Peter Sinclair and Yale Climate Connections have released an excellent video detailing the role of microbial life in driving Greenland Ice Sheet melt, featuring several researchers from the Dark Snow Project and Black and Bloom. We were lucky enough to have Peter with us for a couple of days at the beginning of our trip in … Continue reading Video: Alive and Well: Microbes Add to Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet
Category: News and Events
BBC Radio 4: Midweek
Yesterday I visited the BBC to talk about life on ice with Libby Purves on Midweek on Radio 4. It was the first time I'd been to Broadcasting House and that in itself was a real experience. I was whisked upstairs to the recording studio with the other guests - author Ken Follett and musicians … Continue reading BBC Radio 4: Midweek
November at NASA
I was lucky enough to spend November working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The purpose was to develop ongoing collaborations with expert glaciologists Johan Nilsson (who joined me in Greenland in the summer) and Alex Gardner, meet new potential collaborators and present my recent work on "bioalbedo". It was an extremely productive trip - being face-to-face … Continue reading November at NASA
Smithsonian Magazine: Glacier Microbes
Smithsonian Magazine recently published an article featuring several Black and Bloom researchers, including Alex Anesio and I. Here's the link... http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/tiny-world-glacier-microbes-has-outsized-impact-global-climate-180959817/
Discover Magazine: Ecosystem Engineers on ice
In June's Discover Magazine, science writer Elizabeth Preston explored the mysterious world of icy microbes, focussing on cryoconite. I was lucky enough to chat to Elizabeth several times and provide some photos for the article. Elizabeth described how cryoconite granules form when mineral particles and other debris are "ensnared... in the sticky arms of cyanobacteria" … Continue reading Discover Magazine: Ecosystem Engineers on ice
Video: What Lives on Ice and Snow?
Here's a link to Krzysztof Zawierucha's (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan) new film about the biology of ice and snow, including cryoconite holes, snow and ice surfaces. The film clearly shows why Earth's ice and snow represents a threatened store of biodiversity and illustrates some of the feedbacks between physical and biological processes operating in the cryosphere. See also Krzysztof's paper in … Continue reading Video: What Lives on Ice and Snow?
New Scientist’s “Icy Oases” Article: The full interviews!
New scientist recently published an article introducing cryoconite holes as oases for microbial life on ice surfaces. As 'new scientists' working on cryoconite, colleagues Arwyn Edwards (Aberystwyth University), Karen Cameron (GEUS / Dark Snow Project) and I were interviewed by science writer Nick Kennedy. Of course only a few sound-bites made it into the final … Continue reading New Scientist’s “Icy Oases” Article: The full interviews!
Microbes on Ice: Climate Amplifiers?
I recently published an introduction to glacier microbiology on the climate-science website Climatica: Here's a link... http://climatica.org.uk/microbes-ice-climate-amplifiers For anyone interested in climate science and wanting an introduction to a wealth of relevant articles and links, Climatica is a great resource well worth having a thorough browse! For more information, the reference list below includes some … Continue reading Microbes on Ice: Climate Amplifiers?
To The Poles 