Ursula Enzenhofer

A blue/green pool of water with a white, icy mountain glacier behind and snow-capped rocks in the background. Text on the image reads "Geographer Dr Caroline Clason has co-authored a UNESCO report on the effect of melting ice on people and planet."

We’re a leading centre for research into glaciers and ice sheets. Recently @carolineclason.bsky.social @geogdurham.bsky.social @durhamglaciology.bsky.social co-authored a major report for the UK National Commission for @unesco.org on the effect of melting ice on people and planet 👉 bit.ly/4r51PMl

The Future of Antarctic Ice: New Study Reveals the Mathematics of Meltwater Lakes

New Paper Alert | Georgia Tech researchers developed a mathematical formula to predict the size of lakes that form on melting ice sheets. They discovered that lake depth and span are linked to the topography of the ice sheet. Their findings were published in @natcomms.nature.com.

Why Is Ice Slippery? A New Hypothesis Slides Into the Chat. | Quanta Magazine A newly proposed explanation for the slipperiness of ice has revived a centuries-long debate.

Will be taking some personal time to process scientists not really knowing why ice is slippery. Please respect my privacy unless see me sprawled out on an icy sidewalk yelling, "No one knows why this happened to me!"

www.quantamagazine.org/why-is-ice-s...

Really interesting new paper showing ice "sliding mechanically destroys the ordered crystal lattice of ice, creating an amorphous layer that thickens as the sliding goes on". Maybe this explains some things related to subtemperate sliding?

Tbt Video out with some of the students doing a summer mass balance survey - or should we call it glacier surface water survey💦? So much water at the glacier surface when redrilling the mass balance stakes… 🙀
#Glaciology #Svalbard #Glaciermelt #Hydrology #ClimateChange #Arctic

New research in #Geology was cited in Daily Mail, highlighting the importance of subglacial geology for predicting sea-level rise. Seismic data reveal that the Greenland ice sheet rests on sediments that make glaciers more mobile and may accelerate ice loss.

Read the paper: geosociety.co/Yang_et_al

First Fieldwork 2026 in the books. Little snow so far this year in Svalbard and surprisingly little crusts at the glacier - snow interface suggesting a prompt switch from melt to accumulation this year without gradual cold + warm spells which would create these high density surface crusts. #GPR

TBT Fieldwork, Spring 2025
Arrived at a distant hut — first open the hut, fire and snow clearing. Slowly, warmth returns after a day in minus 20.
Svalbard fieldwork blends presence of harshness, long hours with awe. Even with a busy mind, the beauty is hard to be unnoticed.

All is reflection.
Every action ripples back.
The choices we make —
their shine hides a shadow.

Consumerism glitters,
but the cost
is buried deep in soil and sea.
One day we will be surprised —
surprised because we did not see
the reflections,
the causes,
the links
woven through everything.

Great work 🤗👏

Machine learning improves seasonal mass balance prediction for unmonitored glaciers Abstract. Glacier evolution models based on temperature-index approaches are commonly used to assess hydrological impacts of glacier changes. However, current model calibration frameworks cannot effic...

🚨 Introducing the Mass Balance Machine (MBM): a #data-driven glacier MB model using topographic + climate features 🏔️ 👉 "Machine learning improves seasonal mass balance prediction for unmonitored glaciers” (Sjursen et al., 2025) doi.org/10.5194/tc-1...

@vaw-glaciology.bsky.social

Brown-affiliated studies help explain overestimations in impact of Greenland Ice Sheet melting Two studies noted that current measurements and simulations may not adequately consider processes that retain meltwater.

#Refreezing
#SurfaceRunoff
❄️👉💧
Current measurements and models often overestimate how much meltwater from Greenland’s ice sheet enters the ocean because they miss key retention processes.

Much meltwater refreezes in porous ice or ponds, cutting actual runoff by 9–15% compared to older estimates.

Sounds interesting …

Yay Sentinel 1D 🥳🥳🥳

❄️ Calling all glaciology PhD students! ❄️

Applications are now open for next year’s Karthaus Summer School. It’s a great experience and you will be very well fed. Apply here: www.projects.science.uu.nl/iceclimate/k...

It was a pleasure to organise the workshop with my amazing colleagues from APECS Norway! What a kick-off for #SvalbardScienceConference with early career researchers exploring Arctic careers, fieldwork, EDI, and collaboration. Thanks to all who joined and supported an inspiring day!

Did meltwater from circum-Arctic ice sheets trigger AMOC weakenings during past deglaciations? We think that we can present a convincing line of evidence, from the central Arctic to the North Atlantic. See our recent paper in QSR:
doi.org/10.1016/j.qu...

Screenshot that says "Sea Ice Today" and "Ice Sheets Today" Services Reduced. More information is stated: "Beginning October 15, 2025, NSIDC’s Sea Ice Today and Ice Sheets Today services will be reduced because of non-renewed funding. This means no new monthly and mid-month analysis posts for Sea Ice Today or regular posts for Ice Sheets Today, limited comparison tools, and reduced user support."

UGH! When will it end. 😭

"Effective October 15, 2025, due to non-renewed funding, NSIDC has suspended or reduced several Sea Ice Today tools and services."

nsidc.org/data/user-re...

Graphic showing Arctic sea-ice concentration on 10/13/2025 near Svalbard, Greenland, and Novaya Zemlya. A line of 85°N latitude is also annotated along with the Atlantic Ocean.

Here's a closer look at the record low sea ice conditions around #Svalbard. The ice edge is still close to the 85°N line of latitude along the Atlantic front. That's a lot of open water into the Barents Sea region! Data from AMSR2.

Congrats 🙌 🥂

Congrats 🙌 Excited to hear more 🤩

'Eight of Sweden's 277 glaciers melted completely during 2024 and are now extinct due to global warming...

Another 30 glaciers are at risk, glaciology professor Nina Kirchner said.

The extinct glaciers "won't come back in our lifetime and not if global warming continues", she said.'

PostDoc in "Glacier Geophysics" (d/f/m) - Bremerhaven, Bremen, Germany - www.earthworks-jobs.com/job?id=11181 #PostDoc #Geophysics #geophysics #glaciology

Now that we know of 12 more sub glacial lake -filling and drainage events in Antarctica, the connection to the ice stream velocities or calving frequency would be very interesting…

#glaciology #glacierhydrology #subglacialhydrology #icedammedlakes #icesheets #antarctica #hydrology

Our new paper compares GPR ice thickness data with models and looks at glacier thermal structures in Greenland, showing that thermal complexity (warm-cold ice) inside these glaciers is higher than expected.

Read it here:
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🔍 From petabytes to picks:
Data mining empowered by a cloud-native workflow turns 1.3 PB of seismic data into the first global-scale database of 4.3 billion P- and S-wave picks.
Read more: seismica.library.mcgill.ca/article/view...

😮 wooow

How was the summer balance this year ?

https://ic3.uit.no/news/arctic-weather-dataset

📊 30+ years of Arctic weather data from 700+ sites now open-access!
🔹 30+ variables incl. temp, snow, soil moisture
🔹 Clean format + open-source code
🌍 Track #permafrost, #tundra, #carbon, & more
📥 Dataset

Access data here 👉 ic3.uit.no/news/arctic-...

#Arctic #ClimateData #iC3 #dataset #snow

“The cost of inaction will always outweigh the cost of action"
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#ClimateChange #Glaciers #Globalsealevelrise #Glaciercollapse #icesheets #floods #Glofs