The summer of 2016 saw the joint second lowest Arctic sea ice extent. But in the middle of October unusual Arctic weather has led to it becoming the lowest extent. At the same time, Antarctic sea ice extent has also reached record lows. Tamino has a simple and clear post about what a surprising thing […]
A recent interaction with a scientist left me both bemused, and if I am honest a little bruised. He described twitter as “that rather infantile social network system.” Co-incidently Peter Gibbs, an ex-Antarctican, BBC broadcaster and weather forecaster asked me about media work as a scientist – but given my recent interactions I flunked the […]
Published January 17, 2013 at 992 × 782 in Discovery, Laxon. RRS Discovery en-route to disposal after a 50 year career in marince science, Photo taken by Andrew Yool. NOC. RRS Discovery en-route to disposal after a 50 year career in marince science, (C) Andrew Yool. NOC.
With three of my Open University colleagues: Dr Phil Sexton, Dr Pallavi Anand, and Dr Mandy Dyson, I have been working in the background on a new landmark TV series called Blue Planet 2. This incredible series has been made by the BBC Natural History Unit with the Open University as co-producers. It has seven […]
Just over a year ago in July 2017 iceberg A68 calved from the Larsen C Ice Shelf. I appeared on BBC News before it actually calved explaining what was happening. At first A68 was slow to move and as I predicted back then, it likely got stuck on the sea bed (we say “grounded”). It has […]
https://storify.com/icey_mark/giving-a-talk-at-the-nerc-science-large-grants-pan https://storify.com/icey_mark/climateofgavin-scottadamssays-tweetstorm The polynya I saw forming in early February is still clear, and very large in the Southern Weddell Sea. At the moment it is more than than 80,000 km2, although there is clearly a lot of young sea ice covering a large part of the polynya. The Weddell Sea 5 March 2017 in the […]
Predictable I know – but I do like taking photographs. Whilst I would very much put myself in the category of “snapper”, I have got a few pictures I like. The pictures accessed from this page are ones I like, or such as in the case of the Beaufort page, ones I think could be […]
Watching the sea ice extent this summer in Antarctica has been a bit surprising. The Antarctic sea ice extent has been tracking at record lows virtually the whole austral summer. We are very close now to the expected sea ice minimum, and this is where we are: Antarctic sea ice extent 12 Feb 2017 & […]
I don’t usually work on this sort of thing, but very recently I have been writing about hazards caused by the cryosphere. A major hazard is of course the avalanche – whether ice, snow, or a mixture. This video was posted on You tube (with the tag line “Courtesy Vertical Solutions”), and it shows the […]
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 any other nation Nansen is quoted […]
Captain Robert Falcon Scott “England knows Scott as a hero; she has little idea of him as a man. He was certainly the most dominating character in our not uninteresting community: indeed, there is no doubt that he would carry weight in any gathering of human beings. But few who knew him realized how shy […]
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 […]
In the old days Antarctica wasn’t mapped and measured by satellites like it is now. In the past it was all about exploration. Scientists were dropped at bases by ship, and then left for at least a year – sometimes two. Very occasionally more. When winter comes the sea ice freezes up and the area […]