CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Antarctica

Lights out: cryosphere instruments perfectly placed to study solar eclipse

July 8, 2022
Lights out: cryosphere instruments perfectly placed to study solar eclipse
The view from the path of totality in West Antarctica during the eclipse. Photo credit: Jesse Norquay, accessed from https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4712/

On 04 December 2021, only a handful of people in Antarctica were fortunate enough to experience a total eclipse. As well as spectacular views—including a brief window of totality that darkened the midnight sun for 2 minutes—this phenomenon is known to affect the flow of energy between the Northern and Southern hemispheres of the ionosphere. Because eclipses in Antarctica only happen once every ~20 ...[Read More]

Highlighted Paper – Meteorites in Antarctica

April 8, 2022
Highlighted Paper – Meteorites in Antarctica
Figure 1. Artist impression of the Antarctic meteorite treasure map (not to scale). [photo: field team of the JARE-54/BELARE 2012–2013 expedition to the Nansen blue ice field. Artist impression: Janbert Aarnink]

A Belgian-Dutch team of scientists created the first-ever “treasure map” that shows where in Antarctica meteorites are likely to be found. Meteorites are samples from space that fall as stone-like material on the surface of the Earth. Once recovered, meteorites provide crucial information on the formation and evolution of our Solar System. First meteorite finds in Antarctica December 1969, Yamato ...[Read More]

Cryo-adventures: Ninja goes south – Life and science onboard an icebreaker in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)

November 19, 2021
Cryo-adventures: Ninja goes south – Life and science onboard an icebreaker in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)

Hello there! I’m Ninja – a curious little LEGO-figure who doesn’t know much about the cryosphere, but who’s learning! Maybe you read about me in the blogpost by ice sheet modeler Petra Langebroek a few years ago? She brought me to the ice-core drilling camp called EASTgrip, on top of the Greenland icesheet. Together, we wrote a photo-novel to tell her sons and all of you about life and science at ...[Read More]

It’s not you, it’s me(lange): ice shelf break-up triggered by mélange and sea-ice loss

May 21, 2021
It’s not you, it’s me(lange): ice shelf break-up triggered by mélange and sea-ice loss
Fig. 1. Mélange (a mixture of calved icebergs, sea ice and material) in Porpoise Bay, East Antarctica, located ~100 km east of Voyeykov Ice Shelf [Credit: NASA Operation IceBridge].

Between March and May 2007, a total of ~2,445 km2 (equivalent to over 17 football pitches) of ice mélange (a mixture of sea-ice types, icebergs and snow) and part of Voyeykov Ice Shelf in East Antarctica rapidly broke up. Observations of the timing and triggers of such events are relatively rare in East Antarctica, compared to ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula. Recent work highlights the impo ...[Read More]

How small changes can make a big difference: tipping points in Antarctica

November 13, 2020

As Antarctica’s mass loss increases, the threat of crossing tipping points both in the ice sheet and the surrounding Southern Ocean is increasing. But what actually is a tipping point? Have tipping points already been crossed in the past? And what might the future hold? What do we mean by a “tipping point”? Scientifically speaking, a tipping point is generally understood to be a threshold that, on ...[Read More]

©LEt’sGO to Antarctica !

May 15, 2020
©LEt’sGO to Antarctica !
The camp site deployed to collect radar data with (a) the polar vehicle (in orange in the centre) or (b) snowmobiles (on the right). Other types of measurements are often carried out simultaneously: atmospheric gas composition, snow/ice core drilling, surface photogrammetry, etc. Can you spot them all ? Photo credit: Brice Van Liefferinge

With the current situation, polar fieldwork might be/have been cancelled and we have a suggestion to remedy your field-blues… Why not use ©LEGO to pretend you’re back in the field with the added bonus that you get to be in the warmth and comfort of your home! Here, we’ve re-enacted radar fieldwork that took place a year and a half ago in Antarctica… But first, let’s start with some backgroun ...[Read More]

Life of a scientist: When fieldwork doesn’t go to plan…

March 27, 2020

Climate research questions tend to focus on the future. What will global temperature be in 2100? Will extreme weather events become more frequent? When will sea level rise render coastal homes uninhabitable? But our understanding of climate processes first comes from observing the past: palaeoclimatology. To get these records, scientists often go on fieldwork to collect samples. But what happens w ...[Read More]

Radiocarbon rocks! – How rocks can tell us about the history of an ice sheet…

March 20, 2020
Radiocarbon rocks! – How rocks can tell us about the history of an ice sheet…
Figure 1: Collecting a bedrock sample from the Lassiter Coast, Antarctica [Credit: Joanne Johnson, British Antarctic Survey].

When most people hear the phrase “radiocarbon dating”, they think of measuring carbon to date organic material. But did you know that carbon is also produced within rocks, and that we can use it to learn about the past behaviour of a glacier? About 20,000 years ago it was colder and large parts of the continents were covered by ice. But what did Antarctica – the largest ice mass ...[Read More]

What’s up on Thwaites Glacier?

March 13, 2020
What’s up on Thwaites Glacier?
Figure 1: Map showing the location of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, as well as the main geographic focus of the 8 projects involved in the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC). Credit: ITGC website.

With the West Antarctic Ice Sheet currently losing ice at a fast pace, leading to sea-level rise, it is very important to better understand the processes by which this ice melting occurs. In this context, Thwaites Glacier is a very good case study of an accelerating glacier, which contributes substantially to sea-level rise, and for which a huge scientific collaboration effort has recently been se ...[Read More]

Boom and bust beneath the ice

February 28, 2020
Boom and bust beneath the ice

Beneath the frozen surface of the Southern Ocean, live some of the most spectacular creatures on earth. These creatures are spectacular not only in appearance, but also in their ability to survive in such an extreme environment as Antarctica. Here, temperatures deviate only slightly from 0°C, and food is scarce during the winter months. How do these diverse creatures live in these conditions and w ...[Read More]