Mark Brandon • September 27, 2017 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 […]
Mark Brandon • November 29, 2016 The sea Ice is too heavy for the RRS James Clark Ross to make Rothera base right now. You may have thought the sea ice on the satellite images didn’t look too bad, but it’s all about how thick the sea ice is, and where the open water is. To […]
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 […]
Mark Brandon • October 15, 2024 I love looking at satellite images of the Antarctic and picking out the icebergs. In the last few years we have had great stories about the giant icebergs A68 in 2020, A76 in 2022 and most recently A23a currently in the Southern Scotia Sea. At the moment there are […]
Mark Brandon • July 30, 2015 Yet more beautiful MODIS imagery showing some wonderful patterns in a plankton bloom in the Barents Sea. Plankton patterns in the Barents Sea The screen grab is from the 250m resolution imagery, and the whole arctic panel shows just where the bloom is located. The Arctic on 29 July […]
Mark Brandon • April 20, 2018 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 […]
Mark Brandon • March 26, 2015 I was enjoying my polar books the other night and came across a quote attributed to everyone’s favourite humanitarian polar explorer and scientist, Fridtjof Nansen. Fridtjof Nansen, 1915, from the George Grantham Bain Collection If I were not a Norwegian, I would be an Englishman rather than belong to […]
Mark Brandon • March 16, 2017 https://storify.com/icey_mark/giving-a-talk-at-the-nerc-science-large-grants-pan Posted in Science, Storify. Tags: grant panel, Natural Environment Research Council, NERC, research on March 16, 2017 by Mark Brandon. Mark Brandon • March 10, 2017 https://storify.com/icey_mark/climateofgavin-scottadamssays-tweetstorm Posted in Science, Storify, twitter. Tags: climate science, Gavin Schmidt, twitter on March 10, 2017 by Mark Brandon. Mark Brandon • […]
Mark Brandon • January 17, 2013 RRS Discovery en-route to disposal after a 50 year career in marince science, Photo taken by Andrew Yool. NOC. Life at sea is hard to compare with the home quotidian because colleagues, work, dinner, pub, TV, laundry, bed, labs, computers are continually present within the same hundred feet and […]
Mark Brandon • March 16, 2017 https://storify.com/icey_mark/giving-a-talk-at-the-nerc-science-large-grants-pan Posted in Science, Storify. Tags: grant panel, Natural Environment Research Council, NERC, research on March 16, 2017 by Mark Brandon. Mark Brandon • December 21, 2012 On twitter this pm is a not unexpected, but rather interesting looking opportunity for those who are confident about their leadership abilities. […]
Mark Brandon • February 13, 2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art has made more than a third of a million images both public domain and searchable online. This is one of my current favourites: An Arctic Summer: Boring Through the Pack in Melville Bay by William Bradford and painted in 1871. An Arctic Summer: Boring […]
Mark Brandon • March 26, 2015 I was enjoying my polar books the other night and came across a quote attributed to everyone’s favourite humanitarian polar explorer and scientist, Fridtjof Nansen. Fridtjof Nansen, 1915, from the George Grantham Bain Collection If I were not a Norwegian, I would be an Englishman rather than belong to […]
Mark Brandon • February 17, 2017 I noticed yesterday that a polynya had formed in front of the Ronne Ice Shelf over the last 2 weeks. Screengrab from NASA Worldview 17 February 2017 In that image it is about 27,000 km2 in area. I mapped the opening of the polynya from MODIS imagery over the last two […]
Mark Brandon • January 20, 2017 Sea ice continues to be very low in the Arctic this winter. A geographical perspective always helps so here is the status of the sea ice concentration 18 January 2017 compared with the 1989-1993 mean on the 18 January. RED shades = less sea ice than the 1989-93 mean on 18 […]