Kathy Gorski's List: snow and ice

This is a great site for background information. It’s more of a researcher and information site than an educational outreach site (although it has that, too). It’s very accessible and a good resource to either review a topic or start learning about something. Targeted to older audiences, or some portions are suitable for upper middle school.

NSIDC supports research into our world's frozen realms: the snow, ice, glacier, frozen ground, and climate interactions that make up Earth's cryosphere. Scientific data, whether taken in the field or relayed from satellites orbiting Earth, form the foundation for the scientific research that informs the world about our planet and our climate systems.

Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. The education link on this page throws you to PolarTREC, but if you are looking for more in-depth work, there are plenty of opportunities here. Especially useful are the myriad links under the ‘Hot Links’ menu selection. Much is targeted to adult/advanced student audiences.

IGLO – International Action on Global Warming is certainly a site with an agenda, but it is well done and presents solid scientific data. For the educator, check the resources under the IGLO Toolkit menu item. Lots to explore!

The US Army’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory’s site. Under the Educational Outreach menu item, you will find student opportunities (high school and above). The Kid’s Corner is not directly polar related, but there are some good activities (especially under the Navigation Lessons) to tie in with a polar topic unit.

Three main sections: History of Winter, Global Snowflake Network, and Thermocron Quest. This NASA site has some powerful resources that are beautifully done and very useful for the classroom.

"This site is all about snow crystals and snowflakes -- what they are, where they come from, and just how these remarkably complex and beautiful structures are created, quite literally, out of thin air."

Next month marks the 100th year since the first Antarctic expedition reached the South Pole.

"The Canadian permafrost community continues to be active in research initiatives to improve characterization of permafrost conditions and to provide information to better understand the impact of climate change and human activity on the northern landscape. A number of projects have been aimed at providing information that can facilitate the development of climate change adaptation strategies to minimize risk to infrastructure and to minimize environmental impacts of northern development."

"One of the most striking changes that has taken place in the Arctic since the start of satellite monitoring in 1979 is the rapid decline of the perennial sea ice cover. This ice is the sea ice that survives the summer melt season, and is typically the thickest part of the sea ice cover, sometimes spanning several years. Sea ice extent has declined as the globe has warmed, but the ice cover has thinned as well. Thinner sea ice melts more easily, and as multiyear sea ice is lost, Arctic sea ice has declined more rapidly."

"An increase in glacial meltwater atop the Matterhorn is causing large pieces of rock to tumble from the iconic Alpine mountain, a new study has found. "

A Nice video from FRAM - High North Research Centre for Climate and the Environment, on a project to measure albedo in Greenland., was spotted by my colleagues at IPF. Brings science in a very informative, clear, well shot and edited way, with good presenters:

"Snowpit studies provide a vital link between the modern atmosphere and the climate history reconstructed from ice cores. This video documents one of the types of measurements made in snowpits and explains how snow sampling informs ice core studies".

"The ice shelf remained stable throughout the 2011 IceBridge campaign and in the months since then. Scientists around the world have been keeping tabs on the rift using various satellite instruments. The images displayed here show changes in the Pine Island Glacier rift over the past several months"

ICE Ice rises
ICE Ice rises is a climate project studying the ice rises on the surface of the Antarctic ice shelves and along the edge of the ice. The goal is to determine if, and in that case how, these “islands” affect how fast the ice is moving toward the ocean, which in turn may influence the melting process and a potential rise in sea level.

Arctic sea ice extent for December 2012 remained far below average, driven by anomalously low ice conditions in the Kara, Barents, and Labrador seas. Thus far, the winter has been dominated by the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, bringing colder than average conditions to Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska, and Canada.

"Marine snow is a shower of organic material falling from upper waters to the deep ocean"

"The Arctic experienced an extended period of warm temperatures about 3.6 million years ago — before the onset of the ice ages — at a time when the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere was not much higher than the levels being recorded today, a new study finds."