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Cryospheric Sciences

414 search results for "sea ice"

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Climbing Everest and highlighting science in the mountains

September 14, 2018
Image of the Week – Climbing Everest and highlighting science in the mountains

Dr Melanie Windridge, a physicist and mountaineer, successfully summited Mount Everest earlier this year and has been working on an outreach programme to encourage young people’s interest in science and technology. Read about her summit climb, extreme temperatures, and the science supporting high-altitude mountaineering in our Image of the Week. It’s bigger than it looks! Experiencing the majesty ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Making waves: assessing supraglacial water storage for debris-covered glaciers

July 13, 2018
Image of the Week – Making waves: assessing supraglacial water storage for debris-covered glaciers

A creeping flux of ice descends Everest, creating the dynamic environment of Khumbu Glacier. Ice and snow tumble, debris slumps, ice cliffs melt, englacial cavities collapse, ponds form and drain, all responding to a variable energy balance. Indeed, Khumbu Glacier is a debris-covered glacier, meaning it features a layer of sediment, rocks and house-sized boulders that covers the ice beneath. Recen ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week — Orange is the new white

June 15, 2018
Image of the Week — Orange is the new white

On 22 March 2018, large amounts of Saharan dust were blown off the Libyan coast to be further deposited in the Mediterranean, turning the usually white snow-capped Mountains of Turkey, Romania and even Caucasus into Martian landscapes.  As many people were struck by this peculiar color of the snow, they started documenting this event on social media using the “#orangesnow hashtag”. Instagram and t ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Antarctica: A decade of dynamic change

May 25, 2018
Image of the Week – Antarctica: A decade of dynamic change

   Whilst we tend to think of the ice flow in Antarctica as a very slow and steady process, the wonders of satellites have shown over the last two decades it is one of the most dynamic places on Earth! This image of the week maps this dynamical change using all the satellite tools at a scientist’s disposal with novel statistical methods to work out why the change has recently been so rapid. Why do ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week — Biscuits in the Permafrost

May 18, 2018
Image of the Week — Biscuits in the Permafrost

In Svalbard, the snow melts to reveal a mysterious honeycomb network of irregular shapes (fig. 1). These shapes may look as though they have been created by a rogue baker with an unusual set of biscuit cutters, but they are in fact distinctive permafrost landforms known as ice-wedge polygons, and they play an important role in the global climate. Ice-wedge polygons: Nature’s biscuit-cutter In wint ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

A brief guide to Navigating EGU 2018!

March 28, 2018
A brief guide to Navigating EGU 2018!

Are you going to the EGU General Assembly in Vienna in just over a week? If so, read on for a quick guide to navigating the week: Where to start, what to see and how to meet people and enjoy yourself! After all, the meeting is as much about the opportunities to meet scientists from all over the world as it is about the science itself. How on Earth do I know what is going on?! The EGU General Assem ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Geothermal heat flux in Antarctica: do we really know anything?

March 23, 2018
Image of the Week – Geothermal heat flux in Antarctica: do we really know anything?

Geothermal heat flux is the major unknown when we evaluate the temperature and the presence/absence of water at the bed of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. This information is crucial for the Beyond Epica Oldest Ice project, which aims to find a continuous ice core spanning 1.5 million years (see this previous post). A lot of work has been done* to determine geothermal heat flux under the entire Antarctic ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Broccoli on Kilimanjaro!

March 16, 2018
Image of the Week – Broccoli on Kilimanjaro!

On the plateau of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, the remnants of a glacier can be found and the ice from that glacier contains a rather interesting feature – Broccoli! Not the vegetable, but bubbles that look a lot like it. Our Image of the Week shows some of these strange “Broccoli Bubbles”. Read on to find out more about where these were found and how we can see them. There is not much ice left on the m ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – The world in a grain of cryoconite

February 23, 2018
Image of the Week – The world in a grain of cryoconite

Microbes growing on glaciers are recognized for their importance in accelerating glacier melting by darkening their surface and for maintaining biogeochemical cycles in Earth’s largest freshwater ecosystem. However, the microbial biodiversity of glaciers remains mysterious. Today, new DNA sequencing techniques are helping to reveal glaciers as icy hotspots of biodiversity. To see a world in a grai ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the week – Skiing, a myth for our grandchildren?

February 16, 2018
Image of the week – Skiing, a myth for our grandchildren?

Ski or water ski? Carnival season is typically when many drive straight to the mountains to indulge in their favorite winter sport. However, by the end of the century, models seem to predict a very different future for Carnival, with a drastic reduction in the number of snow days we get per year. This could render winter skiing something of the past, a bedtime story we tell our grandchildren at ni ...[Read More]