CR
Cryospheric Sciences

# Image of the Week

## Image of the week – How hard can it be to melt a pile of ice?!

Snow, sub-zero temperatures for several days, and then back to long grey days of near-constant rain. A normal winter week in Gothenburg, south-west Sweden. Yet as I walk home in the evening, I can’t help but notice that piles of ice have survived. Using the equations that I normally need to investigate the demise of Greenland glaciers, I want to know: how hard can it be to melt this pile of ice by my door? In the image of this week, we will do the simplified maths to calculate this.

## Why should the ice melt faster when it rains?

The icy piles of snow are made of frozen freshwater. They will melt if they are in contact with a medium that is above their freezing temperature (0°C); in this case either the ambient air or the liquid rainwater.

How fast they will melt depends on the heat content of this medium. Bear with me now – maths is coming! The heat content of the medium per area of ice, $Q$, is a function of the density $\rho$ and specific heat capacity $c$ of the medium. Put it simply, the heat capacity is a measure of by how much something will warm when a certain amount of energy is added to it. $Q$ also depends on the temperature $T$ of the medium over the thickness $H$ of the boundary layer i.e. the thickness of the rain or air layer that directly impacts the ice.

Assuming that I have not scared you away yet, here comes the equation:

$Q = \rho c \int_{ice}^{H} T dz$

For liquid water (in this article, the rain): $\rho_{rain} \approx 1000 \: kg \: m^{-3}$, $c_{rain} \approx 3.9 \: kJ \: kg^{-1} \: K^{-1}$. For the ambient air: $\rho_{air} \approx 1.2 \: kg \: m^{-3}$, $c_{air} \approx 1.0 \: kJ \: kg^{-1} \: K^{-1}$. So we can plug those values into our equation to obtain the heat content $Q$ of the rain and of the air. We can consider the same temperature over the same $H$ (e.g. Byers et al., 1949), and hence we get $Q_{rain} \approx 3250 Q_{air}$.

Stepping away from the maths for a moment, this result means that the heat contained in the rain is more than 3000 times that of the ambient air. Reformulating, on a rainy day, the ice is exposed to 3000 times more heat than on a dry day!

The calculations have obviously been simplified. The thickness $H$ of the boundary layer is larger for the atmosphere than for the rain, i.e. larger than just a rain drop. At the same time, the rain does not act on the ice solely by bringing heat to it (this is the thermic energy), but also acts mechanically (kinematic energy): the rain falls on the ice and digs through it. For the sake of this blogpost however, we will keep it simple and concentrate on the thermic energy of the rain.

## How long will it take for the rain to melt this pile of ice then?

Promise, this will be the last equation of this blogpost! Reformulating the question, what is the melt rate of that ice? Be it for a high latitude glacier or a sad pile of snow on the side of a road, the melt rate $F_{melt}$ is the ratio of the heat flux from the rain $F_{Qrain}$ (or any other medium) over the heat needed to melt the ice. It indicates whether the rain brings enough heat to the ice surface to melt it, or whether the ice hardly feels it:

$F_{melt} = \frac{F_{Qrain}}{\rho_{ice}(L+c_{ice}\Delta T)}$

More parameters are involved

• $\rho_{ice} = 917 \: kg \: m^{-3}$ the density of the ice;
• $L = 335 \: kJ \: kg^{-1}$ the latent heat of fusion, defined as how much energy is needed to turn one kilogram of solid water into liquid water;
• $c_{ice} = 2.0 \: kJ \: kg^{-1} \: K^{-1}$ the heat capacity of the ice (see previous paragraph);
• $\Delta T$ the difference between the freezing temperature (0°C) and that of the interior of the ice (usually taken as -20°C).

But what is $F_{Qrain}$ I am glad you ask! This heat flux , i.e. $Q_{rain}/time$, is crucial: it not only indicates how much heat your medium has, but also how fast it brings it to the ice. After all, it does not matter whether you are really hot if you stay away from your target. I actually lied to you, here comes the final equation, defining the heat flux:

$F_{Qrain} = \rho_{rain}c_{rain}T_{rain}P$

We can consider that $T_{rain} \approx T_{air}$. We already gave $\rho_{rain}$ and $c_{rain}$ earlier. As for $P$, this is our precipitation, or how much water is falling on a surface over a certain time (given in mm/hour usually during weather bulletins). On 24th January 2018, as I was pondering why the ice had still not melted, my favourite weather forecast website indicated that $T_{air} = 5^{\circ}C$ (278.15 K) and $P = 1 \: mm/hour$.

