I have set of EGU contributions this year - hope to see many of you next week in Vienna! www.linkedin.com/posts/willia...

Tomorrow, the governing body - Court - of the University of Aberdeen will decide whether to proceed with management proposals that will place over 125 FTE jobs at risk, increase staff-student ratios to 1:20 for STEM & 1:25 for SHAPE, and restructure from 12 schools to 4 faculties.

Ulvebreen (Svalbard) Fieldwork I have been in Svalbard for the last couple of weeks helping a team led by Whyjay Zheng ( install a set of GNSS stations on Ulvebreen in eastern Svalbard. Ulvebreen is a surge-type glacier, currently in its quiescent phase and last surged around 1900 i.e. over 100…

It’s the world day of glaciers - here, I give some brief thoughts on their importance to the world and us as humans.

Glaciers hold vital records of our planet’s past and play a key role in shaping its future. As they continue to change, so too does the world around us. They hold huge reserves of freshwater and help sustain communities around the world. 1/2

New review of surging glaciers in Svalbard! I am pleased to share our new paper in which we review the current distribution of surging glaciers in Svalbard! Published in Earth Science Reviews, you can find the full paper here: The surging Borebreen in 2024. In this review, we analyse the methods…

SvalbardDT at ESA Workshop So much has been happening that I have not had a chance to keep up with posts on this website! You'll be seeing updates very soon... Let's start with the most recent - this week, SvalbardDT attended the ESA Digital Twin Earth Components: Open Science Meeting 2026' in…

Some downtime to enjoy the snow - Longyearbreen behind!

Back in the frozen north - Svalbard with more than a sprinkling of snow!

New paper out in Journal of Glaciology! We have a new paper out! Work with Leigh Stearns, Michael Shahin, and Sid Shankar studying the potential of new ICEYE SAR satellite imagery to study the dynamic behaviour of ice mélange around the margins of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The higher resolution…

We have a new paper out! Work with @leighstearns.bsky.social, @laserglaciers.bsky.social, and Sid Shankar studying the potential of new ICEYE SAR satellite imagery to study the dynamic behaviour of ice mélange around the margins of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Read more here: tinyurl.com/mtc94juu

Applications are now open for a Glasgow-based Iapetus DTP project centred on using in situ 14C to study glacier histories in East Antarctica! tinyurl.com/3ddvynn2 @stever60.bsky.social @uofglasgow.bsky.social @iapetusdtp.bsky.social @bas.ac.uk

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

A challenging field season this year, with some unprecedented issues with the local gasoline supply (lnss.no/oppdatering-...)! Nonetheless, we still managed to continue our monitoring of Borebreen's surge, which is currently advancing through the fjord and showing no signs of stopping...

Back in my favourite place, Svalbard!

I am extremely happy to see my colleague Brice Rea be appointed as the next director of @scotsages.bsky.social! I am looking forward to seeing SAGES continue to flourish in the years to come!

📢 Leadership Update from SAGES!🌍 We’re thrilled to announce that Professor Brice Rea from the University of Aberdeen has been appointed as the new Director of SAGES, taking over in July 2025.

Shocking scenes following the disintegration and collapse of the Birch Glacier. A stark example of the evolving nature of cryospheric hazards under rapid warming and deglaciation in mountain regions. Monitoring and early evacuation prevented a bigger human impact here. www.bbc.com/news/article...

The 2025 SAGES Annual Science Meeting in Stirling has been great! Thanks so all who came along and presented. It's been a wonderful two days in Stirling.

Another great @scotsages.bsky.social conference - a wonderful community producing great science!

EGU Contributions! Next week we will be at EGU in Vienna presenting some of our teams exciting new research! Please come and talk to us: Poster #1 🧊 The distribution of glacier surge behaviour in Svalbard and implications for understanding unstable ice flow📅 Poster | Monday, 28 Apr, 10:45–12:30…

Next week I will be at EGU in Vienna presenting some of our teams exciting new research - please come and talk to us! Here's a flavour of what we will be offering this year:

New paper on using the internal GPS data from seismometers to track ice flow! Great work by Wojciech Gajek, also inc. @adrianluckman.bsky.social @dannipearce.bsky.social & Richard Hann First paper on the Borebreen surge, watch this space for more coming soon… www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Blue sky over #UnitedKingdom! The spring almost cloudfree #Copernicus #Sentinel3 images collected on April 2nd shows green field and awesome shades of Ocean colours surrounding the islands. #Ireland #England #Scotland #Wales #UKweather @giuliofirenze.bsky.social @eumetsat.int

Happy #WorldDayforGlaciers! 🧊🧊 I will forever be captivated by these natural beauties.

