Melaine Le Roy
banner
subfossilguy.bsky.social
Melaine Le Roy
@subfossilguy.bsky.social
Assiduous dendroglaciologist, moraine lover, wandering geomorphologist, living in the Holocene, climate (and eco-) anxious, @edytem.bsky.social
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Melaine-Le-Roy-2?ev=hdr_xprf
Pinned
Aletsch Glacier forefield is so gigantic that fieldwork is demanding there!
Today was maybe one of the hardest working day ever...
Took me 3h40 to get back to Belalp with 40kg (rope, chainsaw, wood)... 😫
This is the largest known retrogressive thaw slump in the world (Yakutia)! 🧊🔥

It exposes a remarkable sequence of Ice Age permafrost that record interaction of colluvial/eolian/periglacial processes on a hillslope episodically forested during last 650 ka! 😲

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
November 30, 2025 at 10:20 PM
A giant low angle glacier detachment (40 M m3) occurred on 1st Nov. 2022 in the remote Kunlun range (Tibet, 90.869° E, 35.969° N) and was discovered only 2 years later! 😲🧊🌊

Before collapsing the glacier reached speeds of up to 46 m/day! ⚡️

Must read! 🔥

www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-5...
November 30, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Drone footage of the Blatten deposit shot on 12th November! 😲

🎥 epfl_lhe_lab
November 29, 2025 at 7:15 PM
The A294 cave contains the world’s known oldest firn cave deposit, 6100 year old! 🧊🦇

Ice stratigraphy suggests unprecedented melting conditions since ice began to form! 🔥
'We encourage the scientific community to study these archives before they are lost forever'

tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/...
Unprecedent cave ice melt in the last 6100 years in the Central Pyrenees (A294 ice cave)
Abstract. Ice caves are understudied environments within the cryosphere, hosting unique ice deposits valuable for paleoclimate studies. Recently, many of these deposits have experienced accelerated re...
tc.copernicus.org
November 29, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Dreamy snowscape from the slopes of Mont Buet (3,096 m asl) towards Aiguille Verte, Grandes Jorasses and Mont Blanc today! 🏔️🤩

📷 @lomdumtblanc.bsky.social 🙏
November 29, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Yes, there are conifers in Greenland! 🌲

500 yr-long Juniperus tree ring-based temperature reconstruction with oldest living shrub 367 yo! 💪

Striking here: 1/3 of corpus is from archive (collected end of 19th c)
Highlights importance of reanalysing old samples using modern analytical techniques! 👏
November 29, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Impressive rock avalanche on the Dent de Crolles (2062 m asl) in the Chartreuse Massif, French Prealps yesterday 😲

Release area ~1800 m asl

📷 Sylvain Thiabaud
November 29, 2025 at 10:46 AM
A serac broke off high on the steep Ultar Glacier and the avalanche reached the Hunza Valley, covering Karimabad and surroundings with snow and dust! 🧊❄️😱

Ultar Sar (7,388 m) is the peak at the background right! 🏔️

🎥 karimiehunzai
November 27, 2025 at 11:16 AM
I just tree ring dated this large stone pine cookie sampled in 2024 below the Argentière Glacier lateral moraine 🌲💍

It dates the Bronze Age Advance Period of this glacier to 1553+ BCE, which is conform to other calendar dates we have in the Alps at ~1550-1540 BCE (Mer de Glace and Gepatsch) 🧊⏱️
November 26, 2025 at 7:47 PM
The disappearance of the winter kingdom! 🧊❄️

Number of days without thaw in Zurich since 1882 🥶

20th century average: ~30
1963: 56 ! 📉
2025: 4 ! 📈

Via Simon Scherrer
Data @meteoschweiz.ch
November 26, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Striking animation showing the magnitude of glacier collapse since ca 1900 in the Alps! 🧊🔥

All the retreat you see here is caused by human activity, and it will only stop when the last cubic metre of ice has melted! 📈💧

📷 Photos: @glacionaut
🎥 AI Animation: @flashologo
November 26, 2025 at 11:17 AM
The symbol of Juneau (Alaska), #Mendenhall Glacier has officially receded from the lake this november! 🧊🔥

After more than a century of calving, it is now entirely grounded!

