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 quote the radio officer Mike Gloistein: […]
Everyone likes a wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), but to see them swoop around icebergs is a special experience. At South Georgia you can watch this sort of thing for hours. A wandering albatross in front of Icebergs off the coast of South Georgia. You can download the full resolution image at my flickr page. But […]
Mark Brandon • December 14, 2016 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 […]
Mark Brandon • December 13, 2012 So I was at this award ceremony, like I usually am. And….. The Most Innovative Teacher of the Year award goes to…Dr Mark Brandon (@icey_mark) from @OpenUniversity! Congrats! #THEAwards — Times Higher Education (@timeshighered) November 29, 2012 Getting THE Innovative Teacher of the Year Award 2012 …continue reading → […]
Mark Brandon • September 27, 2016 On 26th September 2016 the MODIS sensor on The TERRA satellite captured this beautiful image of South Georgia, with Iceberg A66 drifting past. Iceberg A66 passing South Georgia captured in a MODIS image on the 26 September 2016. The image is available on a KML file on the MODIS […]
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 • August 23, 2018 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 […]
RRS James Clark Ross is on route to Rothera, the largest British Antarctic Survey research Station. In the next few hours to get to the base she will have to pass what looks like a continuous sea ice band about 15 km wide, before she enters some looser pack. To get their she will have […]
Mark Brandon • September 27, 2016 On 26th September 2016 the MODIS sensor on The TERRA satellite captured this beautiful image of South Georgia, with Iceberg A66 drifting past. Iceberg A66 passing South Georgia captured in a MODIS image on the 26 September 2016. The image is available on a KML file on the MODIS […]
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 the media around it. Here is […]
Mark Brandon • November 14, 2016 The Prince Gustav Channel was covered by an ice shelf which collapsed in the 1990’s, and for many years it was possible to sail a ship around James Ross Island. Recently it has been covered with sea ice frozen to the land – we call this fast ice, and […]
Mark Brandon • October 26, 2017 As daylight has returned to Antarctica it is straightforward to pick out polynya forming on the edge of the Antarctic continent. This one by the Stange Ice Shelf and Rydberg Peninsula caught my eye. It is a latent heat polynya formed as the winds push the sea ice away […]
Mark Brandon • January 24, 2017 The sea ice around Antarctic is currently still at an historic low. As usual I think it is good to look at a geographic perspective on the sea ice distribution. This is the sea ice concentration 22 January 2017 compared with the 1989-1993 mean on the 22 January. RED shades = less […]
Navigation charts in Antarctica may not be as good as you think. It makes sailing in those regions a little more exciting than you could hope. Here is an example. The coastline of Rothschild Island just to the west of Alexander Island, Antarctica. The navigation chart says the coastline location could be 5 miles in […]