New ESA Project! We are pleased to share our new project that officially kicked off in 2025: 'Svalbard Cryosphere Digital Twin (SvalbardDT)'. Website here: The SvalbardDT project will build a Digital Twin Component (DTC) as part of the European Space Agency’s (ESAs) Destination Earth (DestinE)…

Running along the beach in Aberdeen this morning with the wind and rain battering down. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I must say I kind of enjoy it!

We are at the ESA Digital Twin workshop - great to be a part of the Destination Earth initiative!

Hear about how AI and other new technologies are set to transform climate research and build a sustainable future in Scotland and further afield! I was delighted to participate in this episode of the magnificent @scotsages.bsky.social Climate Podcast! youtu.be/1odPOyrwpWo?...

New to Bluesky? Interested in the Arctic and Antarctic? A good starting point is: go.bsky.app/7RL1i9C

Matteo Spagnolo gives an address at the launch of the @scotsages.bsky.social Climate Podcast!

🚨🚨 Fully-funded PhD Opportunity 🚨🚨 "Assessing the impact of glacier surges on 21st century ice mass loss in Svalbard using satellite remote sensing, climate reanalysis and modelling" Link: tinyurl.com/4we3km3m Apply: quartiles-dla.ac.uk/how-to-apply... Interested? Get in touch!

Our podcast is out on 21st Jan - hear all about how new technologies are helping us better understand climate change and sustainable water management!

Welcome to Bluesky @mathieu-ice.bsky.social! I've taken the liberty of adding you to the #Glaciology starter pack - check it out if you want to find the rest of the community! go.bsky.app/EQnch6n

Really looking forward to seeing all the episodes from this podcast! Hosted by the amazing Laura Young, the @ScotSAGES podcast covers a diverse range of topics relating to climate change in Scotland and beyond. I will talk about the technologies of the future! Coming out 21st Jan!

Our PhD student Steven Wallace presented a great paper on crevasse segmentation using SAM at the Northern Lights Deep Learning (NLDL) conference "Exploring Segment Anything Foundation Models for Out of Domain Crevasse Drone Image Segmentation" Paper: openreview.net/pdf?id=CGkyj...

The approach of 'it can wait until the new year' is starting to bite hard...

Crisp winters morning here in Aberdeen; the old campus is looking stunning in the dim light!

New paper on snow in Scotland! Happy new year and with it brings a new paper published in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing entitled: "Spatial and temporal variations in 94 GHz radar backscatter from a springtime snowpack". You can access the paper…

Join me and the polar team here in UCL Earth Sciences + Met Office on an exciting CASE studentship looking at Leveraging Machine Learning algorithms for improved Arctic sea-ice prediction using the Met Office suite of models ❄️ + 💻 +🛰️ www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/lev...

Snow has made its way to Aberdeen. Cycling was interesting this morning...

Very excited to see so many new folk in BlueSky! To reintroduce myself: I love glaciers, digital twins, the Arctic, and satellites! You will find me in Aberdeen most of the year, then quite often Svalbard in spring/summer. Happy to meet new and old friends here!

A reminder that the deadline to apply for our exciting PDRF position is 18th November! Please get in touch if you are thinking of applying! Details below

I suddenly have a lot more followers, I take it there’s a mass twitter exodus?

A reminder to consider applying for our PDRF position on digital twins, details below. Deadline: 18th November!

Fully-funded PhD position available on the cultural evolution of tea! With me, Sabine Parrish, and David Burslem at the University of Aberdeen (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿), come combine anthropology and biology to think about why people drink tea and how that may change in the future. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

We are advertising for a 12-month Postdoctoral Research Fellow (PDRF) to work on the development of a digital twin of Svalbard's cryosphere. This is part of ESA's Destination Earth (DestinE). Details: abdn.ac.uk/jobs/vacanci... Please get in touch if you're interested!

Myself and Aiden Durrant had a great time visiting @3dgeohd.bsky.social @bernhardhofle.bsky.social discussing digital twins, TLS, points clouds and new applications of AI. Exciting work to come!

A neat video summarizing the mysterious seismic signal that was measured across the world and originated in East Greenland! Paper: www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.... Video: youtu.be/gAPrvC-sc38?...