CR
Cryospheric Sciences

numerical modelling

Did you know that cracks play a large role in the Arctic sea ice production?

Did you know that cracks play a large role in the Arctic sea ice production?

What do you need to form sea ice? Well, you can start with some sea water, an ocean will do, and cold air above it. Once a layer of ice starts forming, break it to make some cracks. You would have not thought of that? Yet, our recent study suggests cracks in the ice contribute significantly to Arctic winter sea ice production. A relationship between sea ice formation and breakup? We have known for ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – (Un)boxing the melting under the ice shelves

Image of the Week – (Un)boxing the melting under the ice shelves

The Antarctic ice sheet stores a large amount of water that could potentially add to sea level rise in a warming world (see this post and this post). It is currently losing ice, and the ice loss has been accelerating in the past decades. All this is linked to the melting of ice – not at the surface but at the base, underneath the so-called ice shelves which form the continuation of the Antarctic i ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Karthaus Summer School 2018

Nearly every year since the late 90s, during the summer, the picturesque Karthaus has hosted 10-day glaciology course. This school is a platform for glaciologists to explore, learn and expand their knowledge base. This helps researchers become multi-faceted: to view glaciology from the perspective of those specializing in other backgrounds such as hydrology, geomorphology, oceanography, etc. which ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – The shape of (frozen sea) water

  Polar sea ice exists as isolated units of ice that we describe as floes. These floes do not have a constant shape (see here for instance); they can vary from almost circular to being jagged and rectangular. However, sea ice models currently assume that all floes have the same shape. Much focus has been paid to the size of floes recently, but do we also need to reconsider how floe shape is t ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – A high-resolution picture of Greenland’s surface mass balance

Image of the Week – A high-resolution picture of Greenland’s surface mass balance

The Greenland ice sheet – the world’s second largest ice mass – stores about one tenth of the Earth’s freshwater. If totally melted, this would rise global sea level by 7.4 m, affecting low-lying regions worldwide. Since the 1990s, the warmer atmosphere and ocean have increased the melt at the surface of the Greenland ice sheet, accelerating the ice loss through increased runoff of meltwater and i ...[Read More]

Image of the Week – Supraglacial debris variations in space and time!

Image of the Week – Supraglacial debris variations in space and time!

There is still a huge amount we don’t know about how glaciers respond to climate change. One of the most challenging areas is determining the response of debris-covered glaciers. Previously, we have reported on a number of fieldwork expeditions to debris-covered glaciers but with this Image of The Week we want to show you another way to investigate these complex glaciers – numerical modelling! Deb ...[Read More]