Interesting Events
Here we describe recent, rapid changes in the cryosphere that are newsworthy. They may or may not be significant in a climate context.
As of 1 March 2024, ice cover on the Great Lakes (USA) is significantly below average for this time of the year. Peak ice cover on the Great Lakes is typically around 53%. In mid-February this year, it was 2.7%. Lake Erie and Ontario are at or tied with their historic lows, with both being […]
While not an event about the cryosphere per se, the largest passenger plane to land on the continent of Antarctica is certainly interesting! On 15 November 2023, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner of Norse Atlantic Airways landed at the Troll Airfield in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica (Figure 1). There were 45 scientists from the Norwegian Polar […]
On 29 August 2022, a satellite-derived sea ice concentration product revealed the opening of the northern route of the Northwest Passage (NWP) through the Canadian Archipelago. Figure 1 illustrates the two NWP routes on a satellite image from 22 August last year (2021), when the northern route was not open. Figure 2 shows the ice concentration based […]
In early May 2021, the Ronne Ice Shelf in West Antarctica1 produced one of the largest icebergs to break off from Antarctica in the recent past. The iceberg was named A-76 by the US National Ice Center (NIC)2. When it broke from the ice shelf, its location was 75°17′ South, 58°54′ West (or -75.2833, -58.90), shown in Figure […]
In February — summer in Antarctica — blood-red snow appeared across the Antarctic Peninsula. Snow and ice around Ukraine’s Vernadsky Research Base on Galindez Island was covered with what is called “raspberry snow”, “watermelon snow”, or “blood snow” (Figures 1 and 2). This is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it was noticed by Aristotle […]
As many media outlets recently reported, the Mexican city of Guadalajara woke up on Sunday, 30 June 2019, to more than one meter (~3 feet) of hail in some areas. At least one report indicates hail up to two meters deep! Vehicles were swept away and nearly 200 homes and businesses reported hail damage. All […]
A cryoseism (pronounced krī′ ō sī′ zəm), also known as an ice quake or a frost quake, is a non-tectonic seismic event caused by the sudden freezing and expansion of water-saturated soil or rock, causing a crack and resulting in a loud sound. This happens in response to a sudden drop in temperature. The stress created by the […]
What do you get when you mix clean, white snow with dust from the Sahara Desert? You get dirty, orange snow! Once every five years or so this happens in Europe. Dust from Saharan sand storms is lifted into the upper layers of the atmosphere, where it spreads out and drifts across the Mediterranean. It then mixes […]
During the opening month of 2018, the Arctic experienced a record low January sea ice extent and is currently at its lowest ever mid-February extent in the satellite record. The Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) surface temperature tracker shows anomalously high surface skin temperatures in the Arctic for each day in January and continuing into February […]
An ice circle is a thin, circular slab of ice that form in slow moving, rotating part of a river. They are natural phenomena that are rare, but certainly not unheard of. Similar features are ice discs, ice crepes, and ice pans. They can vary in size up to more than 15 m (49 ft), with a maximum […]
During the month of September 2017, a large polynya called Weddell Polynya (GEOMAR, 2017) formed off the coast of Antarctica in the King Haakon VII Sea (Figure 1). A polynya is an irregularly shaped area of persistent open water in sea ice that is sustained by winds or ocean heat. On August 31, the Visible […]
Antarctica just shed a very large piece of the Larsen C ice shelf. A block of ice the size of the U.S. state of Delaware broke off sometime between July 10 and 12. This block of ice is now an iceberg named A-68. Scientists have been watching the fracture grow in length and width since 2016. […]
A frozen mass of soil, rock, trees, ice, and other debris is very close to the Dalton Highway in Alaska (Figure 1). State officials now plan to move a 4000 ft (1220 m) section of the highway. The frozen debris lobe has been moving downhill for hundreds of years and is expected to reach the […]
The Kaskawulsh Glacier in the Yukon Territory retreated about a mile and the water from its snout reversed direction and began draining toward the Gulf of Alaska and Pacific Ocean rather than north toward the Yukon River, which flows into the Bering Sea. Until 2016, an ice dam channeled the glacial melt water through the […]
In late October, the BBC reported that “snowballs” began washing up on the shore in the Gulf of Ob in Western Siberia. The Siberian Times had a picture of a woman sitting on top of the giant balls, and another showing a dog running nearby (see below). The balls occurred along 11 miles of beach. They ranged in size […]
Nuuk, the capital city of Greenland, reached a record high temperature of 75ºF (24ºC). This is the highest temperature ever recorded in Greenland during the month of June. The previous record of 73.8 degrees (23.2 Celsius) was set in Kangerlussuaq on June 15 in 2014. The warm weather was a result of winds from the […]
During the first week of April 2016 a significant surface warming event was observed over Baffin Bay (Figure 1). Mean surface temperatures over the area from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2) Reanalysis ranged from -30 to -10º C on 1 April 2016 with anomalies of -10ºC […]
A major winter storm pummeled the East Coast of the United States 22-23 January 2016. The storm was unofficially dubbed “Snowzilla” in the Washington DC area and called “Winter Storm Jonas” by the Weather Channel. It left over 100 cm (1 m, 42 in) of snow in some areas, with at least 14 states receiving […]
VIIRS Ice Surface Temperature Product Captures Extreme Arctic Warming Event: On December 30, 2015, the central Arctic Ocean came almost reached the melting point, an extreme warming event caused by the influx of warm air from the south due to “Storm Frank”. The area near the North Pole was a similar temperature to Vienna and […]
The day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite provides a nice view of ice motion at night, given sufficient moonlight. The animation below demonstrates the used of the band on 5-7 November 2014 north of Alaska.
A very large Antarctic iceberg bigger than the island of Guam, half the size of Greater London, and roughly six times as big as Manhattan is headed for the open ocean. It is 33 km long, 20 km wide, and up to 500 metres thick. The iceberg, named B31, broke off the Pine Island Glacier […]
Lake Superior is almost completely ice covered, about a month ahead of the time it usually reaches this state in years when it has nearly complete ice cover. As of 5 February 2014, the lake is approximately 92% frozen. The 20-year-old record is 91% (5 February 1994). According to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, […]
High temperatures and extensive melting across the Greenland ice sheet (GIS) in summer 2012 had a lasting impact on weather conditions across the ice sheet well into the winter season. Temperatures were 2˚C to 3.5˚C warmer than the 1981-2010 average for coastal areas of GIS during the 2012 winter. The combination of pre-existing meltwater and […]
Strong anticyclonic winds in the Beaufort Sea region north of Alaska produced signficant ice motion and extensive fracturing in late January through February 2013. This circulation — termed the Beaufort Gyre — is fairly typical of the region but it was particular intense during this period. The fracturing moved progressively to the east, and by the end […]
