The end of an era: On 29 June, Copernicus Sentinel-1A gathered its last science data and final image, a glimpse of Melbourne, Australia. One of its final acquisitions over Europe captured Reykjavík and western Iceland. So long, and thanks for all the fish, Sentinel-1A! www.esa.int/Applications...

More than 30 years of satellite observations reveal changing glacier dynamics in Svalbard ❄️ By combining @esa.int Heritage Mission data with modern satellite observations, researchers found glacier surge frequency in Svalbard has increased threefold since 2015. earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

Heritage data uncover glacier surges across Svalbard - Earth Online

Decades of archived radar data from ESA’s Heritage missions, combined with recent satellite measurements, are shedding new light on the dynamics of Svalbard’s glaciers.

earth.esa.int

Svalbard is thawing in April, and it’s not supposed to. 2026 ground temperatures at 0.2m depth in Svalbard spiking to 0°C in April, far exceeding the 1998-2025 median and maximum

I'm reasonably convinced now that Iceberg A23a has completely collapsed. The USNIC is no longer tracking a berg of that name. But A23k (also not listed) does however lumber on, albeit in a disheveled state. This view is from Thursday (9 April) NOAA-21 VIIRS. usicecenter.gov/Products/Ant...

End days for Iceberg A23. The two largest remaining fragments - A and K - had major blowouts on or just after the 28th of March. The largest chunks are ~50 sq km. A23 calved from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in 1986. Quite the journey it's had over four decades.

The last two big fragments of the once mighty A23 iceberg. The US National Ice Center calls the bottom-left object A23k and the top-right, A23a. Its latest report (20/3/26) said both were about 140 sq km. Latitude is roughly 50 deg S.

Is this the finale for the very charismatic Iceberg A23a? Checkout Mark Poynting's great article: www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc... Animation here (November 2025 to yesterday) thanks to NASA MODIS

Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf heading for collapse. Monthly average velocities Jan 2025 to Feb 2026 derived from EU Copernicus Programme Sentinel-1 SAR data. Grounding lines in black and yellow from NASA MEaSUREs

Iceberg A23a today (17 Feb). A totally clear sky. Utterly stunning. Still refusing to die. Still 500 sq km in area. Image from the Modis instrument on the venerable Aqua satellite, another oldie that's still plugging away.

💥 Boom! And it's just happened. The huge volumes of meltwater that had collected on the surface of iceberg A23a have triggered a massive and catastrophic hydrofracture event. Much of the berg has turned to mush. Three major segments remain, the largest about 500 sq km.

One big paddling pool becomes three. Today's view of iceberg A23a (left) and a view from the end of December (right). Notice how the raised rim effect, holding in surface meltwater, has re-established on all three main segments of the broken berg. A23a is turning to slush puppie.

Iceberg A-23A first broke off the Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986. NASA EO recently shared what's left, "waterlogged berg on December 26, 2025, extensive pools of blue meltwater were visible on its surface" and still one of the largest in the ocean. More at science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-...

Sentinel-1's decade of essential data over shifting ice sheets - @esa.int www.esa.int/Applications...

Sentinel-1's decade of essential data over shifting ice sheets

The extent and speed of ice moving off the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica into the sea – an important dynamic for climate and sea-rise modelling – has been captured over a 10-year period by sa...

esa.int

Huge fractures opening at the Thwaites Glacier Eastern Ice Shelf grounding line

Astonishingly, sea ice still hasn't started to reform over the Barents Sea area yet of the #Arctic. This includes record low conditions around Svalbard as well. It's been a very bad few months across the region. Check out more graphics here: zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-i...

⚒️ Article: Record grounded glacier retreat caused by an ice plain calving process @adrianluckman.bsky.social @etienneberthier.bsky.social @drnaomio.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Swansea Uni co-author @adrianluckman.bsky.social put this Sentinel-1 movie together. "Although the paleo record indicates some very rapid retreats in the past, the pace of retreat of Hektoria Glacier and its neighbours is unprecedented in the observational record," Adrian says.

Iceberg A23a continues to break apart in the southern Atlantic Ocean, near the island of South Georgia.

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

Check out this time-lapse video of waves eroding an ice front from an experiment conducted in our cryogenic wave tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The tank is housed in a walk-in freezer, and the waves are precisely controlled. This video captures about an hour of wave erosion.

In case you were wondering... Iceberg A23a seen cruising around South Georgia today by Meteosat 12. The old berg still has an area of 2,846 sq km.

I hope everyone on this website thinks very carefully about this graph and then considers whether or not they need to reorder their priorities at all.

Jakobshavn Isbrae (Ilulisat Glacier) produces 10% of Greenland's icebergs (Wikipedia). Ten years of @esa.int Copernicus #Sentinel-1 SAR data shows ice pouring into Baffin Bay. Winter advance and summer retreat of the ice front show how calving is controlled by seasonal freeze-up of fjord ice melange

Sentinel-1 has finally got a clear view of iceberg A23a (13/6/25). The berg is much diminished as it skirts around South Georgia. And the US National Ice Center has updated its stats: A23a is now only the world's second biggest berg at 829.79 sqNM, or 2846,11 sqKM.

📣 PhD position on #WorldSaltmarshDay! 🌱 👉Develop and deploy open-source sensors to measure #biophysical properties to predict #coastal #wetland #restoration success @ Swansea Uni + 3-month placement with Welsh Gov. Plz share! 🙏 www.swansea.ac.uk/postgraduate...

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Nested glacier surges! This is Liestolbreen in Svalbard, surging into Nathorstbreen (which itself surged from 2008), and then being surged into by Doktorbreen. All brought to you by the magic of Sentinel-1 SAR

The movement of iceberg A23a over the past seven days. It's moved about 80km to the southeast of the position where it grounded off the coast of South Georgia in early March. Zoomed in animation from Meteosat-12.

With days shortening at South Georgia (it's about 8 hours from sunrise to sunset), optical satellite coverage in the region is getting more restricted. Not so for Meteosat, which images the Europe/Africa hemisphere regardless of season. Hence we get a few views of iceberg A23a. Still grounded.

There was a spectacular view of iceberg A23a on 3 May. Clear skies over the berg and South Georgia. By my measurement, A23a is no longer the world's biggest iceberg. At ~2850 sq km, it's now bested by D15a - but only just. The US National Ice Center will be the final judge on the matter.

The journey of Iceberg A23a (largest, oldest, 'living' berg) since the beginning of 2024, as seen by NASA MODIS, including its five-month pirouette on the Taylor Column, short embrace by the pack ice in August, grounding on South Georgia's shelf in April, and baby calf. Watch this space for updates!