In ocean models, submarine melt of ice shelves is parameterized based on the heat budget at the ice–ocean 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 estimating the heat conduction into the ice. We show that the most used approximation is not the most accurate one: it overestimates the melt by up to 25 % compared to the more accurate approximations.

Glacier runoff is a source of old bioavailable dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to downstream ecosystems. The DOC pool is composed of material of various origins, chemical compositions, ages, and levels of bioavailability. Using bioincubation experiments, we show that glacier DOC respiration is driven by a young source, rather than by ancient material which comprises the majority of the glacier carbon pool. This young bioavailable fraction could currently be a critical carbon subsidy for recipient food webs. 

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 based 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.

Ice crystal orientation influences 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.

Key to the success of future satellite missions is understanding snowmelt in our warming climate, as this has 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 three amplifying effects: (1) background reflectance that is too dark, (2) an assumption of level terrain, and (3) differences in optical constants of ice. Sensor calibration and directional effects may also contribute. Solutions are presented.

The representation of lake ice dynamics is key to model water–atmosphere energy and mass transfers in cold environments. The use of albedo satellite products to constrain the modeling of ice coverage appears to be very suitable and valuable. In this work, we show how the modeling of lake albedo and ice phenology in the land surface model ORCHIDEE was improved by accounting for fractional ice cover calibrated against lake surface albedo data.

This study explores the use of lightweight plastic particles to reproduce cryo-induced terrestrial geomorphologic features at the laboratory scale within an experiment on permafrost and active-layer thawing. We show that, due to their low density and peculiar hydrodynamic parameters, these lightweight particles, originally designed for river sediment deposition and erosion, are suitable for reproducing cryo-induced 3D geomorphological features found in terrestrial retrogressive thaw slumps.

Storstrømmen Glacier in northeastern Greenland goes through cycles of sudden flow speed-ups (known as surges) followed by long quiet phases. It is currently in its quiet phase, but recent measurements suggest it may be nearing conditions for a new surge, possibly between 2027 and 2040. We also observed several lake drainages that caused brief increases in glacier flow but did not trigger a surge. Continued monitoring is essential to understand how these processes influence glacier behavior.