Eventually putting all the numbers together, we obtain $F_{melt} \approx 3 \: mm/hour$. So that big pile on the picture that is about 1 m high will require constant rain for nearly 14 days – assuming that the temperature and precipitation do not change, and neglecting a lot of effects as already explained above. Or it would take just over one hour of the Wikipedia record rainfall of 300 mm/hour – but then ice would be the least of my worries.

The exact same equations apply to this small icy island, melted by the air and ocean [Credit: Monika Dragosics (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)]

In conclusion, liquid water contains a lot more heat than the air, but ice is very resilient. The mechanisms involved in melting ice are more complex than this simple calculation from only three equations, yet they are the same whether you are on fieldwork on an Antarctic ice shelf or just daydreaming on your way home.

### Other blogposts where ice melts…

Edited by Adam Bateson and Clara Burgard

## Image of the Week – Understanding Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion

Fig. 1: Average monthly Antarctic sea ice extent time series in black, with the small increasing trend in blue. [Credit: NSIDC]

Sea ice is an extremely sensitive indicator of climate change. Arctic sea ice has been dubbed ‘the canary in the coal mine’, due to the observed steady decline in the summer sea ice extent in response to global warming over recent decades (see this and this previous posts). However, the story has not been mirrored at the other pole. As shown in our image of the week (blue line in Fig. 1), Antarctic sea ice has actually been expanding slightly overall!

## The net expansion is the result of opposing regional trends

The small increasing trend in Antarctic sea-ice extent is the sum of opposing regional trends (click here for definitions of area, concentration and extent). Sea ice in the Weddell and Ross seas has expanded whereas in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen (A-B) seas the sea-ice cover has diminished (Holland 2014). The size of these trends varies with the seasons (Fig. 2). There are no significant trends in ice concentration – the fraction of a chosen area/grid box that is sea ice covered — if you look at (Southern hemisphere) winter values, however we do see trends when looking at a time series of summer values. The differences in trends between seasons suggests interactions with atmosphere and ocean (feedbacks) that amplify (in the spring) and dampen (in the autumn) changes in the ice cover, creating this seasonality. Some of this variability can be explained by changes in the winds (Holland and Kwok, 2012). But the complexity of the trends can’t be explained by one single change in forcing (e.g. winds, snowfall or temperature) or a single process (e.g. ice albedo feedback acting in the spring/summer).

Fig. 2: Seasonal trend in ice concentration. Maximum trends are seen in summer. Large increases are seen in the Weddell and Ross seas, and decreases in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen (A-B) seas. [Credit: Fig 2 from Holland (2014). , reprinted with permission by Wiley and Sons].

## Why hasn’t Antarctic sea ice extent been decreasing?

There is no clear consensus on this. In short, we don’t really know… It is not as intuitive as the ‘warmer climate results in less ice’ narrative for the Arctic. We only have a time series of Antarctic sea ice extent from 1979 (the start of satellite observations). We therefore can’t be sure what role natural variability is having on decadal and longer timescales, i.e. if this is just natural ups and downs or an “unusual” trend related to climate change. Another difficulty is that we don’t have a reliable time series of sea ice volume as we have difficulties in getting reliable sea ice thickness measurements, because of the thick snow covering on sea ice in the Southern Ocean. For example, it could be that the ice is becoming thinner although the sea-ice area has increased.

There are important processes and/or feedbacks between sea ice and ocean or between sea ice and atmosphere that we are missing from our models

Currently, global climate models are poor at reproducing the observed Antarctic sea ice changes (Turner et al. 2013). Models simulate a decrease in the overall sea ice extent, instead of the observed increase. They also fail to reproduce the correct spatial variations, as shown in Fig. 2. This makes it very hard to make predictions about future changes in Antarctic sea ice from model results, and implies that there are important processes and/or feedbacks between sea ice and ocean or between sea ice and atmosphere that we are missing from our models, and therefore our understanding of the Southern Ocean climate system is incomplete.

However, there are some suggestions as to processes that could explain some of the observed Antarctic sea ice variability. The largely fall into two main categories: natural variability and anthropogenic changes.

#### 1.Natural Variability

Natural variability refers to the repeating oscillations and patterns we see in the climate system. Some of these repeating patterns can be correlated with increases/decreases in Antarctic sea ice. In particular El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) have been linked to Antarctic sea ice changes. The SAM is a measure of the difference in pressure between 40°S and 65°S, a positive SAM indicates a stronger difference in pressure, driving stronger westerly winds around Antarctica, increasing the thermal isolation of Antarctica. Stronger westerlies are associated with cooler sea surface temperatures and expansion of the sea ice cover on short  timescales (seasons to years).

