Sometimes science means glorious discoveries. Sometimes it means tidying up the lab (with minor finds of dust, forgotten stationery, & ancient labels). After freight returned & cluttered the room, we now have a tidy lab again including new shelves + work benches to prepare for upcoming expeditions!

This week, our team was at two international events: 🧊 Christian & Gunnar at #SCAR2026 Open Science Conference in Oslo, discussing #Antarctic science & policy, with input for AntarcticaInSync and IPY5. 💻 Marcus at #JuliaCon, engaging with the scientific computing community #JuliaLang

After more than a year traversing the #Arctic and #Antarctica 🧊 aboard the #RVPolarstern 🚢, our instruments have finally returned to the lab. They delivered valueable #data for the #CONTRASTS and #SWOS #expeditions. Now it's time for some maintenance...

It is our annual group retreat and we spend it on the island Heligoland in the North Sea. Waves, winds, red rocks, seals and birds: a great location to reflect on the last year and discuss future works!

The #Arctic melt season has begun. 🧊☀️💧ESA #satellite data show the first melt ponds forming since early June. Their growth varies across the Arctic: rapid expansion on flat fast ice in the Canadian Basin, but slower development on rough drifting sea ice in the Kara Sea.

This week, PhD candidates of the (AC)³ research project came together. Through talks, writing sessions, and discussions, we exchanged useful practices on a wide range of topics, incl. scientific writing, AI tools, and statistics. A productive + inspiring week of learning, exchange, and networking! 🤓

Linxin and Marcus represent our group this week at the ICCWG workshop in #Copenhagen. It's a pleasure to interact with so many international sea ice researchers in one place, sharing experience. Great workshop so far – Shoutout to DMI for organizing! #seaice

Nice sea ice fracturing event captured by NASA's MODIS satellite instrument between March 15 and May 1 in the Beaufort Sea. Imagery generated using worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov

CEMSIE campaign done! 🎉 While we dive into data, here’s a snow fact: Snowflakes aren’t all dendrites❄️—some are needles! Spot them in the photo? Once snow lands on the ground, it doesn’t stay the same—it transforms! In the CEMSIE snow pits we found beautiful depth hoar: large, cup-shaped crystals.

🛰️ We are currently observing sea ice concentrations in the Arctic that are lower than ever before for this time of year! A comparison of the sea ice concentration on 7 May 2026 with the average for that date over the last 14 years shows that the changes in the Kara Sea are particularly striking.

More from CEMSIE! The days are getting longer, but still there are measurable differences between day and night. Therefore we overnight at the CEMSIE camp ⛺ and operate the instruments and our L-band radiometer 📡 gets to see a sunset 🌅

Hello from Iqaluktuttiaq/Cambridge Bay 🇨🇦! We are part of the CEMSIE #campaign (saltysnow.ca/cemsie/) to study snow and sea ice with #radiometers and #radars 📡! It is the second leg of the campaign and it is getting "warmer" (-7° right now) but we still enhoy our heated tent 🥶⛺.

The 5th International Polar Year (IPY5.info) is coming up in 2032-2033. Last week the kick-off for the German national committee took place in Gießen. We are excited for the upcoming activities, projects and outreach!

While new craters are being named on the Moon 🌒 by the #ArtemisII crew 🚀, did you know a new island 🏝️ —tiny, but still!— was discovered during the Polarstern cruise we mentioned earlier? It needs a name as well! What do you suggest? We are looking forward to your comments! www.awi.de/en/about-us/...

Hello from the #Arctic System Science Conference in #Potsdam! We three are presenting our results including new insights into sea ice deformation from satellite remote sensing and under-pond ice thickness based on data from last year's #CONTRASTS expedition!

Since more than 2 weeks the RV Polarstern #SWOS expedition is now conducting research in the western Weddell Sea. The days are starting to get shorter while we are measuring L-band microwave brightness temperatures of sea ice to improve our satellite retrievals for the upcoming EU/ESA #CIMR mission.

Greetings from GEOMAR in Kiel, where the Status Conference Research Vessels takes place and results from 2 years of research cruises (of all German research vessels!) are presented. The sheer amount of collected data, scientific discoveries and multi-disciplinary collaborations is very impressive!

Greetings from the (AC)³ science #conference in #Cologne where our two PhD students Linxin and Max are presenting their #research on sea ice deformation and melt ponds on #Arctic sea ice. Nice discussions and a lot of valuable input for further improvements!

The #Polarstern SWOS #expedition to the #Antarctic Weddell Sea 🚢 🇦🇶 has started. During the weekend we left Punta Arenas 🇨🇱 and are now crossing the famous Drake Passage. Let's hope it is not getting to wavy 🌊 You can follow us under follow-polarstern.awi.de

Our colleague Linxin Zhang is attending the #winterschool at Sun Yat-sen University on "Arctic atmosphere–ocean–sea ice interactions and their linkages with mid-latitudes" in Zhuhai, #China. Absorbing new knowledge from lecturers from all over the world and enjoying many activities and talks!

The three cryosphere musketeers ❄️ Moin! We're the master students of the Remote Sensing of Polar Regions group 🤗 From left to right: Isabel, Goli and Raquel. Interested in what we're working on? Then look in the comments down below for more info about our thesis projects...

Our colleague Janna (@jannaeismeer.bsky.social) is currently in Bern, Switzerland 🇨🇭at the meeting of the Snow/Sea Ice Emission and Backscatter Modelling team (ISSI) working on how to represent snow and (sea) ice surfaces for numerical weather predictions. Full days of lively discussions!

We welcomed the current low-pressure system, #Elli, with open arms and used it as an opportunity to gain #fieldwork experience. How often do we get the chance to measure up to 20 cm of #snow in Bremen? ❄️

The scent of the holidays is in the air, both at the Christmas market & our Institute's Christmas party! 🎄🤶🎅 We're also happy to have welcomed Ferran Hernández Macià from Barcelona Polar Lab as a visiting doctoral researcher for the past two weeks. We wish you all happy holidays, see you next year!

Yesterday, most of our working group spent the evening at a #pubquiz 🤓 Although we had to split into two groups and compete against each other, we ended up with the same number of points and reunited 😄

Great news! The CIMR-L2PAD project 🛰️ successfully passed the Detailed Design Review stage at a collaborative meeting at @esa.int ESRIN 🇮🇹! Maria Piles and our colleague Marcus Huntemann enjoyed the fruitful meeting, despite difficult weather conditions 🚀

What satellites will we need for science and society by 2040 and beyond? This is the topic of the national science expert group workshop at Deutscher Wetterdienst @dwdderwetterdienst.bsky.social in Offenbach this week.

Hi! 🤗 I’m Zhifeng, and I recently joined the group as a visiting PhD candidate from the Ocean University of China for 1 year. Coming from physical oceanography my current research focuses on retrieving summer sea ice concentration from passive microwave observations, with a focus on melt ponds.

Intensive and very productive workshop at @esa.int ESRIN in #Frascati 🇮🇹 to write the science plan 📝 for the large, international #AntarcticaInSync initiative! 🤝 More information about Antarctica InSync: www.antarctica-insync.org

Great to get the latest news about the AMSR3 instrument on the recently launched GOSAT-GW #satellite 🛰️, during the JAXA PI meeting last week in #Tokyo. First data was shown and is looking great! 🥳 We are looking forward to make use of the new 183 GHz channels.