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cosmokeir.bsky.social
Keir Nichols
@cosmokeir.bsky.social
340 followers 330 following 43 posts
Scientist at SUERC/University of Glasgow 🧪 PhD - Tulane ⚜️🏔️ Geographer masquerading as a geologist (he/him) https://linktr.ee/keirnichols
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cosmokeir.bsky.social
Keir Nichols @cosmokeir.bsky.social · Oct 9
Applications are now open for a Glasgow-based Iapetus DTP project centred on using in situ 14C to study glacier histories in East Antarctica! tinyurl.com/3ddvynn2 @stever60.bsky.social @uofglasgow.bsky.social @iapetusdtp.bsky.social @bas.ac.uk
A person standing on a moraine which is in front of a mountain. The mountain is in East Antarctica, with a small glacier between the mountain and moraine. The person is using a saw to collect a rock sample from the surface of a boulder on top of the moraine. A photo taken from a mountain in East Antarctica, with moraines and blue ice in the foreground, and the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet extending to the horizon. Some small mountains (nunataks) are poking out above the surface of the ice sheet at varying distances.
Reposted by Keir Nichols
polarrobs.bsky.social
🧪🧵 Future change to #ThwaitesGlacier, Antarctica constitutes the largest uncertainty in #sea-level rise forecasts. The Science Coordination Office of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration recently issued a briefing document summarising some key findings - thwaitesglacier.org/findings
Image showing front page of briefing document
October 26, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
carolineclason.bsky.social
Excited to advertise a new interdisciplinary PhD opportunity at @geogdurham.bsky.social - "From ice to ecosystem: assessing the risk of glacier melt and legacy contamination for reindeer in Sápmi (Lapland)" ❄️ 🦌

To learn more about the project and how to apply visit: iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
Reindeer in Ljungris, Berg Municipality, Jämtland County, Sweden. Arild Vågen.
October 13, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
stever60.bsky.social
Applications are now open for this years’ @iapetusdtp.bsky.social PhD projects … including this one investigating ice sheet and glacier history of the Sør Rondane Mountains in East Antarctica by developing in-situ 14C cosmogenic exposure dating methods - more here:

iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
Black and white landscape photo of the Sør Rondane mountains in East Antarctica Black and white photo of three people on top of the Utsteinen Nunatak in the Sor Rondane mountains in East Antarctica - some of the samples in this project were taken from this massif and its surrounding moraine A black and white landscape photo of the Utsteinen Nunatak in the Sør Rondane mountains in East Antarctica taken while collecting cosmogenic exposure dating samples from the Teltet Nunatak Black and white photo of two people walking across blue ice of the East Antarctic ice sheet surrounding the Sor Rondane mountains
October 10, 2025 at 5:01 AM
cosmokeir.bsky.social
Applications are now open for a Glasgow-based Iapetus DTP project centred on using in situ 14C to study glacier histories in East Antarctica! tinyurl.com/3ddvynn2 @stever60.bsky.social @uofglasgow.bsky.social @iapetusdtp.bsky.social @bas.ac.uk
A person standing on a moraine which is in front of a mountain. The mountain is in East Antarctica, with a small glacier between the mountain and moraine. The person is using a saw to collect a rock sample from the surface of a boulder on top of the moraine. A photo taken from a mountain in East Antarctica, with moraines and blue ice in the foreground, and the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet extending to the horizon. Some small mountains (nunataks) are poking out above the surface of the ice sheet at varying distances.
October 9, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
stever60.bsky.social
Applications are now open for this years’ BAS Iapetus PhD projects … including one working on our Big Thaw project investigating extreme precipitation in Nepal from sediment core and climate data - more details in this link @iapetusdtp.bsky.social @bas.ac.uk

iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
Photo of Lake Tilicio in Nepal with an inset core showing our team collecting sediment cores from the lake
October 8, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
ruthmottram.bsky.social
🚨New paper 🚨@natgeosci.nature.com Greenlandification of Antarctica - comment by me + colleagues @dmidk.bsky.social @eo4cryo.bsky.social + @universityofleeds.bsky.social showing how Antarctica increasingly resembles Greenland- drawing on a mass of work from @esaclimate.bsky.social

rdcu.be/eJiqJ
The Greenlandification of Antarctica
Nature Geoscience - Climate and ice sheet processes in Antarctica increasingly reflect those observed earlier in Greenland. Applying process insights from Greenland can improve projections of...
rdcu.be
October 3, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
glaciocook.bsky.social
🏔️❄️New paper: “Multi-temporal DEMs used to quantify the geomorphological impact of a late 20th century glacier re-advance at Schwarzberggletscher, Switzerland”.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#glaciers #climatechange #sfm #geomorphology
Archive images of Schwarzberggletscher, Switzerland, showing the glacier front and its advance to produce a moraine. Repeat DEMs from the 1974 to 2010 show that the glacier advanced and built a moraine, but that the landscape thawed since the early 1990s.
September 29, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
ediggeo.bsky.social
📣 📣 We are back! 📣 📣