The SAM has been in a mostly positive phase since the mid-1990s, so is believed may have something to do with some of the small increase in sea ice extent we have seen. However, variability on longer time scales (decades or longer) could also explain some of the small increase, but this is tricky to assess without a longer observational time series.

#### 2. Anthropogenic Changes

The main two human-induced changes on the Antarctic climate system are the ozone hole and increased melting of the Antarctic ice sheet.

• Ozone hole
The ozone hole causes the westerly winds to strengthen, making the sea ice cover expand. However it is more complicated than this, as the impact on the sea ice may depend on what timescale we look at. Over longer timescales (years to decades) the initial response may be outweighed by an increase in ocean upwelling (due to the stronger winds). This brings warm water from below the cold surface layer up to the surface, melting the sea ice from below, eventually resulting in a net sea ice area decrease in response to the ozone hole. See Ferreira et al. (2015) for details.
• Increased melting of the Antarctic ice sheet
This could also play a role in the observed sea ice expansion, by increasing the ocean stratification. This results in a cooler and fresher surface layer, favouring the growth of sea ice (Bintanja et al. 2015).

It is very tricky to distinguish what is natural variability, what is human induced, or a complicated combination of two.

It is very tricky to distinguish what is natural variability, what is human induced, or a complicated combination of two. This means we don’t really know whether the observed large decrease in Antarctic sea ice extent seen in 2016/2017 (read more about it here) is just an anomaly or the start of a decreasing trend. So, in summary Antarctic sea ice is confusing, and we still can’t claim to completely understand observed variability. But this makes it interesting and means there is still a wealth of secrets left to be discovered about Antarctic sea ice!

Edited by Clara Burgard et Sophie Berger

Rebecca Frew is a PhD student at the University of Reading (UK). She investigates the importance of feedbacks between the sea ice, atmosphere and ocean for the Antarctic sea ice cover using a hierarchy of climate models. In particular, she is looking at the how the importance of different feedbacks may vary between different regions of the Southern Ocean.

## Image of the Week – Searching for clues of extraterrestrial life on the Antarctic ice sheet

Fig. 1: A meteorite in the Szabo Bluff region of the Transantarctic mountain range, lying in wait for the 2012 ANSMET team to collect it [Credit: Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program / Katherine Joy].

Last week we celebrated Antarctica Day, 50 years after the Antarctic Treaty was signed. This treaty includes an agreement to protect Antarctic ecosystems. But what if, unintentionally, this protection also covered clues of life beyond Earth? In this Image of the Week, we explore how meteorites found in Antarctica are an important piece of the puzzle in the search for extraterrestrial life.

## Meteorites in Antarctica

Year after year, teams of scientists from across the globe travel to Antarctica for a variety of scientific endeavours, from glaciologists studying flowing ice to atmospheric scientists examining the composition of the air and biologists studying life on the ice, from penguins to cold-loving microorganisms. Perhaps a less conspicuous group of scientists are the meteorite hunters.

Antarctica is the best place on Earth to find meteorites. Meteorites that fall in this cold, dry desert are spared from the high corrosion rates of warmer, wetter environments, preserving them in relatively pristine condition. They are also much easier to spot mainly due to the contrast between their dark surfaces on the white icy landscape (see our Image of the Week), but also because the combination of Antarctica’s climate, topography and the movement of ice serves to concentrate meteorites, as if lying in wait to be found.

The targeted search for meteorites has taken place annually since the late 1960s, leading to the recovery of over 50,000 specimens from the continent, and counting. The most prolific of these search teams is the US-led Antarctic Search for Meteorites ANSMET), which lay claim to over half of these finds. Comprising only a handful of enthusiasts, this team camps out on the slopes of the Transantarctic Mountains for around 6 weeks hunting for meteorites. The finds include rocks originating from asteroids, the Moon and Mars.

## Evidence of life in a meteorite?

There has long been a link between meteorites and the potential for life beyond Earth. Perhaps the most famous, or rather infamous, meteorite found in Antarctica is the Alan Hills 84001 meteorite (ALH84001). Found by the 1984 ANSMET team, this meteorite was blasted from the surface of Mars some 17 million years ago as a result of an asteroid or meteorite impact, falling to Earth around 13,000 years ago. This piece of crystallised Martian lava is roughly 4.5 billion years old. The reason for its infamy is the widely publicised claim made a decade after its discovery that it harbours evidence of Martian life [McKay et al 1996]. Specifically, application of high resolution electron microscopy unearthed microstructures comprising magnetite crystals that looked, to the NASA scientist David McKay and his team, like fossilised microbial life, albeit at the nanoscale (see Fig. 2).

