Topic 1d: Trends in Earth's Ice
In this lecture, Professor Andrew Shepherd examines the current trends in the Earth's ice. He looks at the ways that the Earth's cryosphere has changed during the 'satellite era' since the 1970s.
Andrew takes us through the various components of the cryosphere, and details the overall net loss of ice on the planet. He explains the impacts of the planet using trillions of tonnes of ice over the satellite era.
Additionally, follow the link in the further reading below to see Dr Michel Tsamados' presentation: Are We Waking Up The Sleeping Arctic Ocean?
Featured Educators:
- Professor Andrew Shepherd
(This video was filmed remotely during COVID-19 lockdown conditions)
Sea Ice
Snow Depth
Course topics
The core videos of this course are labelled as topic videos.
We have also provided a range of optional further reading, links, and additional resources to help consolidate your learning. Here is a summary of what is available:
Topic links and resources
In each topic, once you have watched the video and read the accompanying text, you will find the following information:
- Optional Further Reading: These are external links to further reading.
- Featured Images and Animations: Below the text on each video page, you’ll find the featured images and featured animations.
- Interactives: On the 'Interactives' tab on relevent topic pages, you will find a satellite tracking application showing the current location of the satellites, a data viewer from the ESA WEkEO platform, as well as a data viewer, specially created for this course, allowing you to explore a selection of data relevant to the themes and topics in this course. (Please note that due to maintenance, the data viewer is currently unavailable).
Quizzes and comments
- Quizzes: At the end of each week there will be a quizz consisting of around five questions. These will help you consolidate your understanding of new topics, but are not scored. The feedback given with each answer also will also provide you with important information.
Weekly interactive exercises
At the end of each week, we have included a guided exercise, using interactive apps available on other websites, to help you become more familiar with looking at and working with EO datasets. You will be guided through the process of searching for, comparing and drawing conclusions from data relevant to some of the topics covered in that week.
- Are We Waking Up The Sleeping Arctic Ocean? - Dr Michel Tsamados
- Nearly a Quarter of West Antarctic Ice is Now Unstable - University of Leeds
- Greenland And Antarctica Ice Loss Accelerating - BBC
- Antarctica Loses Three Trillion Tonnes of Ice in 25 Years - BBC
- Polar Ice Sheets Shrinking Worldwide - National Geographic
- Ice Sheet Melt On Track With 'Worst-Case Climate Scenario' - ESA
- The Arctic Is In A Death Spiral. How Much Longer Will It Exist? - The Guardian
- Earth Has Lost 28 Trillion Tonnes Of Ice In Less Than 30 Years - The Guardian
Advanced Further Reading:
- Observations: The Cryosphere - A paper co-written by David Vaughan on observations of the major changes occurring in the cryosphere
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A review of snow and ice albedo and the development of a new physically based broadband albedo parameterization
The cryosphere is shrinking rapidly in response to the current warming, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere.
