Cryosphere scientists know it well; the Arctic doesn’t give up its secrets easily. This is especially true when it comes to exploring permafrost -– frozen soils that store centuries of history underground. Keeping an eye on the state of permafrost is more important than ever, as widespread permafrost thaw is a direct result of rising …[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 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 labmates of the …[Read More]
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 …[Read More]
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. It’s about collaboration. …[Read More]
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 …[Read More]
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. …[Read More]
Whether they are natural occurrences or experimentally induced, permafrost and Arctic ecosystems are responding fundamentally to recent climate extremes. Good writing and statistics material for us scientists, but bad news on pretty much every other level. Are we effectively communicating how fundamental these changes are? And can we use our personal experiences, stories and artwork …[Read More]
> Reflections from an ongoing art-science research project Common Grounds < How to visualize thousands of thousands (> 20,000,000) of data points collected in the Arctic atmosphere and subsurface at a permafrost observatory over 25 years? How to tell the story of permafrost, ground that is permanently frozen and an important part of the cryosphere, …[Read More]
