For the second year, our group has joined the national Vi Cykler Til Arbejde #vcta (We Bike to Work) campaign in the month of May! 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♀️💨💨 Our "Polar Pedalers"❄️🥶 team biked 166 days and 2767 kilometers with Anna and Kirk leading the team in total bike days and bike kilometers!

One of the ways we study Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance: tracking annual changes in ice surface elevation using CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2. A popular science piece (in Danish 🇩🇰) out now in @Geoforum issuu.com/geoforum5/do... #PROMICE #PRODEM #Massbalance

GEOFORUM 275

Temanummer om, Kortlægning af land, hav og is i Grønland.

issuu.com

The @imaqa.be SILA expedition has completed its 1,700 km ski kite traverse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, reaching Qaanaaq on May 18th 🎉 All four explorers are home safe and the GNSS elevation data collected for DTU Space is on its way. Proud to have supported the science behind this exciting mission.

DTU Cryosphere group@dtucryo.bsky.social · 4mo ago

We are a scientific partner of the SILA Greenland Mission 2026 with IMAQA ❄️ Using ski kites, the expedition will traverse the Greenland Ice Sheet from South to North and collect GNSS elevation data on behalf of DTU Space 🔗 www.imaqa.be/sila Sila means both weather and state-of-mind in Kalaallisut 🇬🇱

We finished the month of May with a DTU Cryosphere Pétanque (or Boules) Tournament in the sun ☀️🌻 The winning team was "Mass Balance Issues"!

Excited to share that the first version of the @esa.int #DTCIceSheets is now available! 🎉 You can now explore this big step toward an interactive #EO-driven #DigitalTwin via the platform and its datasets, modules, and use cases for Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets online on dtc-ice-sheets.org 🌍🧊

Excited to share 📄✨ our new paper on #Sentinel-3 radar over the #GreenlandIceSheet - accepted in #IEEEJSTARS & out as a preprint: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/115... 🔍 It started with an unusual signal: very low radar backscatter in N Greenland (summer 2023)…

Regional Differences in Sentinel-3 Radar Backscatter over Greenland and its Impact on Ice Sheet Altimetry Applications

Satellite radar altimetry operating at Ku-band has provided crucial observations of ice sheet elevation change for more than three decades, offering a direct means to assess climate impacts. Surface h...

ieeexplore.ieee.org

Greetings from Karthaus. It is always a pleasure to be back in the beautiful setting of the Karthaus summer school. This year, Rasmus is attending the course, and Nanna and Louise are teaching.

Kicked off May at #EGU26 in Vienna - a week packed with talks, posters & inspiring discussions. Back in the office full of fresh ideas 💡 - and thanks to sunny weather + rental bikes, the #BikeToWork #VCTA streak rolled on even from Vienna 🚴‍♀️ #PolarPedalers

DTU Cryosphere group@dtucryo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

📢 Want to hear more about the EO-based activities of our group? Meet us at #EGU26 @egu.eu next week, we'll be around with the following presentations and sessions:

☀️ Spring has finally arrived in Copenhagen ☀️ The team celebrated the good weather by painting flower pots and planting some (small-ish) sunflowers to brighten up our offices during our social event🌻

Over the past few weeks, @reneefredensborg.bsky.social and @spacehsk.bsky.social have been hands‑on in the #CEMSIE field campaign — coordinating and contributing to ground-based snow ❄️ and sea ice 🧊 observations, as well as helicopter and airborne operations with #CRISTALair 🛩️❄️🧊

ESA Earth Observation@esaearth.esa.int · 3mo ago

What do we need to make sure the future Copernicus satellites will deliver sharp data? HUMANS! Right as we write, an international team of scientists is braving the Arctic cold to collect critical in situ measurements for Copernicus ROSE-L, CIMR and CRISTAL: www.esa.int/Applications... 📹NSIDC/ESA

📢 Want to hear more about the EO-based activities of our group? Meet us at #EGU26 @egu.eu next week, we'll be around with the following presentations and sessions:

Introducing #PRODEM‑Xtract: An open‑source tool providing 32 m‑resolution annual ice thickness along Greenland Ice Sheet flux gates ❄️ Applied to major Greenland glaciers, it reveals previously unresolved dynamics, thereby improving estimates of solid ice discharge 🧊 Link: tinyurl.com/PRODEM-Xtract

The 2025 European State of the Climate is out now! Europe is the fastest-warming continent, warming more than 2x the global average. Read more and explore climate insights for Europe: climate.copernicus.eu/esotc/2025 Illustrations by: @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social #ESOTC2025 #CopernicusClimate

🧊 New paper out from the ESA CCI Sea Ice project led by DTU cryo. Advancing the use of independent, non‑satellite observations to validate satellite‑derived sea‑ice thickness - while tackling representativeness and uncertainty head‑on. 👏 @spacehsk.bsky.social, @reneefredensborg.bsky.social

esaclimate@esaclimate.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Satellites provide the big picture of sea ice. Planes, moorings, ships, buoys and submarines validate these measurements. By comparing 30 years of data, researchers found strong agreement once spatial and temporal representativeness were considered. 👉 Full study: doi.org/10.5194/essd...

