Ice cores in East Antarctica show contrasting records of past snowfall. We tested if large-scale weather patterns could explain this by combining ice core data with an atmospheric model and radar-derived errors. However, the reconstruction produced unrealistic wind patterns to fit the ice core records. We suggest that uncertainties are not fully captured and that small-scale local wind effects, not represented in the model, could significantly influence snowfall records in the ice cores.

Ice shelves, the floating extensions of Antarctica’s ice sheet, play a crucial role in preventing mass ice loss, and understanding their stability is crucial. If surface meltwater lakes drain rapidly through fractures, the ice shelf can destabilize. We analyzed satellite images of three years from the Shackleton Ice Shelf and found that lake drainages occurred in areas where damage is present and developing, and coincided with rising tides, offering insights into the drivers of this process.

The effect of ocean warming on Antarctic ice sheet melting is a major source of uncertainty in estimates of future sea-level rise. We compare five melt models to show that ocean warming strongly increases melting. Despite their calibration on present-day melting, the models disagree on the amount of melt increase. In some important regions, the difference reaches a factor 100. We conclude that using various melt models is important to accurately estimate uncertainties in future sea-level rise.

This study explores the use of lightweight plastic particles for reproducing terrestrial geomorphological cryo-induced features at laboratory scale within permafrost/active layer thawing experiment. We show that, due to their small density and peculiar hydrodynamic parameters, these lightweight particles, originally designed for river sediment deposit and erosion are suitable for re-creating cryo-induced 3D geomorphological features found in terrestrial Retrogressive Thaw Slump.

Our study examines glacier movement in the tropical Andes from 2013 to 2022 using satellite data. Despite challenges like small glacier size and frequent cloud cover, we tracked annual speeds and seasonal changes. We found stable annual speeds but significant shifts between wet and dry seasons, likely due to changes in meltwater production and glacier-bedrock conditions. This research enhances understanding of how tropical glaciers react to climate change.

Ice crystal orientation influence how glacier ice deforms. Radar polarimetry is commonly used to study the bulk ice crystal orientation, but the often used coherence method only provides information of the shallow ice in fast-flowing areas. This study shows that reducing the bandwidth of high-bandwidth radar data significantly enhances the depth limit of the coherence method. This improvement helps us to better understand ice dynamics in fast-flowing ice streams.

Temporally continuous snow depth estimates are vital for understanding changing snow patterns and impacts on permafrost in the Arctic. In this work, we develop an approach to predict snow depth from variability in snow-ground interface temperature using small temperature sensors that are cheap and easy-to-deploy. This new technique enables spatially distributed and temporally continuous snowpack monitoring that was not previously possible.

In ocean models, submarine melt of ice shelves is parameterized based on the heat budget at the interface. The heat budget includes the ocean heat transport, the heat conducted into the ice and the heat available for melting. Here we compare three different approaches to estimate the heat conduction. We show that the most accurate approximation is not the one used most, despite it overestimating the melt by up to 25 % and not being computationally more expensive.

Key to the success of future satellite missions is understanding snowmelt in our warming climate, having implications for nearly 2 billion people. An obstacle is that an artifact, called the hook, is often mistaken for soot or dust. Instead it is caused by 3 amplifying effects: 1) a background reflectance that is too dark; 2) level terrain assumptions; 3) and differences in optical constants of ice. Sensor calibration and directional effects may also contribute. Solutions are presented.

We studied snow processes in the accumulation area of Mera Glacier (Central Himalaya, Nepal) by deploying a cosmic ray counting sensor that allows to track the evolution of the snow water equivalent. We suspect significant surface melting, water percolation and refreezing within the snowpack, that might be missed by traditional mass balance surveys.