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Unveiling the electrifying secrets of polar snow and ice : a paradigm shift in atmospheric chemistry ?

Published on February 06, 2024

The Earth’s polar regions continue to be a hotbed of unexpected atmospheric chemistry phenomena. Although these regions are far away from sources of anthropogenic pollution, these substances can accumulate in the snow and ice. In addition, there are phenomena such as the complete, yet widespread depletion of ground-level ozone occurring only there has intrigued scientists for decades. Now, an innovative manuscript, "Electrical charging of snow and ice in polar regions and the potential (…)

Alpine glaciers will lose at least a third of their volume by 2050, whatever happens

Published on January 19, 2024

Article originally published by UNIL
Even if greenhouse gas emissions were to cease altogether, the volume of ice in the European Alps would fall by 34% by 2050. If the trend observed over the last 20 years continues at the same rate, however, almost half the volume of ice will be lost as has been demonstrated by scientists from UNIL in a new international study.
By 2050, i.e. in 26 years’ time, we will have lost at least 34% of the volume of ice in the European Alps, even if global (…)

New Horizon Europe Project focuses on improved understanding of Clouds and Aerosols in Weather and Climate

Published on January 09, 2024

CERTAINTY : Cloud-aERosol inTeractions & their impActs IN The earth sYstem project, funded by the Horizon Europe program, aims to advance our comprehension of clouds and aerosols in the climate. This project strives to refine and use observations and models to understand and describe the intricate interactions between clouds and aerosols within climate and weather systems.
Emerging observation technologies are being launched to increase our understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions. (…)

Florent Gimbert is awarded ERC Consolidator 2023 grant

Published on December 21, 2023

Every year, the European Research Council (ERC) funds projects on ambitious and risky subjects by scientists in the early stages of their careers through its "ERC Consolidator Grants". These grants support research projects addressing innovative issues not previously addressed.
Florent Gimbert, CNRS research fellow at IGE, has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant 2023 for his REASSESS project.
REASSESS : Probing and predicting the dynamical response of the Greenland Ice Sheet to (…)

New overview of antibiotic-resistant substances in water

Published on December 12, 2023

The increased presence of antimicrobial substances in water is a concern. The substances can be transformed over their life cycle through several different processes. Researchers from IGE and SLU (Swedish university of agriculture sciences) have therefore compiled an overview of transformation products and estimated their risks.
The aquatic environment is an important reservoir of antibiotic resistance. It is therefore crucial to understand what happens to the antimicrobial substances in (…)

Toward a complete extinction of the last ice shelves of the Greenland ice sheet

Published on November 08, 2023

In northern Greenland, glaciers contain enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 2 meters. In this region, glaciers naturally flow from the interior of the ice sheet to the ocean, where they start to float and form ice shelves several tens or even hundreds of kilometers long. "These ice shelves play a crucial role, similar to giant "dams" that regulate the quantity of icebergs discharged into the ocean by the glaciers" explains Romain Millan, lead author of the study. When these ice (…)

When a photon hits the snow, what does it see ?

Published on July 13, 2023

Scientists from the Institut des géosciences de l’environnement of Grenoble (IGE – CNRS/Inrae/IRD/UGA/Grenoble INP-UGA) and the Centre d’études de la neige (CEN – CNRM/Météo-France/CNRS) have studied the interactions between sunlight and snow at the micrometer scale, which determines the snow ‘whiteness’ and consequently has a crucial impact in the Earth’s climate. In an article published the 7 July 2023 in Nature Communications, these scientists have defined and quantified a new concept : (…)

Vanishing glaciers : a cause of sea-level rise and a threat to water supply

Published on June 07, 2023

This video is the third in a series produced by PROTECT, a European research project on the cryosphere and sea-level rise.
The video discusses the contribution of glaciers to sea-level rise and their importance for humans. Due to their proximity to 0°C temperature, glaciers respond much faster to global warming than ice sheets, making their mass loss a significant contributor to sea-level rise during the 20th century and beyond. To determine the health state of glaciers and their (…)

Should climate models go on a low-sodium diet ?

Published on April 20, 2023

Cloud formation in polar regions is controlled by the presence of natural aerosols, including sea salt aerosol which is emitted when strong winds blow over the open ocean. Therefore, the proper representation of the Arctic and Antarctic climate in models relies on adequate marine aerosol parameterizations. However, these have not been evaluated in the last generation of climate models, CMIP6. We performed this missing evaluation in a study published in May 2023 in Journal of Geophysical (…)

Fanny Brun receives the International Glaciological Society (IGS) Early Career Scientist award

Published on April 06, 2023

Article initially published on the IGS website
The IGS Early Career Scientist Award is given in recognition of significant scientific and/or community contributions to Glaciology by an Early Career Scientist.
Dr. Brun (Institute of Environmental Geosciences) is a talented scientist who has already made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the evolution of Earth’s glaciers.
Dr. Brun’s PhD thesis focused on the influence of debris on the mass balance of High Mountain Asia (…)