We are a scientific partner of the SILA Greenland Mission 2026 with IMAQA ❄️ Using ski kites, the expedition will traverse the Greenland Ice Sheet from South to North and collect GNSS elevation data on behalf of DTU Space 🔗 www.imaqa.be/sila Sila means both weather and state-of-mind in Kalaallisut 🇬🇱

Just before Easter, Stine and Mary attended the 9th Sentinel Validation Team meeting, hosted by @esaearth.esa.int and @eumetsat.int in Frascati, Rome Great discussions on ice sheet products and multi-sensor synergy. We can't wait for the upcoming #Sentinel‑3C launch and tandem phases 🚀🧊 #Sentinel3

@louisesandbergs.bsky.social and @nataliahavelund.bsky.social attended the CCI colocation meeting last week. There were many important discussions on the future of the programme. Thanks for having us!

esaclimate@esaclimate.bsky.social · 4mo ago

That's a wrap! Three great days at the Climate Change Initiative Colocation & Climate Modelling User Group Integration Meeting at ESA ECSAT 🛰️ Insightful presentations, productive discussions and a clear sense of direction. Thank you to the whole community! 🌍

Excited to kick off ESA’s HARMONY Validation Concept Consolidation & Verification Methodology project, managed by CLS. Proud to lead land ice calibration & validation planning. DTU team: Kristina, Sebastian & Stine. Harmony (launch in 2029) will advance insights into land deformation & glaciers

🚨 Applications open! Join us for The Polar Climate Space: a week‑long #hackathon (24–30 Aug) bringing together #ECRs to tackle #Arctic & #Antarctic challenges using #EO, #climate models, in‑situ data & #ML. More info below! 👉 ECR form: tinyurl.com/ycy57mvj 👉 Senior scientists: tinyurl.com/2p9tv992

Big congrats to Anna for defending her PhD on surface mass balance using EO data 👏🎓✨ And of course, the celebration included a proper cake with P H D spelled out on top 🎂 #PhD #PhDDefense #SurfaceMassBalance #EarthObservation #Cryosphere

Last week, researchers came together for the Danish Antarctic Science Seminar at @ucph.bsky.social to discuss the most recent studies of Antarctic science! @tabea-rettelbach.bsky.social showed how the @esa.int Digital Twin can be used to explore "what-if" scenarios for the Antarctic Ice Sheet ❄️

❄️Theory and practice❄️ (Part 2) This week in Sisimiut we continue our Extreme Climate and Physical Nature course on the Arctic Semester by diving into snow physics. After covering the theory, students headed into the field to explore the snowpack firsthand. #CryoTeaching #ArcticDTU #SnowScien

New paper alert! 📄 How do Arctic tundra landscapes develop after a wildfire? 🔥 Using high-resolution lidar DEMs and a space-for-time approach, @tabea-rettelbach.bsky.social examined how ice-wedge polygon terrain in Alaskan permafrost landscapes changes following a fire. doi.org/10.1088/1748...

❄️Theory and practice❄️ In Sisimiut, Greenland, we teach a DTU course called Extreme Climate and Physical Nature on the Arctic Semester. Earlier this week 30+ students practiced drilling in the ice on the lake in the center of town after learning the theory last week. #CryoTeaching #ArcticDTU

Our PhD Student @mikkelaabykruse.bsky.social is currently getting a taste of what it is like to do fieldwork in the Arctic at The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS)❄️🥽 🧤 Working on a glacier is no safe or easy task, and UNIS is a great place to learn the ropes of what it means to be a glaciologist!

🚀 Excited for Copernicus @esa.int #CRISTAL! This mission’s dual‑freq Ka/Ku #altimeter aims to measure snow depth on sea ice. A new UiT‑led study (feat. @reneefredensborg.bsky.social) explores current laser/radar data + simulates CRISTAL waveforms. Check it out ➡️ tc.copernicus.org/articles/20/... ❄️🧊

Anticipating CRISTAL: an exploration of multi-frequency satellite altimeter snow depth estimates over Arctic sea ice, 2018–2023

Abstract. The EU and ESA plan to launch a dual-frequency Ku- and Ka-band polar-orbiting synthetic aperture radar (SAR) altimeter, the Copernicus Polar Ice and Snow Topography Altimeter (CRISTAL), by 2...

tc.copernicus.org

One year into the ESA Digital Twin (DT) Earth Ice Sheets project ❄️@eo4cryo.bsky.social and @tabea-rettelbach.bsky.social with other @esa.int DTs at the science meeting in Frascati to present the pre-operational dtc-ice-sheets.org & new ideas for holistic data cubes 🛰️🌐 #DigitalTwinEarth #IceSheets

🍾🥂One of our most exciting pieces of news this month must be the hand-in of Anna Puggaard's PhD thesis on "Earth observation for surface mass balance" on January 15, celebrated with cake and bubbles! We look forward to seeing her in the office as a postdoc in February, after a well-deserved break! 🏝️

New paper hot off the press in #IEEE JSTARS from our very own @kirkscanlan.bsky.social rkscanlan.bsky.social and @eo4cryo.bsky.social along with @anja-ruti.bsky.social l from #GEUS 🔥🔥 Find it here ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/113...

Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity in Greenland Firn From the Synthesis of Satellite Radar Altimetry and Passive Microwave Measurements

The spatiotemporal properties of the Greenland Ice Sheet firn layer are an important factor when assessing overall ice sheet mass balance and internal meltwater storage capacity. Increasingly a target...

ieeexplore.ieee.org

📢 Going to #EGU26? Do you work with #radars on icy and rocky surfaces? ➡️Look no further! Submit an abstract to this session, convened by our @kirkscanlan.bsky.social and @reneefredensborg.bsky.social with Hameed Moqadam! The deadline is fast approaching ⌛ - submit by 15 January 2026 at 13:00 CET!

Kirk Scanlan@kirkscanlan.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Heading to #EGU26 and use #radar to study terrestrial and planetary surfaces (both icy and rocky 🤯)? Have we got the session for you! Consider submitting an abstract to #EGU26 CR6.3 by January 15 2026. Read more about the session here www.egu26.eu/session/56853 Hope to see you there!