The new snow melting season has just started in the mountains of Europe and will last, in many alpine places, until the end of June. Weather in the middle of April is changeable. In the last few days sub-zero air temperatures have prevailed in the mountains during the day. In a frame of an international research project, me (Charles University) and Daniel Remias (Applied University Upper Austria), ...[Read More]
Image of the Week — Orange is the new white
On 22 March 2018, large amounts of Saharan dust were blown off the Libyan coast to be further deposited in the Mediterranean, turning the usually white snow-capped Mountains of Turkey, Romania and even Caucasus into Martian landscapes. As many people were struck by this peculiar color of the snow, they started documenting this event on social media using the “#orangesnow hashtag”. Instagram and t ...[Read More]
Image of the week – Skiing, a myth for our grandchildren?
Skiing resorts might look very different in a few decades... [Credit: M. Cavitte]
Ski or water ski? Carnival season is typically when many drive straight to the mountains to indulge in their favorite winter sport. However, by the end of the century, models seem to predict a very different future for Carnival, with a drastic reduction in the number of snow days we get per year. This could render winter skiing something of the past, a bedtime story we tell our grandchildren at ni ...[Read More]
Image of the week – How hard can it be to melt a pile of ice?!
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]
Image of the Week – Fifty shades of snow
Fig. 1: Green snow [Credit: NASA's Earth Observatory]
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 ...[Read More]
Image of the Week – Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…
Probability of a White Christmas in the USA (based on weather data from 1981-2010).
[ Credit : National Climate Data Center, NOAA. Via Wikimedia Commons]
#/media/File:Probability_of_a_white_Christmas_in_the_United_States_1981-2010.jpg){kind=link}
Christmas is coming to town and in the Northern Hemisphere many of us are still dreaming of a white Christmas, “just like the ones we used to know”. But how likely is it that our dreams will come true? What is the definition of a White Christmas ? Usually Christmas can be defined as a “White Christmas” if the ground is covered by snow on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day depending on local tra ...[Read More]