After more than 2 years away from social media, we are excited to reconnect and engage with the community. Life changes, new jobs, and moves around the world have kept us quiet - but behind the scenes, we have been planning and building. Now we are ready to relaunch EDIG!
1/6
The EDIG logo. The EDIG Logo is a blue and green (representing land masses and the ocean) globe, with a grey banner wrapping around its centre. Within the grey banner are the letters 'E. D. I. G'. There are three blue hands holding up the globe.
September 15, 2025 at 7:24 PM
cosmokeir.bsky.social
Chuffed to be included in this review paper on the Foundation-Patuxent-Academy ice stream system, Antarctica led by Neil Ross - you can see the preprint in open review here: doi.org/10.5194/egus... - featuring the busiest figure I've ever made 🇦🇶🧊
A busy figure with three panels (a, b, and c). Panel a is a plot with distance along centreline (in km) on the x axis and elevation (in metres above sea level) on the y axis. The plot shows the location (along flowline) and elevation of samples collected for cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating at sites adjacent to the Foundation Ice Stream. Panel b is a map that shows the Foundation Ice Stream (and neighbouring ice streams and glaciers), the flowline used in panel a, and the locations from which the samples in panel a were collected. Panel c is a plot with age (in thousands of years) on the x axis and elevation above modern ice surface (in metres) on the y axis. Exposure ages (between 20 ka and the present day) from the sites in panels a and b are plotted, with most of them falling between ~4 and 9 ka. The ages show that the Foundation Ice Stream thinned by hundreds of metres (at least 700 to 800 m) between about 9 and 4 ka.
September 10, 2025 at 2:19 PM
cosmokeir.bsky.social
New paper alert 🚨🏔️ We use 10Be exposure dating and ELA reconstructions to shed light on glacier advances in the tropical Andes during the Younger Dryas. You can find the paper led by Neil Glasser @aberuni.bsky.social in Scientific Reports tinyurl.com/uwmt8rcn
Younger Dryas glacier advances in the tropical Andes driven by increased precipitation - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Younger Dryas glacier advances in the tropical Andes driven by increased precipitation
tinyurl.com
August 22, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
willharcourt.bsky.social
We have a new preprint out reviewing the monitoring & detection of Svalbard surging glaciers: eartharxiv.org/repository/v...

We also compiled a new database of Svalbard's surge-type glaciers: zenodo.org/records/1524...

@dannipearce.bsky.social @hazlovell.bsky.social @adrianluckman.bsky.social
Surging glaciers in Svalbard: Observing their distribution, characteristics and evolution
eartharxiv.org
August 22, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
helenmillman.bsky.social
Are you an ECR working in some kind of cryosphere-related field? Are you interested in learning about international climate diplomacy and the COP process? Do you want to go to COP30 in Brazil in November? If yes, apply to volunteer with ICCI: iccinet.org/cop30-cryosp... It's an experience!
Large plenary meeting room at COP27. There are rows of desks, with people seated at the desks, facing a large stage with two big screens either side of it. A diorama of 3 polar bears standing on a small iceberg, wearing orange lifejackets. One of them is looking at a penguin that appears to have been hanged. Screenshot of text from The Times. It reads: "Then, this year, I arrived at the Glasgow Cop to see that the Qatar stand - the stand of the country with the highest per capita emissions in the world - was especially popular because it had the best coffee. The Indonesian stand had the best food but a stern sign saying you had to listen to a talk before eating. The Tuvalu stand, just beyond it, inexplicably has a diorama of polar bears lynching a penguin."
August 1, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
bipedalmeatbag.bsky.social
We were lucky enough to deploy a ground-based radar during one of Kīlauea’s 2023 eruptions and captured some interesting deformation signals — you can lear more about it in our open access paper, lead by USF graduate student Taha Sadeghi Chorsi!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Small intrusions may help maintain Kīlauea’s lava lake - Bulletin of Volcanology
We collected rapid-repeat radar data capturing the deformation of the active Halema‘uma‘u summit lava lake surface on January 19, 2023, an otherwise quiescent period during the January–March 2023 erup...
link.springer.com
July 25, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
mikekapglacier.bsky.social
New paper alert!

Holocene glacier and climate changes in central Patagonia.

