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Cryospheric Sciences

408 search results for "sea ice"

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Searching for clues of extraterrestrial life on the Antarctic ice sheet

December 8, 2017
Image of the Week – Searching for clues of extraterrestrial life on the Antarctic ice sheet

Last week we celebrated Antarctica Day, 50 years after the Antarctic Treaty was signed. This treaty includes an agreement to protect Antarctic ecosystems. But what if, unintentionally, this protection also covered clues of life beyond Earth? In this Image of the Week, we explore how meteorites found in Antarctica are an important piece of the puzzle in the search for extraterrestrial life. Meteori ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Sea-ice dynamics for beginners

November 3, 2017
Image of the Week – Sea-ice dynamics for beginners

When I ask school children or people who only know about sea ice from remote references in the newspapers: ‘How thick do you think is the Arctic sea ice?’, I often get surprising answers: ’10 meters? No, it must be thicker – 100 meters!’. It seems like sea ice, often depicted as a uniform white cover around the North Pole and as a key element in accelerated warming of the Polar Regions, imposes a ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Of comparing oranges and apples in the sea-ice context

October 27, 2017
Image of the Week – Of comparing oranges and apples in the sea-ice context

In the last fifty years, models and observations have enabled us to better understand sea-ice processes. On the one hand, global climate models have been developed, accounting for the sea-ice component in the climate system. On the other hand, satellite instruments have been developed to monitor the “real” sea-ice evolution. These satellite observations are often used to evaluate climate models. H ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Powering up the ground in the search for ice

September 22, 2017
Image of the Week – Powering up the ground in the search for ice

  In an earlier post, we talked briefly about below-ground ice and the consequences of its disappearing. However, to estimate the consequences of disappearing ground ice, one has to know that there actually is ice in the area of study. How much ice is there – and where is it? As the name suggests, below-ground ice is not so easy to spot with the naked eye. Using geophysical methods, however, ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – The birth of a sea-ice dragon!

June 30, 2017
Image of the Week – The birth of a sea-ice dragon!

Dragon-skin ice may sound like the name of an episode of the Game of Thrones fantasy franchise. However, this fantasy name hides a rare and bizarre type of ice formation that you can see in our Image of the Week. It has been recently observed by the “Polynyas, ice production and seasonal evolution in the Ross Sea” (PIPERS) research team in Antarctica. This bizarre phenomenon caused by ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week — Future Decline of sea-ice extent in the Arctic (from IPCC)

December 1, 2015
Image of the Week — Future Decline of sea-ice extent in the Arctic (from IPCC)

The Arctic sea-ice extent has declined in the past 20 years and its future is uncertain. In the end, greenhouse gas emissions will determine the impact on the sea-ice from man-made climate change through radiative forcing (i.e. Representative Concentration Pathways or RCPs). The COP21 can determine the path we will follow and which course we will take to reduce emissions. Reduction in sea-ice cove ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week — Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise (from IPCC)

November 27, 2015
Image of the Week — Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise (from IPCC)

Context On the eve of the COP21, it is of paramount importance to recall how strongly the cryosphere is affected by Climate Change. Today, we present the impact of melting ice on sea level rise, as it is presented in the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Quick facts -Since 1992, the Glaciers, Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets have risen the sea level by 14 ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week — What’s up with the sea-ice leads?

November 13, 2015
Image of the Week — What’s up with the sea-ice leads?

This illustration shows two Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images taken over sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Both images are polarimetric and the different colours reflect the different polarimetric channels of the SAR (red = VV, green = HV and blue = HH). The two images are from the two satellites “ALOS-2” and “RADARSAT-2”. These are equipped with radars that operate at wavel ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Cryoscientist life stories: Experiences of an ‘office glaciologist’

August 29, 2024
The view of a glacier from a scientific cruise to the Arctic. Alex has never visited the glaciers he models, but he gets to understand and see them in a different way. Image credit: Bryony Freer

Both glaciological research conducted in the field, and in the office, are vital — and ‘count’ as glaciology. Often, however, those of us who remain in our cozy offices can be forgotten, or thought to lead a ‘boring’ job. Alex Bradley, a modeller of glaciers, is here to remind you why the office glaciologist is fundamental to the Cryosphere, and why glaciology from a distance is key to the future. ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Climate Change & Cryosphere – Can the smallest ice make the greatest impact?

June 28, 2024
Climate Change & Cryosphere – Can the smallest ice make the greatest impact?

The cryosphere comprises all the ice on Earth, from glaciers in Antarctica, icebergs floating in the ocean, to millimetric ice found in the soils. Soil can hold ice wedges and ice lenses, but there are small ice reservoirs that are usually overlooked: the pore ice. Pore ice is an unknown compartment whose role regarding matter degradation is yet to be determined… stay with us and you will see that ...[Read More]