Fig.2: A nanoscale magnetite microstructure that was interpreted as fossilised microbial life from Mars [Credit: D McKay (NASA), K. Thomas-Keprta (Lockheed-Martin), R. Zare (Stanford), NASA].

Such a finding of evidence for extraterrestrial life has huge implications for the presence of life beyond Earth, a subject that has captivated humankind since ancient times. This extraordinary claim made headline news across the globe. It even gained acknowledgement by the then US president Bill Clinton. In the words popularised by Carl Sagan, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and this one garnered considerable controversy that endures today. At the time, there was no known process that did not involve life that could result in these types of structures. Subsequent research, triggered by this claim, has since indicated otherwise. The debate rolls on, and it seems we will never really know whether the crystals structures are fossils of Martian life or not, with no conclusive evidence on either side of the argument. Nevertheless, the interest and attention gained through this story kick-started a flurry of hugely successful Mars exploration missions, as well as reinvigorated the search for life beyond Earth.

## Meteorites as microbial fuel

The ALH840001 is an unusual connection between meteorites and the search for extraterrestrial life. Much subtler, but more wide-reaching, is the potentially important connection between organic-containing meteorites and the existence of life elsewhere. The chondrite class of meteorites originates from the early solar system, specifically from primitive asteroids that formed from the accretion of dust and grains. They are the most common type of meteorite that falls to Earth, and contain a wide array of organic compounds, including nucleotides and amino acids, the so-called building blocks of life. In addition, a number of organic compounds that reside in these meteorites are also common on Earth, and are known to fuel microbial life by serving as a source of energy and nutrients for an array of microorganisms [Nixon et al 2012]. These meteorites have fallen to Earth and Mars for billions of years, since before the emergence and proliferation of life as we understand it. A significant quantity of these meteorites, and the organic matter contained within them, has therefore accumulated on Mars. In fact, owing to the thinner atmosphere of Mars, a larger quantity is expected to have accumulated there than on Earth, and with more of its organic content intact. It is a therefore a distinct possibility that these meteorites may play an important role in the emergence, or even persistence, of life on Mars, if such life has ever existed [Nixon et al 2013].

The search for life on Mars is very much an active pursuit. As we continue this search using robotic spacecraft, such as NASA’s Curiosity rover and the upcoming European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover, we seek to better define whether environments on Mars are habitable for life. But our understanding of habitability on Mars and beyond is defined by our knowledge of the limits of life here on Earth, such as the microbial lifeforms that can make a living on and under the Antarctic ice sheet (see this previous post), but also in terms of the chemical energy able to support life. The search for meteorites on Antarctica has an important role to play here, and long may the hunt continue.

## References and further reading

Edited by Joe Cook and Clara Burgard

Sophie Nixon is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Geomicrobiology group at the University of Manchester. She completed her PhD in Astrobiology in 2014 at the University of Edinburgh, the subject of which was the feasibility for microbial iron reduction on Mars. Sophie’s research interests since joining the University of Manchester are varied, focussing mainly on the microbiological implications of anthropogenic engineering of the subsurface (e.g. shale gas extraction, nuclear waste disposal), as well as life in extreme environments and the feasibility for life beyond Earth. Contact: sophie.nixon@manchester.ac.uk

## Image of the Week — Climate change and disappearing ice

The first week of the Climate Change summit in Bonn (COP 23  for those in the know) has been marked by Syria’s decision to sign the Paris Accord, the international agreement that aims at tackling climate change. This decision means that the United States would become the only country outside the agreement if it were to complete the withdrawal process vowed by President Trump.

In this context, it has become a tradition for this blog to use the  United Nations climate talks as an excuse to remind us all of some basic facts about climate change and its effect on the part we are most interested in here: the cryosphere! This year we have decided to showcase a few compelling animations, as we say “a picture is sometimes worth a thousand words”…

## Arctic sea ice volume

Daily Arctic sea ice volume is estimated by the PIOMAS reconstruction from 1979-present [Credit: Ed Hawkins]

The volume of Arctic sea ice has declined over the last 4 decades and reached a record low in September 2012. Shrinking sea ice has major consequences on the climate system: by decreasing the albedo of the Arctic surface, by affecting the global ocean circulation, etc.

