Cryospheric Sciences

Massive melting of Caucasus glaciers

Levan Tielidze March 18, 2022

Ice-snow covered Mt. Kazbegi (5047 m above sea level), one of the tourist attractions of the Greater Caucasus region. Photo was taken from Village of Sno in Georgia. Photo Credit: Levan Tielidze

The Caucasus is one of the most studied glacierized regions in the world (see previous Cryoblogs on Caucasus glaciers here and here). In this week’s blog, Levan Tielidze tells us about the health of the Greater Caucasus glaciers. His first study published this year indicates that the rate of decline in glacier extent between 2000 and 2020 in the Greater Caucasus is four times higher than it was be ...[Read More]

Education in glaciology: Witnessing the death of a glacier

Olaf Eisen and Carleen Tijm-Reijmer January 17, 2020

Fig.1. View of the Hochjochferner and its prominent medial moraine during the “Almabtrieb” in September 2003. The bumps on the glacier are from support pillars of a ski lift. Photo credit: Carleen Tijm-Reijmer

The Karthaus summer school on Glaciers and Ice Sheets in the Climate System has a long history of training many generations of PhD students, thus forming professional networks that have lasted throughout their careers. The Karthaus summer school has been described in detail in a previous Cryoblog post. Here we want to focus on the story of a glacier… Hochjochferner, a retreating glacier One ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – The future of Antarctic ice shelves

Kaitlin Naughten July 20, 2018

Climate change will increase ice shelf melting around Antarctica. That’s the not-very-surprising conclusion of a recent modelling study, resulting from a collaboration between Australian and German researchers. Here’s the less intuitive result: much of the projected melting is actually linked to a decrease in sea ice formation. Learn why in our Image of the Week… Different types ...[Read More]

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

Céline Heuzé February 2, 2018

Intriguing pile of ice in Gothenburg [Credit: C. Heuzé]

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 ...[Read More]