News & press 

To offer our journal editors a better service and an improved experience in our online system, we have significantly improved the referee nomination tool in our review system Copernicus Office Editor. Experience more and take a look.

Looking to gain experience and boost your confidence as a referee? Apply for the EGU peer review training, and gain valuable insights into the peer review process. EGU is offering FREE online training in which you'll learn about the role of peer review in the publication process, in addition to review criteria and open peer review, and get hands-on experience in writing reviews. To find out more and apply, visit https://www.egu.eu/news/967/egu-peer-review-training-workshop-apply-now/.

The observed annual maximum landfast ice (LFI) thickness off Zhongshan (Davis) was 1.59±0.17?m (1.64±0.08?m). Larger interannual and local spatial variabilities for the seasonality of LFI were identified at Zhongshan, with the dominant influencing factors of air temperature anomaly, snow atop, local topography and wind regime, and oceanic heat flux. The variability of LFI properties across the study domain prevailed at interannual timescales, over any trend during the recent decades.

In the coming days and weeks, readers of our journals will experience a facelift of our websites. Read more about the background.

Copernicus Publications is delighted to announce a new agreement with the UK-based Jisc (Joint Information Systems Committee) to streamline open-access publishing for their members. Read more.

In a new study published in The Cryosphere, an international team of scientists synthesized multisource data from 2001 to 2018 to explore the spatiotemporal variations of both surface and basal melt/freeze onsets and uncover the mechanism behind them. Read more.

Using high-spatial- and high-temporal-resolution satellite imagery, the authors provide the first evidence for seasonal flow variability of land ice draining to George VI Ice Shelf (GVIIS), Antarctica.

The ETH Domain institutions PSI, Empa, Eawag, WSL and Copernicus Publications have signed an agreement on the central settlement of article processing charges (APCs).

From now on, manuscripts that involve funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) or the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) will benefit from direct settlement of article processing charges (APCs).

How glaciers have responded to climate change over the last 20 years is well-known, but earlier data are much more scarce. The authors change this in Switzerland by using 22,000 photographs taken from mountain tops between the world wars and find a halving of Swiss glacier volume since 1931. This was done through new automated processing techniques that the authors created. The data are interesting for more than just glaciers, such as mapping forest changes, landslides, and human impacts on the terrain.

For the first time, a dramatic retreat of the grounding line of Petermann Glacier, a major glacier of the Greenland Ice Sheet, was detected. Using satellite data, also a speedup of the glacier and a fracturing of the ice shelf was observed. This sequence of events is coherent with ocean warming in this region and suggests that Petermann Glacier has initiated a phase of destabilization, which is of prime importance for the stability and future contribution of the Greenland Ice Sheet to sea level rise

University of Exeter Library and Copernicus Publications have signed an agreement on the central billing of article processing charges (APCs) to facilitate the publication procedure for authors.

The journal metrics 2021 were released and the current numbers are available from the journal metrics overview.

Today the European Geosciences Union and Copernicus Publications are announcing sweeping new changes, that will give our authors the ability to make vital alterations to their names in previously published scientific literature. This new policy will allow authors to retrospectively update previous publications with their current names, including conference abstracts, preprints, and peer-reviewed articles.

This study confirms the presence of microplastics in Antarctic snow, highlighting the extent of plastic pollution globally. Fresh snow was collected from Ross Island, Antarctica, and subsequent analysis identified an average of 29 microplastic particles per litre of melted snow.

EGUsphere, the innovative open-access repository created by the European Geosciences Union and Copernicus Publications, is growing. For the first time, authors will be able to upload preprints to the online resource, taking advantage of EGU’s pioneering public peer-review process, whilst preparing their papers for future release.

At the end of the year, we would like to express our deep gratitude for our collaboration with all editors, referees, and authors in 2021. Please take a look at our Christmas card. Since our virtual office is closed from 23 Dec to 2 Jan and a significant number of editors and referees pause their work over the Christmas days, we extended all journal review deadlines: deadlines expiring shortly before or over Christmas have been extended to the week after and deadlines expiring after Christmas or over New Year have been extended to after New Year’s Day. Season's greetings and a happy New Year. Please stay healthy.

Snow depth data are essential to monitor the impacts of climate change on sea ice volume variations and their impacts on the climate system. For that purpose, the authors present and assess the altimetric snow depth product, computed in both hemispheres from CryoSat-2 and SARAL satellite data.

In April 2021 the EGU Publications Committee launched the first author survey to routinely ask authors about their publishing experience in EGU journals, in order to learn more about how EGU and Copernicus can serve the scientific community with their publications. Over the last 6 months, 160 contact authors answered the survey representing about 10% of the papers published during this time. We are delighted about the positive feedback and thank all authors. Please read the full report.

