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]
Antarctica
Image of the Week — High altitudes slow down Antarctica’s warming
When it comes to climate change, the Arctic and the Antarctic are poles apart. At the north of the planet, temperatures are increasing twice as fast as in the rest of the globe, while warming in Antarctica has been milder. A recent study published in Earth System Dynamics shows that the high elevation of Antarctica …[Read More]
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 …[Read More]
Image of the Week – Ice Ice Bergy
They come in all shapes, sizes and textures. They can be white, deep blue or brownish. Sometimes they even have penguins on them. It is time to (briefly) introduce this element of the cryosphere that has not been given much attention in this blog yet: icebergs! What is an iceberg? Let’s start with the basics. …[Read More]
Image of the Week – Antarctica’s Flowing Ice, Year by Year
Today’s Image of the Week shows annual ice flow velocity mosaics at 1km resolution from 2005 to 2016 for the Antarctic ice sheet. These mosaics, along with similar data for Greenland (see Fig.2), were published by Mouginot et al, (2017) last month as part of NASA’s MEaSUREs (Making Earth System Data Records for Use in …[Read More]
A year at the South Pole – an interview with Tim Ager, Research Scientist
What is it like to live at the South Pole for a year? A mechanical engineer by trade, Tim Ager, jumped at the opportunity to work for a year as a research scientist at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. When not traveling on various adventures he lives in Austin, Texas, and recently took the time to …[Read More]
Image of the Week — Hidden lakes in East Antarctica !
Who would have guessed that such a beautiful picture could get you interviewed for the national news?! Certainly not me! And yet, the photo of this englacial lake (a lake trapped within the ice in Antarctica), or rather science behind it, managed to capture the media attention and brought me, one of the happy co-author …[Read More]
Quantarctica: Mapping Antarctica has never been so easy!
One of the most time-consuming and stressful parts of any Antarctic research project is simply making a map. Whether it’s plotting your own data points, lines, or images; making the perfect “Figure 1” for your next paper, or replying to a collaborator who says “Just show me a map!,” it seems that quick and effective …[Read More]
Image of the Week – Apocalypse snow? … No, it’s sea ice!
Sea ice brine sampling is always great fun, but sometimes somewhat challenging ! As sea water freezes to form sea ice, salts in the water are rejected from the ice and concentrate in pockets of very salty water, which are entrapped within the sea ice. These pockets are known as “brines”. Scientists sample these brines to …[Read More]
Image of the Week — Looking back at 2016
I cannot believe that a full year has passed since this very cute pink unicorn wished you a Happy New Year. Yet, over the past 12 months our blog has attracted more than 16,200 visits. And the blog analytics show that you, our dear readers, are based not only in Europe but literally all over the world! …[Read More]