These ethereal, twisted ice sculptures litter the frozen shoreline of Tempelfjorden, Svalbard, giving the landscape an otherworldly feel and creating a contrast with the towering ice cliff of the glacier and the mountains behind. They are natural flotsam, the scoured remnants of icebergs calved from the Tunabreen glacier, washed up on the shoreline. These icebergs …[Read More]
This photograph shows landforms on Coraholmen Island in Ekmanfjorden, one of the fjords found in the Norwegian archipelago, Svalbard. These geomorphic features were formed by Sefströmbreen, a tidewater glacier, when it surged in the 1880s. Although all glaciers flow, some glaciers undergo cyclic changes in their flow. This is called surging, and glaciers that surge are called …[Read More]
In the High Arctic, where vegetation is limited in height, cottongrass stands out as some of the tallest plant species around. This photo shows a wispy white patch of Arctic cottongrass growing amongst other tundra vegetation in the Advent river floodplain of Adventdalen, a valley on the Norwegian archipelago island Svalbard. Svalbard is of particular …[Read More]
Pictured here are climate scientists processing ice core samples in the East Greenland Ice-core Project (EastGRIP) science trench 10 m under the surface of the Greenland ice cap. The trenches of this ice core camp require minimum building materials, utilising giant inflatable balloons that are dug in and covered with snow. The snow is left …[Read More]
Last year saw some of the biggest blazes in history, and may be a sign of things to come. 2017 was a record year for wildfires. California and neighboring western states saw the most destructive fire in US history, with an estimated 18 billion dollars worth of damage over the season. In central Portugal, fires …[Read More]
Drawing inspiration from popular stories on our social media channels, as well as unique and quirky research news, this monthly column aims to bring you the best of the Earth and planetary sciences from around the web. Major Story In the last couple of weeks of May, the news world was abuzz with the possibility …[Read More]
The global climate system is complex. It is composed of, and governed by, a plethora of interconnect factors. Solar radiation, land surface, ice cover, the atmosphere and living things, as well as wind and ocean currents, play a crucial role in the climate system. These factors are intricately connected; changes to some can have significant …[Read More]
Despite heading into the long polar night – the time when the sun doesn’t shine in the globe’s most northerly latitudes and when temperatures drop and thick sheets of sea ice form -the Arctic is reported to be 20° C warmer than average for this time of year. Never has it been more important to …[Read More]
The Svalbard archipelago is considered to be one of the best places to study the geological history of the Earth because its rocks represent every geological period. This image shows a view from the peak of Fugleberget (569 m a. s. l.; 77º 00’ N, 15º 30’ E) on the south-western coast of the island …[Read More]
Each September, battered by the relentless sun-filled days of summer, the smooth expanse of the Arctic Ocean reaches the climax of its annual transformation. Replacing the endless blanket of winter ice, a vast jigsaw puzzle stretches across the pole, a mosaic of soggy snow islands floating amid turquoise ponds of meltwater and inlets of dark …[Read More]