The journal metrics were updated and the current numbers are available from the journal metrics overview.

Summer sea ice thickness observations based on electromagnetic induction measurements north of Fram Strait show a 20 % reduction in mean and modal ice thickness from 2001–2020. The observed variability is caused by changes in drift speeds and consequential variations in sea ice age and number of freezing-degree days.

Recently, discussions have focused on the difference in limiting the increase in global average temperatures to below 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 °C compared to preindustrial levels. Here, the authors assess the impacts that such different scenarios would have on both the future evolution of glaciers in the European Alps and the water resources they provide.

The authors re-estimate pan-Arctic sea ice thickness (SIT) values by combining data from the Envisat and CryoSat-2 missions with data from a new, reanalysis-driven snow model.

The authors study the creep and fracture behavior of 3 m × 6 m floating edge-cracked rectangular plates of warm columnar freshwater S2 ice under creep/cyclic-recovery loading and monotonic loading to fracture.

The unexpected September 2019 calving event from the Amery Ice Shelf, the largest since 1963 and which occurred almost a decade earlier than expected, was triggered by atmospheric extremes.

The surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet contains thousands of surface lakes. These lakes can deliver water through cracks to the ice sheet base and influence the speed of ice flow. Here the authors look at instances of lakes draining in the middle of winter using the Sentinel-1 radar satellites.

The first Alpine-wide assessment of station snow depth has been enabled by a collaborative effort of the research community which involves more than 30 partners, 6 countries, and more than 2000 stations.

Ice shelves are thick floating layers of glacier ice extending from the glaciers on land that buttress much of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and help to protect it from losing ice to the ocean. However, the stability of ice shelves is vulnerable to meltwater lakes that form on their surfaces during the summer.

Satellite observations are the best method for tracking ice loss, because the cryosphere is vast and remote. Using these, and some numerical models, the authors show that Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes (Tt) of ice since 1994.

The authors present radiative forcing (RF) estimates by snow algae in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) region from multi-year measurements of solar radiation and ground-based hyperspectral characterization of red and green snow algae collected during a brief field expedition in austral summer 2018.

In this paper the authors show that plutonium is an effective tracer to identify ice originating from the early 1960s at the surface of a mountain glacier after a long time within the ice flow, giving unique information on the long-term former ice motion. Combined with ice flow modelling, the dating can be extended to the entire glacier, and the authors show that an airplane which crash-landed on the Gauligletscher in 1946 will likely soon be released from the ice close to the place where pieces have emerged in recent years.

In summer 2018, northwestern Alaska was affected by widespread lake drainage which strongly exceeded previous observations. The authors of this paper analyzed the spatial and temporal patterns with remote sensing observations, weather data and lake-ice simulations. The preceding fall and winter season was the second warmest and wettest on record, causing the destabilization of permafrost and elevated water levels which likely led to widespread and rapid lake drainage during or right after ice breakup.

The topography of the rock below the Greenland ice sheet is not well known. One long valley appears as a line of dips because of incomplete data. So the authors use ice model simulations that unblock this valley, and these create a watercourse that may represent a form of river over 1000 km long under the ice.

As of 1 November 2020 the direct settlement of article processing charges (APCs) between the ETH Zurich and Copernicus Publications will be valid for corresponding authors.

EGU is seeking scientists who want to gain experience in the realm of scientific publishing to pre-screen manuscripts submitted to the Union's new online platform.

An international effort that brought together more than 60 ice, oceanic and atmospheric scientists from 3 dozen international institutions has generated new estimates of how much of an impact Earth's melting ice sheets could have on global sea levels by 2100. If greenhouse gas emissions continue apace, Greenland and Antarctica's ice sheets could together contribute more than 38 centimetres (15 inches) of global sea level rise – and that's beyond the amount that has already been set in motion by Earth's warming climate. These new results, published this week in a special issue of TC, come from the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6) led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Read more.

Newly discovered deep seabed channels beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica may be the pathway for warm ocean water to melt the underside of the ice. Data from two research missions, using aircraft and ship, are helping scientists to understand the contribution this huge and remote glacier is likely to make to future global sea level rise. Two research papers published today in TC describe the discovery.

The New Siberian Islands were the birthplace of the MOSAiC floe: the sea ice in which the research vessel Polarstern is now drifting through the Arctic was formed in December 2018 off the coast of the archipelago, which separates the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea to the north of Siberia. Please read the study that MOSAiC experts have published now in The Cryosphere, and which will provide the basis for numerous upcoming scientific assessments.

The journal metrics were updated and the current numbers are available from the metrics box on the left-hand side.

