Cryospheric Sciences

Friday the 13th – an unlucky day for sea ice?

Maria Scheel and Loeka Jongejans September 13, 2024

Thin, small sea ice floats on the dark waters.

Image credit Andrew Elvidge (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

On this September 13th, coinciding to be a “Friday 13th”, we wanted to scan the cryo-history for expeditions started, sunken ships that day, and mountain myths. And we did find that. But as autumn approaches in the Northern hemisphere, the spookiest story of all was this one: the unlucky timing of the Arctic sea ice in September. TGIF – but not for sea ice Although the median min ...[Read More]

Highlighted Paper: Breaking the ice – what’s new in modeling sea ice deformation

Lina Madaj October 9, 2023

Figure 1: What might look like art is actually an image of Arctic Ocean sea ice data from different days and with different lines and angles of deformation. [Credits: Ringeisen et al., 2023, Fig.3]

Most of the time when we speak or read about sea ice it is probably about its extent or thickness or the decline in both, or maybe even about the microorganisms living inside and underneath it. How sea ice breaks and deforms is normally not so much the topic of general discussions. This is actually a really important process that we do not know enough about, at the same time it is pretty co ...[Read More]

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

Guillaume Boutin April 7, 2023

Figure 1. New sea ice forming in an opening in the Arctic sea ice cover (what we call a lead), as seen during the MOSAIC expedition. This type of newly formed ice is generally called “frost flowers”. Credit: [Alfred-Wegener-Institut/Michael Gutsche (CC-BY 4.0)]

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]

End-of-the-year special: this year’s Cryoblog

EGU Cryoblog December 16, 2022

Created with FreeWordCloudGenerator.com

So this is the last post in 2022 for our blog. We have decided that this time, the topic will not be another exciting story about the science of ice and cold in their various forms. This time we are talking about the blog itself, so a kind of meta-post to take stock and understand a little better how our blog works, what it is about, and who our main authors are. To this purpose, we asked all the ...[Read More]

Did you know the differences between Arctic and Antarctic sea ice?

Hayat Nasirova & David Docquier October 14, 2022

Figure 1: Satellite observations of (top) Arctic and (bottom) Antarctic sea-ice concentration in (left) March 2020 and (right) September 2020. [Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, https://nsidc.org/home].

If you look at the maps in Figure 1, you will quickly see that sea ice is present in both polar regions (Arctic at the top, Antarctic at the bottom). Despite this apparent similarity, some differences exist between Arctic (in the Northern Hemisphere) and Antarctic (in the Southern Hemisphere) sea ice. We provide a brief explanation of two key differences in this post. Geography The first main diff ...[Read More]

Winds and Antarctic sea-ice cover: what is the role of human activities?

Quentin Dalaiden & Bianca Mezzina September 23, 2022

Sea ice, i.e. frozen ice, at the surface of the ocean © flickr.com.

We may not often think about it, but climate in Antarctica can be very different depending on where we are exactly (do not expect palm trees though!). Winds play a big role in shaping these differences, which are reflected – among other things! – on sea ice. But how are these winds related to the large-scale atmospheric circulation, and are we having an impact on them? Dear readers, pl ...[Read More]

Ice-hot news: A cryo-summary of the new IPCC assessment report!

Clara Burgard, David Docquier, Maria Scheel and Larissa van der Laan May 13, 2022

Figure 1: An illustration of the Vernagtferner glacier in Austria, under the influence of climate change. Painting by Larissa van der Laan, based on historical photographs compiled by Markus Weber.

We have waited eight years for it, and it is finally out: the 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a.k.a. « IPCC AR6 »)! And it is more than 10,000 pages long across Working Groups! Fortunately, a synthesis report integrating the findings of all three working groups should be released in Autumn 2022. However, we, at the EGU Cryosphere Blog, thought it might be us ...[Read More]

It’s not you, it’s me(lange): ice shelf break-up triggered by mélange and sea-ice loss

Jenny Arthur May 21, 2021

Fig. 1. Mélange (a mixture of calved icebergs, sea ice and material) in Porpoise Bay, East Antarctica, located ~100 km east of Voyeykov Ice Shelf [Credit: NASA Operation IceBridge].

Between March and May 2007, a total of ~2,445 km2 (equivalent to over 17 football pitches) of ice mélange (a mixture of sea-ice types, icebergs and snow) and part of Voyeykov Ice Shelf in East Antarctica rapidly broke up. Observations of the timing and triggers of such events are relatively rare in East Antarctica, compared to ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula. Recent work highlights the impo ...[Read More]

Atmospheric Rivers: A blanket for Antarctic winter sea ice

Diana Francis January 22, 2021

Figure 1: The Weddell Polynya in the Weddell Sea as seen from space on 25 September 2017, a few days after the initial opening on 14 September 2017. Figure credits: NASA.

The mysterious appearance and disappearance of the Weddell Polynya, a giant hole in the sea ice cover, has long puzzled scientists. Recent work reveals that the polynya is initiated and maintained by gigantic and formidable atmospheric currents: atmospheric rivers! Read on to find out more… Each year, approximately 15 million square kilometers of ice forms in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica d ...[Read More]

Lost in transl[ice]tion…

Clara Burgard October 9, 2020

Further understanding of the Arctic sea-ice evolution is gained through satellite observations and climate models. Figure credit: C. Burgard & T. Finn.

Three years have passed since sea-ice scientists from both climate modeling and remote sensing backgrounds met for an international workshop in Hamburg. The goal was to discuss how to further improve our understanding of sea ice and reduce uncertainties in climate models and observations (see this previous post). One suggestion was to work on observation operators. Let’s see what has happened in t ...[Read More]