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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mark Brandon • June 14, 2014 Mangé par le chat de l’équipage de la Terror The cod icefish re-discovered and published in 1904 by Louis Dollo. The original caption says “Mangé par le chat de l’équipage de la Terror” or “Eaten by the Terror’s cat”! The famous polar ships HMS Erebus and HMS terror had […]
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 • August 31, 2018 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mark Brandon • February 13, 2018 Iceberg A68 calved from the Larsen C ice shelf earlier this year. I wrote about before. As the berg calved it is starting to reveal a patch of seafloor that has been covered by thick glacial ice, and as the BAS press release says this has revealed: a mysterious […]
Mark Brandon • July 28, 2017 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 […]
Mark Brandon • May 15, 2017 At this time of the year we should expect the Antarctic sea ice to be growing rapidly, but after the historic lows of last Antarctic summer, we can see that whilst it is rapidly advancing, the sea ice extent (the area of ocean covered by >15% of sea ice) […]
Mark Brandon • November 20, 2017 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 […]