Small glaciers are often written off: too small to matter, and soon gone anyway. Yet recent disasters in the Alps show that they can still pose a threat. And some are doing something rather unexpected: while the climate warms, the ice inside them has turned cold. We drilled into six small Swiss glaciers to find …[Read More]
Research cruises are a fundamental part of the cryospheric sciences. As the Arctic warms, the systems that shape our world look much different from one season to the next, making it more critical than ever to measure the changes of our icy world. Here, three early-career researchers share insights from a cruise they took part …[Read More]
I remember the day very well. It was the first time we drove up to the glacial ice from our base station in Kangerlussuaq (Western Greenland), where we had patiently been waiting for two days for the weather to clear. I took this photo during a three-week fieldwork campaign in July of 2025 as part of …[Read More]
August in Ladakh is a time of golden fields and harvest songs, not snowstorms. Yet in 2025, this rhythm broke. Panikhar village in Ladakh woke beneath fifteen centimetres of snow, an unseasonal blanket that changed the functioning of the valley and stunned its people. What began as a glaciological field trip turned into a firsthand …[Read More]
Only one month after starting my PhD, I found myself in a tiny plane flying over one of the most beautiful and breathtaking landscapes I’ve ever seen. I was on the way to the northernmost settlement in the world – the research village Ny-Ålesund. What I expected from the trip: cold temperatures, darkness, and lots …[Read More]
Would you like to follow the endeavours of a small team working in the ice-marginal terrain in South-West Greenland? They set out to investigate proglacial lakes using sediment coring, water sampling and gas collections (figure 1), aiming to better understand methane dynamics, proglacial terrain development and the environmental drivers behind methane production in glacially influenced lake …[Read More]
This miniseries features the tradition of ‘PhD hat’ making in German research institutes and universities. For those of you unfamiliar with this idea (as I once was), this is one of the final milestones a graduate student has before they are officially a “Dr.”. Upon the successful defense of a thesis, the labmates of the …[Read More]
This miniseries features the tradition of ‘PhD hat’ making in German research institutes and universities. For those of you unfamiliar with this idea (as I once was), this is one of the final milestones a graduate student has before they are officially a “Dr.”. Upon the successful defense of a thesis, the peers of the …[Read More]
I’m Himanshu Kaushik, a PhD student working under the guidance of Dr. Mohd Farooq Azam at the Indian Institute of Technology Indore (India). Seven years ago, I took my first steps onto the Chhota Shigri Glacier (CSG) in the Indian (Western) Himalaya, and it felt like stepping into another world. Surrounded by the towering peaks, …[Read More]
The time I first set foot at the university, I didn’t expect that two weeks later I would be looking at a backpack more than half my size, turning my back to the shelter of our rental car and walking almost 100 km in the Norwegian Arctic. Howling winds, heavy backpacks, daunting bridges, and endless …[Read More]