Gothenburg University Library and Copernicus Publications have signed an agreement on the central billing of article processing charges (APCs) to facilitate the publication procedure for authors.

The Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) will now provide a publication fund for their corresponding authors publishing in Copernicus' open-access journals.

As of 1 September 2019 the direct settlement of article processing charges (APCs) between the Helmholtz Association and Copernicus Publications will be valid for corresponding authors.

The journal metrics were updated and the current numbers are available from the metrics box on the left-hand side.

A video abstract is a short video statement providing authors with the opportunity to present background information about their findings and to showcase their research activities to a wider audience.

New research on how glaciers in the European Alps will fare under a warming climate has come up with concerning results. Under a limited warming scenario, glaciers would lose about two-thirds of their present-day ice volume, while under strong warming, the Alps would be mostly ice free by 2100. The results, now published in The Cryosphere, are presented today (9 April) at the EGU General Assembly 2019 in Vienna, Austria.

14 scientific institutions have joined the national opt-in consortium for the central payment processing of APCs for articles of all journals published by Copernicus Publications.

Iowa State University Library and Copernicus Publications have signed an agreement on the central billing of article processing charges (APCs) to facilitate the publication procedure for authors.

To facilitate the publication procedure for authors from Helsinki University, Copernicus Publications and Helsinki University Library have signed an agreement on a central billing of article processing charges (APCs).

Copernicus Publications recently launched its full-text HTML workflow and optimized the TC website for mobile devices. Thereby, the user experience is significantly enhanced when reading TC articles.

Data underpinning any research finding should be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) - not only for humans, but also for machines. Therefore, Copernicus Publications requests that such data are available upon publication of an article.

Targeted engineering projects to hold off glacier melting could slow down the collapse of ice sheets and limit sea-level rise, according to a new study published in TC. While an intervention similar in size to existing large civil engineering projects could only have a 30% chance of success, a larger project would have better odds of holding off ice-sheet collapse. But study authors Michael Wolovick and John Moore caution that reducing emissions still remains key to stopping climate change and its dramatic effects.

An international team of scientists has shown how much sea level would rise if Larsen C and George VI, two Antarctic ice shelves at risk of collapse, were to break up. The research is published today in TC.

The latest Journal Citation Reports® have been published by Clarivate Analytics.

With Hilmar Gudmundsson one of the last editors from the early days of the journal is now stepping down. We are delighted to welcome his successor Christian Haas, who is an expert in sea ice physics and has been a TC topical editor for several years.

As of 1 May 2018 the centralized payment of article processing charges (APCs) with the Leibniz Association has been extended to 53 Leibniz Institutions participating in the Leibniz Association's Open Access Publishing Fund.

From 1 January 2018 The Cryosphere (TC) will slightly increase the article processing charges.

As of November 2017, Stephan Gruber, one of our first editors, will retire from his position as co-editor-in-chief. At the same time, we are delighted to welcome Christian Hauck as a new co-editor-in-chief.

Authors from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) will profit from a new institutional agreement with Copernicus Publications starting 23 August 2017. The agreement which is valid for the first author enables a direct settlement of article processing charges (APCs) between the PIK and the publisher.

The updated publication policy now is extended by the journal's open access statement, its archiving and indexing scheme, and explicit policies on corrections and retractions.

The general obligations for editors, referees, and authors have been revised to give advice for the appropriate handling of literature suggestions.

Clarivate Analytics has published the latest Journal Citation Reports®.

From 6 June onwards, all newly submitted articles, if accepted for publication, will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

To make it as easy as possible for users without technical knowledge to cut and paste or click to share DOIs, CrossRef has changed the display and citation guidelines for DOIs from "doi:10.5194/abcd" to "https://doi.org/10.5194/abcd".

Since early 2016, Copernicus Publications has been enabling authors to connect their articles with underlying or related material such as research data, model code, or scientific videos. To enhance reproducibility it is now also possible to include International Geo Sample Numbers (IGSNs) as assets.

In 2016, the 17 EGU–Copernicus peer-reviewed open-access journals experienced significant growth. We published over 3300 final-revised papers, corresponding to some 53,500 pages, a growth of about 10% compared to the previous year. These papers were downloaded over 645,000 times.

Ten years back, cryosphere-related papers were scattered through EGU publications, while at the same time the cryosphere programme at EGU was rapidly growing. Jonathan Bamber undertook a survey of the community and on the basis of this convinced EGU to launch The Cryosphere. Please celebrate with us the 10th anniversary of TC during an evening reception, open to all, at the EGU General Assembly 2017 in Vienna, taking place in room G2 (Brown Level - Basement), Thursday, 27th April, 19:00.

Jonathan Bamber and Michiel van den Broeke, two of the founding editors of TC, stepped down from their functions as co-editors-in-chief. Please read TC's farewell letter.

