Mark Brandon • July 28, 2017 The sea ice in the Arctic is at maximum extent in February and retreats through to mid September. This movie shows the Arctic sea ice extent from 1 Feb to 25 July 2017. The data come from the DMSP SMMI sensor, and it shows the retreat of the sea […]
There is a lot happening at the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet as summer progresses, and the MODIS sensor on the TERRA and AQUA satellites is a wonderful way to observe it. I noticed the other day (8 July 2015) this beautiful image of fast ice breaking out of a Fjord on the east […]
Mark Brandon • April 17, 2013 I was reading my copy of Nansen’s Farthest North the other day and came across a discussion of The Jeannette Expedition which was led by Lt. Cmdr. George DeLong. Nansen wrote I wondered if people knew what a water sky was? …continue reading → Posted in At sea, Science. […]
Mark Brandon • December 14, 2016 I was interviewed by two great people last week, Dave Powell and Ollie Hayes for the sustainababble podcast: Advert for the Sustainababble Arctic podcast You can find the podcast over at the Sustainababble site or using the player below. Posted in Science. Tags: Antarctic, Arctic, podcast, sea ice, Sustainababble on December 14, 2016 by Mark […]
Mark Brandon • September 11, 2017 The Weddell Sea polynya is an area of open water that sometimes appears in the Weddell Sea over a relatively shallow region called Maud Rise. The Antarctic sea ice concentration 9 September 2017. The location of the polynya is marked and the original data come from the DMSP SMMI […]
Mark Brandon • June 23, 2015 The MODIS sensor satellite imagery is showing a beautiful and evolving large plankton bloom in the Chukchi Sea at the moment. Plankton bloom in the Chukchi Sea, as seen in the MODIS sensor on 23 June 2015. Alaska is on the LEFT and Russia the RIGHT. The image is […]
Mark Brandon • June 10, 2014 — UPDATED 11 June 2014 — This post got the dreaded TL; DR on Reddit – but at least “they” acknowledged it was useful. Since it takes someone else to pick out the value in your work I offer this tweet from Jason Major. – ORIGINAL POST A significant […]
My previous posts on Amundsen Sea Polynya and their development showed ~37,600 km2 of open water in front of the ice shelves. It is very early spring in Antarctica at this time of the year and it’s still cold. That means sea ice can still grow. This is the Dotson Getz polynya on 9 October […]
Mark Brandon • July 24, 2017 I thought it was time to look at the sea ice data as the summer Arctic melt proceeds. The image below shows the mean sea ice extent 1989-93 on 22 July, the sea ice extent 22 July 2017, and the difference between the two data sets. Reds imply less […]
This just on twitter from the UK Ministry of Defence about the recent magnificent voyage of HMS Protector. The Tweet posted by MOD on 18th Jan 2016 On the web page in the link it says By visiting this region Protector achieved a latitude of 77 Degrees 56 Minutes South – the very edge of […]
Mark Brandon • January 8, 2017 Project MIDAS publicised on Friday that a huge iceberg is going to calve from the Larsen C Ice Shelf. This was written up a a great story on the BBC news website Huge Antarctic iceberg poised to break away. I understand a little about this stuff so got drawn into […]
This post is quite long but stay with it. It shows how large some of the heat exchanges going on in the polar oceans can be. The picture above shows an iceberg through mist rising from the sea. It is pretty, but it is also showing is a vast heat flux of hundreds of watts […]
Mark Brandon • May 15, 2017 At this time of the year we should expect the Antarctic sea ice to be growing rapidly, but after the historic lows of last Antarctic summer, we can see that whilst it is rapidly advancing, the sea ice extent (the area of ocean covered by >15% of sea ice) […]
Mark Brandon • January 28, 2015 The South West Atlantic is a very productive part of the global ocean. This MODIS image from the Terra satellite shows the east coast of Argentina and the Falkland Islands. The ocean between is filled with swirls of lighter colour which are a plankton bloom along the continental shelf […]