The ice was still abutting the rocky outcrop from where the first pic is taken only 5 yrs ago!

www.ktoo.org/2025/11/25/m...
November 26, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Tree rings are amazing! 🌲💍🥰

Here is a 600 yr-old Siberian pine cross section showing no less that 7 scars on the tree side facing the rock cliff upstream! 🔥

All the scars are dated to the year (or season) and are used to build chronicles of different hillslope processes! 📅
1/
November 24, 2025 at 9:49 PM
'Zermatt et le Mont Cervin'
Adolphe Braun
c. 1860

Absolutely gorgeous early view of this iconic landscape! 🏔️

The Matterhorn seems to float above a still wintery scenery - five years before its first ascent! ❄️
November 24, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Iran is undoubtedly one of the mid/low-latitudes regions that is warming the most! 🔥📈

Unbelievable anomalies... +2°C since the 1960s! 😱

As a result Damavand (5609 m asl) was snow free for 1st time this summer and chronic drought is threatening millions of people! 💧

Graph: @rarohde.bsky.social
November 24, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Ivory Glacier (NZ)
1980 | 2025

This small glacier within the high-precipitation (~10 m) maritime Westland was monitored for mass balance btw 1969 and 1975, and is almost extinct now! ✝️🧊🔥

Proglacial lake began to form early 1960s 🌊

📷 D. Norton
1/
November 23, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Franz Josef Glacier - Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere
ca 1867 | 2022

Impressive comparison between the first known photograph taken of one of the most iconic NZ glaciers and current situation! 🧊🔥

The rock on the right is Sentinel Rock, one of the roches moutonnées in the glacier forefield
1/
November 23, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Franz Josef Glacier
2022 | 2024

Rapid demise of the tongue of one of the most iconic glacier in NZ! 🧊😱

The 'Black Hole' that appeared in the early 2000s is no longer surrounded by ice... 🔥

The last advance of this glacier (1983-2008) is now just a very distant memory! 😰

📷 D. Norton
November 23, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Incredible timelapse showing the retreat of Franz Joseph Glacier (NZ) over only 7 years (2012-2019)! 🧊🔥

The ice flow velocity (up to 2 m/day!) combined with the incredible rate of retreat of the front (900 m over this period!) is simply mind-boggling! 🤪

📽️ Brian Anderson

vimeo.com/443262699?fl...
Franz Josef Glacier retreats 900 metres
A timelapse camera, installed in 2012, records the retreat of Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere. Until 2019 the glacier retreated about 900 m. These…
vimeo.com
November 23, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Over the past year, France has experienced 278 days above the norm! 🔥📈
With lengthy heatwaves between +5 and +10°C! 🥵

And some people will say that ONE DAY at -5.6°C below the norm will balance everything out! 🤡
November 23, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Rock glaciers (creeping bodies made of a mixture of scree and interstitial ice), flow at lower speed than glaciers, typically few dm/yr 🧊

Here are 8 yrs of RG surface change on the Dos Lenguas RG (Dry Argentinean Andes), at 11 cm resolution!! 💪

Data: Melanie Stammler 🙏
1/
November 21, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Superb aerial footage of Zanskar mountains (Ladakh, India)! 🤩

The accumulation area of the mighty Drang Drung glacier (largest gl. in Zanskar with ~70 km²) is visible at foreground 🧊

Nun-Kun massif (7,135 m) in the distance! 🏔️🏔️

Nanga Parbat (8,126 m) on the horizon!

Via @Kyangs_Thang 🙏
November 20, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Iran is facing its worst drought since at least six decades! 😱🔥💧

As a result the iconic Damavand (5,609 m asl), Iran's highest peak, was snow-free at mid-autumn, which appears to be unprecedented! ❄️😰

This stratovolcano had a 3.4 km ice cover in 2002... likely gone today! 🧊 📈

📽️ @IranIntl_En
November 20, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Cerro Kruger and Monte Steffen (3,300 m background) and the front of Glaciar Mellizo Sur, 3 weeks ago (Bernardo Ohiggins NP, Chile)! 🧊🏔️🤩

Bring me there please! 🥰

Via PatagoniaVertical / IG
November 20, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Imagine,

Passing in front of Morteratsch Glacier in the 1860s like Adolphe Braun here... 🧊 📷

At that time, it was at its Little Ice Age maximum extent!

Imagine that no AGW has occurred since then 🏭

The glacier would not have lost 3.3 km, but likely only one third... 📉

Imagine! 🥰
November 19, 2025 at 7:42 PM