Led by Carly Peltier. Also with @rlsoteres.bsky.social , and others...

authors.elsevier.com/c/1lN53-4PSD...
July 14, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
petetuckett.bsky.social
I’m delighted to share that our new paper is now out in @natclimate.nature.com! Our long-term, monthly Antarctic-wide dataset of surface meltwater shows that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is becoming increasingly prone to surface meltwater ponding.
Continent-wide mapping shows increasing sensitivity of East Antarctica to meltwater ponding - Nature Climate Change
This study provides a continent-wide assessment of surface meltwater area in Antarctica between 2006 and 2021, highlighting recent increases in magnitude and variability in East Antarctica, with indic...
www.nature.com
July 4, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
subfossilguy.bsky.social
People often think ice is 'millennial' in the Alps 🧊⏱️

It is not 🤔

Or in very small patches, very high up, and very close to the bedrock 🏔️

Look at this charred spruce needle fragment found at 73m deep, on top of Ortles (3859 m asl)

Iit is 2232 yr old! 🤩
1/
June 1, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
iceybethan.bsky.social
The #Blatten Landslide and the role of climate change. As the lake builds up behind the landslide dam, this disaster continues to unfold. www.antarcticglaciers.org/2025/05/birc...
Birch Glacier and Blatten Landslide - AntarcticGlaciers.org
The collapse of Birch Glacier and the devastating landslide that impacted the Swiss village of Blatten occurred as a result of supraglacial landslides.
www.antarcticglaciers.org
May 30, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
jdkirkham.bsky.social
⚠️New study shows that even warming of 1.5°C is too high to prevent long term global damage from the melt of Earth's polar ice sheets

🌊❄️

@geogdurham.bsky.social
@iccinet.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s43...
Warming of +1.5 °C is too high for polar ice sheets - Communications Earth & Environment
Warming of +1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels is too high for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and even the current climate forcing of +1.2 °C is likely to lead to several meters of sea-level ...
www.nature.com
May 20, 2025 at 10:06 AM
cosmokeir.bsky.social
The PGC were an invaluable resource during my PhD in the US and have been super helpful for the Thwaites project, too. This will be a huge loss for the polar science community, I hope they're able to survive and support US colleagues in the future
polargeospatial.bsky.social Polar Geospatial Center @polargeospatial.bsky.social · May 5
Effective immediately, the PGC is no longer accepting new NSF-supported requests due to a lack of renewal funding. Current work is wrapping up. Please contact your NSF program officer if impacted. We’re grateful to have supported your polar research. Read our full statement at www.pgc.umn.edu
May 6, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
polargriffin.bsky.social
Absolutely devastating news. I haven't worked directly with them, but PGC has done such great work. ArcticDEM is a masterpiece of geospatial data.
polargeospatial.bsky.social Polar Geospatial Center @polargeospatial.bsky.social · May 5
Effective immediately, the PGC is no longer accepting new NSF-supported requests due to a lack of renewal funding. Current work is wrapping up. Please contact your NSF program officer if impacted. We’re grateful to have supported your polar research. Read our full statement at www.pgc.umn.edu
May 5, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
rogercreel.bsky.social
North American ice sheets may have persisted into past warm periods --- and this matters for projections of future ice sheet mass loss.

Check out our new preprint! eartharxiv.org/repository/v...

With @bobkopp.net , @drandreadutton.bsky.social , and co.
April 28, 2025 at 11:12 AM
cosmokeir.bsky.social
I'm thrilled to have started a new role as an "In situ Radiocarbon Scientist" at @uofglasgow.bsky.social/ SUERC/ @isotopesuk.bsky.social! I'll be setting up a new NEIF in situ 14C lab over the next year 🧪🏔️
A photo of me standing in front of the Gilbert Scott Building at the University of Glasgow. As per Google, "the building is a striking Gothic Revival structure...and features an iconic bell tower, one of Glasgow's most notable landmarks." A photo of the side of the AMS Laboratory at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) with lovely clear blue skies above it. A sign on the side of the building includes the logo for SUERC, "AMS Laboratory", and different universities and organisations associated with it.
April 14, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
glaciocook.bsky.social
🏔️🌊❄️NEW PAPER in Natural Hazards & Earth System Sciences (NHESS)

Causes, consequences and implications of the 2023 landslide-induced Lake Rasac glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru.

nhess.copernicus.org/articles/25/...

#glof #landslide #climatechange #climate #hazards
April 1, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
ruthmottram.bsky.social
🚨 New position alert! 🚨

Climate and ice sheet modelling at DMI, come and work with me and my colleague Christian Rodehacke on coupled ice sheet - climate models. 3 year position in #HorzionEurope #LiquidIce

candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
Scientist for Modeling Ice Sheet–Climate Interaction
Are you interested in working with climate and ice sheet models? And motivated by understanding climate change in the Arctic and Antarctic regions? Here is a gr
candidate.hr-manager.net
March 19, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by Keir Nichols
andrewmackintosh.bsky.social
📢 New paper alert 📢
Amazing interdisciplinary effort by Emma bringing together Antarctic ice sheet and biological evidence.

But what does it tell us? 👇
March 19, 2025 at 9:09 AM