compared to that reflected back into the atmosphere. The amount of solar energy that is reflected by a surface without being absorbed is called the albedo. A low albedo …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the week – Getting glaciers noticed!
Public engagement and outreach in science is a big deal right now. In cryospheric science the need to inform the public about our research is vital to enable more people to understand how climate change is affecting water resources and sea level rise globally. There is also no better way to enthuse people about science …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the week – Micro-organisms on Ice!
The cold icy surface of a glacier doesn’t seem like an environment where life should exist, but if you look closely you may be surprised! Glaciers are not only locations studied by glaciologists and physical scientists, but are also of great interest to microbiologists and ecologists. In fact, understanding the interaction between ice and microbiology …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week – A new way to compute ice dynamic changes
Up to now, ice sheet mass changes due to ice dynamics have been computed from satellite observations that suffer from sparse coverage in time and space. A new method allows us to compute these changes on much wider temporal and spatial scales. But how does this method work? Let us discover the different steps by …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week – Summer is fieldwork season at EastGRIP!
As the days get very long, summer is a popular season for conducting fieldwork at high latitudes. At the North East Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS), the East Greenland Ice-core Project (EastGRIP) is ongoing. Several scientists are busy drilling an ice core through the ice sheet to the very bottom, in continuation to previous years (see …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week – Ice lollies falling from the sky
You have more than probably eaten many lollipops as a kid (and you might still enjoy them). The good thing is that you do not necessarily need to go to the candy shop to get them but you can simply wait for them to fall from the sky and eat them for free. Disclaimer: this …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week – How geometry limits thinning in the interior of the Greenland Ice Sheet
The Greenland ice sheet flows from the interior out to the margins, forming fast flowing, channelized rivers of ice that end in fjords along the coast. Glaciologists call these “outlet glaciers” and a large portion of the mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet is occurring because of changes to these glaciers. The end of …[Read More]