Excited to head into the field tomorrow for the final season of our MAGICaL project investigating Greenlandic ice-marginal lake temperatures. Expecting lots of ice melt based on the terrifying amount of water flowing through Kangerlussuaq at the minute...

We also find clear correlations between surface meltwater ponding and large-scale modes of climate variability, including links with the Southern Annular Mode in East Antarctica and the Amundsen Sea Low on the Antarctic Peninsula.

This increase in surface meltwater area in East Antarctica, without a corresponding increase in snow melt, indicates a potential shift in the ice sheet's surface properties, making it more prone to retaining meltwater in surface ponds.

In East Antarctica, we find that there has been a significant increase in the amount of surface meltwater ponding in recent years, with more variability from one year to the next.

We used Google Earth Engine to map surface meltwater at monthly intervals across the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet between 2006 – 2021 (totalling over 130,000 Landsat 8 images).

Thought I'd join the migration over this way... To add a bit of colour to my currently blank profile, here's a couple of pictures from two highly enjoyable and productive field seasons to west Greenland this year, studying ice-marginal lake temperatures and ice dynamic effects.