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Cryospheric Sciences

Antarctic

Give your ears a holiday treat: our favourite polar podcasts

December 18, 2023
Give your ears a holiday treat: our favourite polar podcasts
Enjoy the holiday season with some really cool polar podcasts [Image credit: David Satterlee from Pixabay].

December is a busy month, and while we are busy preparing gifts and a mindful attitude for the festive season, finishing up projects for the year, at some point, we close the laptop and take our ride of choice home. So as a little treat for your ears, we found some 8 (+1) polar podcasts for those in need of a little inspiration. The podcasts are tackled from points of natural science, policy, hist ...[Read More]

An exceptional year: What’s up with Antarctic sea ice?

November 17, 2023
An exceptional year: What’s up with Antarctic sea ice?
Figure 1: Daily cycle of the Antarctic sea-ice extent (in million km²) for each 10-year period between 1979 and 2018 (10-year averages) and for 3 separate years, including 2023 (red curve). Snapshot of 12 November 2023 [Credit: NASA., Comiso et al., “Current State of Sea Ice Cover”, see: https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/cryo/data/current-state-sea-ice-cover].

In our blog, we have written a lot about Arctic sea ice (see this post, this post and this post for recent examples). Much less has been written about Antarctic sea ice, i.e. its southern counterpart. That is not surprising as Arctic sea ice has experienced major losses since the late 1970s (beginning of satellite observations), while not much had happened to Antarctic sea ice (despite a small exp ...[Read More]

The search for the Antarctic giants!

October 13, 2023
The search for the Antarctic giants!
The Southern Ocean, a place of wonders and giants. At the surface we are amazed by giant icebergs, but it is in the deep that the true mystery persists! [Credits: José Queirós]

The deep Southern Ocean is full of giants! Some of them scared the sailors for centuries, like the colossal squid or, as they called it, The Kraken. They thought it was a huge monster capable of sinking ships! Far from it, these giants ran away from us, and we still know very little about them! They live in depths where the light cannot penetrate, the largest ecosystem on Earth, the Deep-Sea! They ...[Read More]

Some icy summer reads – the blog goes on holiday

July 14, 2023
A photo of a sunset over Arctic sea ice and a photo of yellow safety rubber shoes facing that sea.

The cryosphere blog is taking a summer break but not without first providing you with your beach/airplane/train/fieldwork/balcony summer reading list to make you miss us a tiny bit less. Continue reading this post to explore some summer inspiration. Like a lot of northern countries who take long summer breaks to enjoy the long hours of light (midnight sun) after a dark winter, the Cryoblog is also ...[Read More]

A little guide to find your way through the Cryo-Jungle?

November 4, 2022
A little guide to find your way through the Cryo-Jungle?

Are you starting your studies in cryospheric sciences, or are coming into our field from another subject? If so, you may have unsuspectingly waded into a (very thick) soup of acronyms! Don’t fret–here is your “one stop shop” that tells you where to look for more information! Early Career Organisations Unless you’re fortunate enough to be working in a polar-oriented institute (some of our previous ...[Read More]

Did you know the differences between Arctic and Antarctic sea ice?

October 14, 2022
Did you know the differences between Arctic and Antarctic sea ice?
Figure 1: Satellite observations of (top) Arctic and (bottom) Antarctic sea-ice concentration in (left) March 2020 and (right) September 2020. [Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, https://nsidc.org/home].

If you look at the maps in Figure 1, you will quickly see that sea ice is present in both polar regions (Arctic at the top, Antarctic at the bottom). Despite this apparent similarity, some differences exist between Arctic (in the Northern Hemisphere) and Antarctic (in the Southern Hemisphere) sea ice. We provide a brief explanation of two key differences in this post. Geography The first main diff ...[Read More]

The Polar Amplifier

December 17, 2021
The Polar Amplifier
Drip, drip, drop of the melting sea ice. Figure [Maria Scheel, imaggeo.egu.eu]

It’s no secret that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, but why? Polar Amplification (often called Arctic Amplification) is the mechanism at play. In this week’s blog, we find out about its origins and why it happens. Early Discoveries In 1969, Russian scientist Mikhail Budyko and US scientist William Sellers discovered independently that the increase in greenhouse gases comb ...[Read More]

Women of Cryo IV: Virginia ‘Ginny’ Fiennes (1947 – 2004)

October 1, 2021
Women of Cryo IV: Virginia ‘Ginny’ Fiennes (1947 – 2004)

Women make up 50.8% of the worlds population, yet fewer than 30% of the world’s researchers are women. Of this percentage, BAME (Black Asia and Minority Ethnic) comprise around 5%, with less than 1% represented in geoscience faculty positions. The divide between women in the population and women in STEM needs to be addressed. Through a series of blog posts we hope to raise the voice of women in th ...[Read More]

The Norwegian Polar Institute

June 18, 2021
The Norwegian Polar Institute
Spot the glaciologists! Norwegian Polar Institute researchers work on the highly crevassed surface of the fast-flowing glacier Kronebreen, near Ny-Ålesund, in northwestern Spitsbergen. Credit: Elvar Ørn Kjartansson, Norsk Polarinstitutt.

It is a pleasure for the EGU Cryoblog team to present a new post category: Cryo-institutes around the world! There are many institutes working on cryosphere-related research spread around the world. The aim of this new category is to highlight the cool research that is carried out at these institutes, showing off our multi-faceted cryo-related science. In this opening post, Ashley Morris will pres ...[Read More]

Atmospheric Rivers: A blanket for Antarctic winter sea ice

January 22, 2021
Atmospheric Rivers: A blanket for Antarctic winter sea ice
Figure 1: The Weddell Polynya in the Weddell Sea as seen from space on 25 September 2017, a few days after the initial opening on 14 September 2017. Figure credits: NASA.

The mysterious appearance and disappearance of the Weddell Polynya, a giant hole in the sea ice cover, has long puzzled scientists. Recent work reveals that the polynya is initiated and maintained by gigantic and formidable atmospheric currents: atmospheric rivers! Read on to find out more… Each year, approximately 15 million square kilometers of ice forms in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica d ...[Read More]