A story on the BBC Business News website about the Northern Sea Route caught my eye: BBC Business News “Container ship to break the ice on Russian Arctic route”. 21 August 2018. The Danish ship Venta Maersk, (Maersk Line, ice-class Baltic feeder vessel of 3,600 containers) is going to attempt to transit across the Kara Sea, the […]
In a previous post I showed the temperature cycle on the Antarctic Peninsula, and pointed out that the monthly mean atmospheric temperatures show that it is actually surprisingly moderate. Whether you consider the temperature cycle moderate or not, the cold temperatures and strong winds drive an amazing amount of seasonal sea ice production. This plot […]
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 sea ice than the mean 1989-93, […]
This is a MODIS image from 2004, but it’s too good not to post here. Iceberg A38 at South Georgia 12 April 2004 I’m giving a talk tonight for the South Georgia Association called Giant Icebergs and South Georgia, so I’m wandering through a lot of these images at the moment. South Georgia is a small […]
This plot shows the Antarctic sea ice extent, the Arctic sea ice extent, and the total sea ice extent plotted against time. Like in previous post I chose 2012 only because it is the most recent complete year in this data set. Take a look at the minimum, the maximum and the range of the […]
It’s been quite a year in the Arctic. Over the winter 2015/6 we had the strongest and coldest Arctic polar vortex of the last 68 years. This contributed to a low maximum in Arctic sea ice extent. At that stage only the locals and the scientists were looking, and I wrote about this in a blog […]
The polynya over Maud Rise was visible in a beautiful clear MODIS image on 25 September. It is currently ~40,000 km2 of open water in the middle of the Antarctic winter sea ice. This will be some impressive heat loss. MODIS image of the polyna over Maud rise on 25 Sept 2017. The black is […]
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.
Taking photographs is an easy way to keep yourself endlessly entertained whilst in the polar regions. I started posting 1 picture a week on twitter as part of what was called “ice photo wednesday” and here they are: Ice falling from summits in the Neumayer Channel Katabatic wind off the Southern tip of Alexander Island […]
Project MIDAS shows us that the iceberg A68 is about one trillion tonnes. This is the Antarctic Peninsula and the outline of A68 from the satellite image on 14 July 2017 shown in black. The ice front is from the Bedmap2 data set (so a little out of date), and the bathymetry from the IBCSO data […]
What does Mallemaroking mean? It is an archaic naval term which means “the carousing of sailors on icebound Greenland whaling ships”. I got the definition from the Chambers Dictionary but it seems wiktionary has it too. I first came across it just before reaching Port Lockroy back in (I think) 1997. There was an American […]
Just noticed this on the MODIS sensor on the TERRA satellite image from 10 September 2016. (Tile Antarctica_rc05c01 if you are interested in that sort of thing) Antarctic Sound on the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula 10 Sept 2016 The Antarctic sea ice ice extent map for 10 September 2016 shows an interesting and large low […]
Working on the sea ice of the Bellingshausen Sea Whilst wandering around various old textbooks I came across a wonderful quote: Polar ice cannot be studied as other branches of science, philosophy, medicine or law are studied. The study of sea ice belongs among the most exhausting disciplines which have to be studied on the […]
Today is 105 years since Roald Amundsen, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting and Olav Bjaaland reached the South Pole. And Google have celebrated that fact with a google Doodle: Amundsen expedition South Pole Google Doodle I love the doodle. It’s beautiful art. But it falls on me to be a bit of a bore… The doodle […]