## Land ice losses in Antarctica and Greenland

Change in land ice mass since 2002 (Right: Greenland, Left: Antarctica). Data is measured by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. [Credit: Zack Labe]

Both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have been losing ice since 2002, contributing to global sea-level rise (see previous post about sea level) .  An ice loss of 100 Gt raises the  sea level by ~0.28 mm (see explanations  here).

## The cause: CO2 emissions and global warming

Finally we could not close this post without showing  how the concentration of carbon dioxide have evolved  over the same period and how this has led to global warming.

CO₂ concentration and global mean temperature 1958 – present. [Credit:Kevin Pluck]

• Global Temperature | NASA: Climate Change and Global Warming
• Carbon dioxide | NASA: Climate Change and Global Warming

More visualisation resources

Visualisation resources | Climate lab

Edited by Clara Burgard

## Image of the Week — Think ‘tank’: oceanography in a rotating pool

Miniature ocean at the Coriolis facility in Grenoble. [Credit: Mirjam Glessner]

To study how the ocean behaves in the glacial fjords of Antarctica and Greenland, we normally have to go there on big icebreaker campaigns. Or we rely on modelling results, especially so to determine what happens when the wind or ocean properties change. But there is also a third option that we tend to forget about: we can recreate the ocean in a lab. This is exactly what our Bergen-Gothenburg team has been doing these last weeks at the Coriolis facility, in sunny Grenoble.

## How to build your own miniature ocean

Take a 13m diameter (circular) swimming pool. Install it on a rotating platform, and start turning to simulate the Coriolis force, i.e. the impact of the Earth rotation on the flow. Fill it so that the water level reaches 90cm. Actually, the exact value does not matter and can be changed; just make sure that your tank width is an order of magnitude larger than your depth, and that you do not overflow everywhere on the lab floor. Congratulations, you have an ocean! But for now it is a bit boring.

Let’s add some stratification and density-driven currents. As we explained in a previous entry, all you need to do for that is change the temperature and/or salinity of your water. The people here at the Coriolis facility say that changing the salinity is easier than the temperature, so ok, put a source somewhere in your tank that will spit out salty water. Make it even more realistic: have some trough, underwater mountains, solid ice shelves etc. Or rather, some Plexiglas of the corresponding shape. Now you have a beautiful part of the ocean with realistic currents!

But how do you observe it? You can lower probes into the water at specific locations, as if you were doing miniature CTD casts in your miniature ocean. Or you can visualise the whole full-depth flow: add tracer particles to the water flowing from the source (in our case, biodegradable plastic), shoot lasers at it at various depth levels, and take high resolution pictures as you do so. Then, you can track the particles from one image to the next to infer their velocity, using a method called PIV.

By the way, it looks way neater than on this image – that one is just from our overview camera, for fun. [Credit: Céline Heuzé]

## What does it look like when you fire lasers at a large rotating tank?

In a nutshell, it looks like this:

The water flows from the source on the right of the image, towards the ‘ice shelf’ on the left. We are watching the scene from above, from our office that rotates with the tank. The laser successively illuminates several levels from the bottom of the channel to the water surface, revealing the changing structure of the flow with depth. In our real experiment, it took more than 10 minutes for the water to reach the ‘ice shelf’ – here, I have slightly accelerated it.

It is surprisingly peaceful and relaxing to watch. Well, there is tension and suspense regarding what the flow will do since this is, after all, why we are here. But otherwise you are in the dark, with particles shining all around you, in the silence except for the low-squeeking noise of the rotating tank, gently rocked by the vibrations of the platform, and there is not much you can do but wait and enjoy the view. You can also count how many undesired bubbles and dead insects floating at the surface you can see!

## Why do we need rotating tank experiments?

As we explained in this blog, the future of the Antarctic ice sheet is unknown due to marine ice sheet instability. We do not know under which conditions the floating ice shelves that block (‘buttress’) the big land-based ice sheet may collapse. In particular, we do not know what controls the flow of comparatively warm waters that melt the ice shelves:

•  under which conditions do these waters penetrate under the ice?
•  at which depths do they sit?
•  what are the impacts of stratification and the shape of the ice shelf itself?

These questions cannot easily be answered by going in the field. We would need access to many ice shelves, year round, and the ability to observe the flow everywhere –including under the ice– synoptically. Instead in the lab, we just need to adjust our flow speed, or the rotation speed of the tank, or the amount of salt in the source, and we are ready to observe!

The blog of the team: https://skolelab.uib.no/blogg/darelius/

Our blog post about the video game Ice Flows!, illustrating the marine ice sheet instability

Edited by Sophie Berger

## Image of the Week – The true size of Greenland

Fig. 1: Greenland is slightly bigger than  Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom together [Credit: The True Size].

