Cryospheric Sciences

Friday the 13th – an unlucky day for sea ice?

Maria Scheel and Loeka Jongejans September 13, 2024

Thin, small sea ice floats on the dark waters.

Image credit Andrew Elvidge (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

On this September 13th, coinciding to be a “Friday 13th”, we wanted to scan the cryo-history for expeditions started, sunken ships that day, and mountain myths. And we did find that. But as autumn approaches in the Northern hemisphere, the spookiest story of all was this one: the unlucky timing of the Arctic sea ice in September. TGIF – but not for sea ice Although the median min ...[Read More]

Dreaming & reading about fieldwork – summer blog break 2024

Maria Scheel July 29, 2024

A person is kneeling down at a brown pond, all covered in mosquito net, waterproof gear, kitchen gloves and a pancake flipping spatula.

Maria during an Arctic Microbiomes PhD Summer school in Nunavut, Canada. Yes, sometimes, kitchen utensils help you stay away from mosquitos and discover some amazing bacterial mats (you can find them in your non-Arctic ponds, as well! (Photo Credit: Pascal Paradis)

As we are starting into our annual blog summer break, we reflect on what summer can mean for polar researchers (including some fieldwork saudades). As an Arctic or Alpine cryo-scientist, chances are that you are somewhere in between vacation, fieldwork or trying to work through data while everyone else is free. If you, like us, did not have your vacation yet or do not have any fieldwork com ...[Read More]

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

Lucia Pérez-Serrano June 28, 2024

Figure 1: Aerial view of permafrost peatlands of the Siberian Arctic [Credits: Sergei Loiko]

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]

Give your ears a holiday treat: our favourite polar podcasts

The Chief Editors December 18, 2023

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]

UndercoverEisAgenten – Permafrost, drones and young explorers investigating Arctic change

Marlin M. Mueller and Josefine Lenz November 24, 2023

Figure 1: Aerial view of Aklavik Northwest Territories Canada: A serene grid-patterned settlement nestled by the Peel channel of the Mackenzie River, surrounded by autumnal wilderness. [Credit: Christian Thiel]

The “UndercoverEisAgenten” project takes us on a drone journey over the ever-changing permafrost landscapes. Initiated by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research, the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) Institute of Data Science, and the Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology (HeiGIT), this venture is about more than just capturing images. It̵ ...[Read More]

Highlighted Paper: Breaking the ice – what’s new in modeling sea ice deformation

Lina Madaj October 9, 2023

Figure 1: What might look like art is actually an image of Arctic Ocean sea ice data from different days and with different lines and angles of deformation. [Credits: Ringeisen et al., 2023, Fig.3]

Most of the time when we speak or read about sea ice it is probably about its extent or thickness or the decline in both, or maybe even about the microorganisms living inside and underneath it. How sea ice breaks and deforms is normally not so much the topic of general discussions. This is actually a really important process that we do not know enough about, at the same time it is pretty co ...[Read More]

Did you know… about worms surviving in permafrost for at least 46000 years?

Maria Scheel September 29, 2023

Fig. 1 Shatilovich and colleagues discovered some (rather unexpectedly) still surviving eukaryotes, such as amoeba and this roundworm (nematode) in the long-term survival state called cryptobiosis (adapted from Shatilovich et al. 2023).

Lately permafrost makes the news more and more because of its enormous carbon stocks and its vulnerability to climate change. While permafrost greenhouse gas budget calculations are complex and harbour an ever-growing research community, its microbial ecology is still on the rise. A recent star are tiny roundworms that survived frozen in permafrost for 46’000 years. Take a short dip into this new ...[Read More]

Small step for reindeer – large leap for humankind?

Torben Windirsch September 22, 2023

Photo of a reindeer looking for food on the snow.

Fig 1 – A reindeer digging through snow to find food. [Credit: T. Windirsch]

Since several decades, there’s a lot of discussion in the permafrost ecosystem community on “rewilding” and “return to a natural state” in order to protect ecosystems and to reduce the impacts of climate change. Reindeer and other herbivores influence the insulation regime of the ground and could thereby preserve the frozen state of permafrost ground. Is there a way to utilise this effect to our b ...[Read More]

Some icy summer reads – the blog goes on holiday

The Chief Editors 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]

Did you know there is light pollution even in the Arctic?

Loeka Jongejans July 7, 2023

Light pollution exists even in the Arctic from, for example, cruise ships, cargo ships and research vessels. [Credit: Michael O. Snyder]

Light emissions are increasing worldwide and much of the world is light polluted due to excessive and inefficient light use. This has negative consequences for many organisms, such as birds, insects, fish, plants and humans. Even in the high Arctic, which is remote and sparsely populated, and experiences the polar night for a large part of the year, there are artificial light sources which disturb ...[Read More]