A study published today in The Cryosphere shows bare Alpine slopes could be a much more common sight in the future.

Recently we have become aware of a case of scientific malpractice by an editor of two of our journals (SOIL and SE) who used the position as editor and reviewer to disproportionately promote citations to personal papers and associated journals. Please read the published editorial.

Authors from the Technical University Darmstadt will profit from a new institutional agreement with Copernicus Publications starting 1 January 2017. The agreement which is valid for corresponding authors enables a direct settlement of article processing charges (APCs) between the university and the publisher.

As of 1 January 2017 the direct settlement of article processing charges (APCs) between the Max Planck Digital Library and Copernicus Publications will be valid for corresponding authors.

The study, published in The Cryosphere, suggests Antarctic sea ice is much less sensitive to the effects of climate change than that of the Arctic, which in stark contrast has experienced a dramatic decline during the 20th century.

A new study published in The Cryosphere has found that Bolivian glaciers shrunk by 43% between 1986 and 2014, and will continue to diminish if temperatures in the region continue to increase.

A new study by University of Washington researchers, funded by NASA, finds a trend toward earlier sea ice melt in the spring and later ice growth in the autumn across all 19 polar bear populations, which can negatively impact the feeding and breeding capabilities of the bears.

Copernicus Publications has extended the article level metrics (ALMs) by showing the geographical distribution of views. This information is available for articles published after 3 August 2016.

Copernicus Publications and the Leibniz Association have agreed on a central billing of article processing charges (APCs) to facilitate the publication procedure for authors. So far three Leibniz institutes are participating in this agreement.

Ski mountaineer Kit DesLauriers joined forces with glaciologist Matt Nolan to settle a debate of more than 50 years, while testing a new, affordable mapping technique in a steep mountainous region.

Copernicus Publications and the Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB) in Hanover, Germany have signed an agreement on central billing of article processing charges.

We have summarized the upcoming changes to TC by the end of the year.

Glaciologist Frank Paul has created animations from satellite images of the Karakoram mountain range in Asia to show how its glaciers flow and change.

In cooperation with the TIB|AV-Portal TC authors can now add short, citable video abstracts and video supplements to their articles.

From January 2016 onwards, TC will see changes to the way papers are archived and paid for.

A new international study is the first to use a high-resolution, large-scale computer model to estimate how much ice the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could lose over the next couple of centuries.

The Potsdam University Library and Copernicus Publications have signed an agreement on direct settlement of article processing charges (APCs).

We have updated our data policy: it now also refers to the Data Citation Principles and stresses the necessity of data availability.

The Cryosphere (TC) has received the new DOAJ Seal which recognizes journals with an exceptionally high level of publishing standards and best practice.

Thomson Reuters has published the latest Journal Citation Reports®. We are delighted to announce that the Impact Factor for The Cryosphere (TC) has risen in 2014. Congratulations!

Our Twitter account @EGU_TC has been launched to increase visibility for TC's articles and discussions, share journal-related news and offer an additional way of contacting us.

The Cryosphere (TC) has become a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and thereby subscribes to the principles of COPE.

The TC website has been given a new look, and the navigation has been adjusted. Further details:

In order to further promote open access, the TU Delft Library has transferred a budget to Copernicus to be used by its scientists in 2015.

Copernicus Publications and the University Library of the Technical University Munich (TUM) have agreed on central billing of article processing charges.

From 01 January 2015 The Cryosphere (TC) will slightly increase the article processing charges.

The Cryosphere (TC) has started an XML-first workflow and will provide all new articles in full-text XML from now on.

The ETH-Bibliothek (the central university library for ETH Zurich) and Copernicus Publications have signed an agreement on central billing of article processing charges.

The University of Bremen has now signed an agreement with Copernicus Publications about the central billing of article processing charges.

TC has introduced transparent post-discussion review.

Obituary.

Article level metrics (ALM) provide an alternative means of assessing the impact of a paper compared to the more familiar citation indices.

Article level metrics (ALMs) comprise a set of easy-to-understand real-time impact indicators that track how an article is read, discussed, or cited.

TC has implemented publication ethics in order to guarantee high scientific and ethical standards.

TC has just published its new data policy.

After receiving the first Impact Factor for 2010, TC will rise the service charges from 01 January 2012.

We are delighted to announce the first impact factor for The Cryosphere (TC).

Recently indexed in Thomson Reuters Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), TC will introduce service charges from manuscripts submitted from 01 January 2011.

The European Geosciences Union has published a position statement to clarify the definition and standing of discussion papers published in the interactive open access journals.

We are delighted to announce that Thomson Reuters will be including TC in their ISI listings.