Greenland is a critical part of the world, which is regularly covered on this blog, because it hosts the second largest ice body on Earth – the Greenland Ice Sheet. This ice sheet, along with its small peripheral ice caps, contributes by 43% to current sea-level rise.

However, despite being the Greenland, appears disproportionately large on the most common world maps (Fig. 2). Our new image of the week takes a look at the true size of Greenland…

Fig. 2: World (Mercator) map used by many online mapping applications. [Credit: D. Strebe/Wikimedia commons]

## How big is Greenland?

We could simply tell you that Greenland stretches over ~2 million km². For most people, this figure would however not speak for itself.   Luckily, The True Size is a web application that comes to our rescue by enabling us to compare the true size of all the countries in the world.

As we can see in Fig. 1, Greenland is in fact only slightly bigger than Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom together.

Similarly, Greenland is also (Fig. 3):

• roughly the size of the Democratic Republic of Congo

• could fit 1.4 times in India

• 4.2 times smaller than than the United States

• could fit 3.5 times in Australia

Fig. 3: Greenland vs Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, the United States and India. [Credit: The True Size]

Greenland is therefore big but not as big as what is suggested by the most common maps (Fig. 2). As a result, one can therefore wonder why the most popular world maps distort the size of the countries.

## All maps are wrong but some are useful

To map the world, cartographers must project a curved surface on a flat piece of paper. There are different approaches to do so but all distort the earth surface in some ways. For instance, conformal projections preserve angles and shapes but change the size of the countries, whereas equal-area projections conserve the sizes but distort the shapes. As a result, a map projection that suits all purposes does not exist. Instead, the choice of the projection will depend on the use of the map.

Fig. 4: Mercator cylindrical projection [Credit: National Atlas of the United States]

The most popular projection, the Mercator projection (Fig. 2),  is used by many online mapping applications (e.g. google maps, OpenStreetMap, etc.). In Mercator maps, the Earth’s surface is projected on a cylinder that surrounds the globe (Fig. 4). The cylinder is then unrolled to produce a flat map that preserves the shapes of landmasses but tends to stretch countries towards the poles. This is why the size of Greenland is exaggerated in many world maps.

## Why does google map use the Mercator projection then?

If Google Maps and other web mapping services rely on the Mercator projection, it is not to make countries at high latitudes appear bigger, but, because those tools are mainly intended to be used at local scales. The fact that the Mercator projection preserves angles and shapes therefore ensures minimal distortions at the city-level: two perpendicular streets will always appear perpendicular in Google Maps. This is not necessarily the case at high latitudes with projections that preserves areas (as can be seen here).

Interested in this topic? Then, you might enjoy this video !

## Image of the Week – Fifty shades of snow

When I think of snow, I tend to either think about the bright white ski slopes in the mountains or the large white areas in the Arctic. However, natural phenomena can lead to colorful snow. Our Image of the Week shows snow can be green! Snow can also turn orange, pinkish, grey and even yellow… But where do these different shades of snow come from?

### White

The most common color of snow is white (see Fig. 2). Snow generally appears white when it is pure snow, which means that it is only an aggregate of ice and snow crystals. When sunlight meets the snow surface, all frequencies of the sunlight are reflected several times in different directions by the crystals, leading to a white color of the snowpack.

Fig. 2: Fresh powder snow, snow crystals [Credit: Introvert, Wikimedia Commons]

## Green

Snow can obtain a green color if it is host to an algal bloom (see our Image of the Week). Depending on the wetness of the snow, sunlight conditions and nutrient availability, unicellular snow algae can develop and thrive on the snow. Although it is not clear exactly how fast snow algae grow, algae populations from temperate regions have been found to grow sixteen-fold in one day! As the algae population increases, the snow turns green as the algae reflect the green light back.

## Red/Pink

The pink-red-colored snow, commonly called “watermelon snow”, can also be caused by snow algae (see Fig. 3). The snow algae responsible for the pink color are similar to the ones responsible for green color. However, these algae use pigments of red color to protect their cells from high sunlight and UV radiation damage during the summer. Just like how we use sunscreen to protect our skin! The red pigments come either from iron tannin compounds or, more commonly, from orange to red-pigmented lipids.

There is also another origin for pink snow: Penguin poo! Indeed, the krill they eat contain a lot of carotenoids that give their poo a red color.

Fig. 3: Watermelon snow streaks [Credit: Wikimedia Commons].

