It’s a little odd to me when people refer to the polar regions as being something to do with the “sounds of silence”. I have never thought of peace and quiet when I am on sea ice. You see the sea ice is always moving, (except when it is frozen to the coast and then […]
Antarctic sea ice extent remains low compared with the 1981-2010 median extent. This image shows the mean from 1989-93, the extent on 20 November 2017 and the difference between the two. Red colours imply that there is a decreased sea ice extent compared with the mean. The mean Antarctic sea ice for the years 1989-93 […]
The sea ice in the Antarctic is at minimum extent in February and expands through to mid September. This movie shows the Antarctic sea ice extent from 1 Feb to 25 July 2017. The data come from the DMSP SMMI sensor, and it shows the expansion of the sea ice as winter progresses. For me […]
I came across this brilliant Deep Sea News blog post about oil on troubled waters. It talks at length about how a surface film of oil damps out higher frequency surface waves and only the low frequency waves can propagate. The net effect is the sea feels calmer as the breaking waves are damped out. […]
I’ve been watching the open water down the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula. I said the cause of that was most likely strong westerly winds. If you look at the sea ice concentration on the western Antarctic Peninsula you can see the effect of these westerly winds. Towards the end of September 2016 the ice […]
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: Pretty iceberg in the early morning Sea smoke as the ocean freezes Just north of the King […]
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 from the land to reveal the […]
I love watching the opening of a polynya in satellite data. This is North Water at the NW tip of Greenland expanding over 6 days. You can see the wind is to the SW and it is both pushing the mobile sea ice away from the fast ice of Nares Strait (the strait is named for […]
I am working on a polar oceanographic problem at the moment, but the beauty of physics is the principles are universal. That means you can end up reading widely. I came across a very interesting paper (to me): 2009 paper in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science Through the joys of open access a PDF of […]
The seasonal cycle of sea ice extent in Antarctica has been fairly stable over the length of the satellite record. There is a slow growth of sea ice from a minimum of ~3×106 km2 in February to a maximum of ~19 x106km2 in September, before there is a relatively rapid fall in the Antarctic spring. But […]
Mark Brandon on the Northern Horizon a long time ago.
In March 2013 I was delighted to be asked to give a talk at TEDx Southampton. This is what I talked about: What the poles are telling us about our world It was brilliant to be asked to speak, and really enjoyed the fantastically well organized day. Many thanks to the hardworking large team who […]
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 • 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.