## Yellow

Yellow snow is the result of a different process (and no, it is not from Penguin pee!). Fig. 4 shows the Sierra Nevada in Spain before and after dust transported from the Sahara settled down on the snow-covered mountain tops. The dust was lifted up from the Sahara desert and blown north before ending its trip in Spain.

Fig. 4: Snow-covered Sierra Nevadas (Spain) before and after a dust deposition event [Credit: modified from NASA’s Earth Observatory]

### Do these colors have an influence on snow cover?

In all cases of colored snow, the snow surface is darker than before. The darker surface absorbs more sunlight than a white surface, which causes the snow to melt faster… Therefore, although it looks artistic, colored snow is not necessarily healthy for the snow itself…

So, if you don’t like winter because everything is boring and white, just think about the variety of snow colors and try to look out for these special types! 🙂

Edited by David Rounce

## Image of the Week — High altitudes slow down Antarctica’s warming

Elevations in Antarctica. The average altitude is about 2,500m. [Credit: subset of Fig 5 from Helm et al (2014)]

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 might help explain why the two poles are warming at diﬀerent speeds.

## The Arctic vs the Antarctic

At and around the North Pole, in the Arctic, the ice is mostly frozen ocean water, also known as sea ice, which is only a few meters thick. In the Antarctic, however, the situation is very diﬀerent: the ice forms not just over sea, but over a continental land mass with rugged terrain and high mountains. The average height in Antarctica is about 2,500 metres, with some mountains rising as high as 4,900 metres.

## A flat Antarctica would warm faster

Mount Jackson in the Antarctic Peninsula reaches an altitude of 3,184 m  [Credit: euphro via Flickr]

Marc Salzmann, a scientist working at the University of Leipzig in Germany, decided to use a computer model to find out what would happen if the elevation in Antarctica was more like in the Arctic. He discovered that, if Antarctica were ﬂat, there would be more warm air ﬂowing from the equator to the poles, which would make the Antarctic warm faster.

As Antarctica warms and ice melts, it is actually getting ﬂatter as time goes by, even if very slowly. As such, over the next few centuries or thousands of years, we could expect warming in the region to speed up.

This is modified version of a “planet press” article written by Bárbara Ferreira and originally published on 18 May 2017 on the EGU website
(a Serbian version is also available, why not considering adding a new language to the list? 🙂 )

## 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 Ross Sea” (PIPERS) research team in Antarctica. This bizarre phenomenon caused by strong wind conditions has not been observed in Antarctica since 2007.

### PIPERS expedition observed dragon-skin ice

In early April, the Nathan B Palmer icebreaker (see Fig. 2) began its 65-day voyage to Antarctica to study sea ice in the Ross Sea during the autumn period. This expedition, named PIPERS, was carried out by a team of 26 scientists from 9 countries. Its goal was to investigate polynyas, ice production, and seasonal evolution with a particular focus on the Terra Nova Bay and Ross Sea Polynyas (see Fig. 3).

Fig.2 : The Nathan B Palmer icebreaker caught in sea ice [Credit: IMAS ].

A polynya is an area of open water or thin sea ice surrounded by thicker sea ice and is generally located in coastal areas [Stringer and Groves, 1991]. Ice formation in polynyas is strongly influenced by wind conditions whose action can lead to astonishing spatial patterns in sea ice appearance. Special wind conditions probably also lead to what the members of the PIPERS expedition had the opportunity to observe: ice patterns that resemble dragon scales, therefore called dragon-skin ice. Such a sighting is quite remarkable as the last one dates back from a decade. However, the sparsity of observations of dragon-skin ice phenomena is probably a consequence of the relatively small number of expeditions in Antarctica during the autumn and winter seasons…

Fig. 3: The Terra Nova Bay Polynya and Ross Sea Polynya explored by the PIPERS expedition. [Credit: PIPERS ].

### Chaotic ice formation caused by strong winds

Dragon-skin ice is a chaotic result of the complex interplay between the ocean and the atmosphere. Coastal polynyas in Antarctica are kept open by the action of strong and cold offshore winds (see Fig. 4) known as katabatic winds, which blow downwards as fast as 100 km/h for several hours [McKnight and Hess, 2000]. Sea ice forming at the cold sea surface gets blown away by these strong winds, preventing a closed sea-ice cover in this area. As the ice is blown away, an area of open water gets in direct contact with the atmosphere, leading to strong cooling and new formation of ice, that gets blown away again, and so on… Therefore, in general, sea ice in polynyas consists of thin pancake ice (see Fig. 5) i.e. round pieces of ice from 0.3 to 3 meters in diameter, which results from the aggregation of ice crystals caused by the wave action. Due to the wind action, the pieces of ice are pushed out by the wind action to the edges of the polynya.  As these pieces push strongly against each other, dragon-like scales appear on sea ice giving birth to the so-called dragon-skin ice.

Fig.4: Formation of coastal polynyas due to the action of katabatic winds [Credit: Wikimedia Commons ].

Figure 5: Sea ice in polynyas takes the form of pancake ice due to the action of water waves [Credit: PIPERS ].

### The importance of polynyas for ocean-atmosphere interactions

Besides providing us with dazzling pictures of the cryosphere, investigating sea-ice production and evolution in polynyas is essential to better understand the complex interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere.
As sea water freezes into sea ice, salt is expelled into the ocean, raising its local salinity. The incessant production of sea ice in polynyas leads to water masses with very high salinity inside the polynyas. As sea water cools down, it releases energy in the atmosphere, leading to a warming of the atmosphere in polar regions. Moreover, due to their high density, these masses of cold and salty water sink and mix with lower ocean layers.
First results from the PIPERS mission show that when sea ice is forming, polynyas release greenhouse gases to atmosphere, instead of capturing it, as it was previously assumed! But fully understanding what’s happening there will necessitate more time and analyses….

Edited by Scott Watson and Clara Burgard
Modified by Sophie Berger on 3 July 2017 to account for remarks of Célia Sapart (Member of the PIPER expedition)

Kevin Bulthuis is a F.R.S.-FNRS Research Fellow at the Université de Liège and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He investigates the influence of uncertainties and instabilities in ice-sheet models as a limitation for accurate predictions of future sea-level rise. Contact Email:kevin.bulthuis@ulg.ac.be.

## Image of the Week – Ice lollies falling from the sky

Lolly in the sky. [Credit: Darwin Bell via flickr]

You have more than probably eaten many lollipops as a kid (and you might still enjoy them). The good thing is that you do not necessarily need to go to the candy shop to get them but you can simply wait for them to fall from the sky and eat them for free. Disclaimer: this kind of lollies might be slightly different from what you expect…

## Are lollies really falling from the sky?

Eight years ago (in January 2009), a low-pressure weather system coming from the North Atlantic Ocean reached the UK and brought several rain events to the country. Nothing is really special about this phenomenon in Western Europe in the winter. However, a research flight started sampling the clouds in the warm front (transition zone where warm air replaces cold air) ahead of the low-pressure system and discovered hydrometeors (precipitation products, such as rain and snow) of an unusual kind. Researchers named them ‘ice lollies’ due to their characteristic shape and maybe due to their gluttony. The microphysical probes onboard the aircraft, combined with a radar system located in Southern England, allowed them to measure a wide range of hydrometeors, including these ice lollies that were observed for the first time with such concentration levels.

## How do ice lollies form?

A recent study (Keppas et al, 2017) explains that ice lollies form when water droplets (size of 0.1 to 0.7 mm) collide with ice crystals with the form of a column (size of 0.25 to 1.4 mm) and freeze on top of them (see Fig. 2).

Fig 2: Formation of an ice lolly: water droplet (the circle) collides with an ice crystal (the column) [Credit: Fig. 1a from Keppas et al., (2017)].

Such ice lollies form in ‘mixed-phase clouds’, i.e. clouds made of water droplets and ice crystals and whose temperature is below the freezing point (0°C). At these temperatures, water droplets can be supercooled, meaning that they stay liquid below the freezing point.

Figure 3 below shows the processes and particles involved in the formation of ice lollies. Ice lollies are mainly found at temperatures between 0 and -6°C, in the vicinity of the warm conveyor belt, which represents the main source of warm moist air that feeds the low-pressure system. This warm conveyor belt brings water vapour that participates in the formation and growth of supercooled water droplets. Ice crystals formed near the cloud tops fall through the warm conveyor belt and collide with the water droplets to form ice lollies.

Fig 3: Processes involved with the formation of ice lollies, which mainly form under the warm conveyor belt [Credit: Fig 4 from Keppas et al., (2017)].

## Are these ice lollies important?

Ice lollies were observed more recently (September 2016) during another aircraft mission over the northeast Atlantic Ocean but no radar coverage supported the observations. At the moment of writing this article, the lack of observations prevent us from determining the importance of these ice lollies in the climate system. However, future missions would provide more insight. In the meantime, we suggest you to enjoy a lollipop such as the one shown in the image of this week 🙂

This is a joint post, published together with the atmospheric division blog, given the interdisciplinarity of the topic.

Edited by Sophie Berger and Dasaraden Mauree