Seeing Blue During Schirmacher’s Summer Melt Season – NASA Science

Summer is a busy season at Schirmacher Oasis, an ice-free rocky outcrop on Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica. It is near the base of the Nivlisen Ice Shelf and about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the open waters of the Lazarev Sea, the country’s “oasis” in the middle of a continuous glacier is home to many small ice-covered lakes and two research stations.

That’s when snowy egrets are sometimes seen soaring above the water, and polar skua and Wilson’s storm petrel chicks nest in sheltered nests on the cliffs and cliffs. Under constant sunlight, the plateau’s lakes come to life, supporting the growth of cyanobacteria and teeming with microscopic organisms called tardigrades, rotifers and nematodes. Sometimes, groups of Adélie penguins go into the water and try to give birth.

The summer months are also when temperatures rise above freezing long enough for the extensive network of seasonal melt ponds and water channels in and around the glacier to fill with blue meltwater that flows north and across the Nivlisen Ice Shelf. The satellite image above shows the melt on January 6, 2026, during the peak of the 2026 melt season.

The Nivlisen Ice Shelf is a floating tongue that is formed when an ice sheet flows from Antarctica and into the waters of the Lazarev Sea. Most of the blue ice areas found surrounded by snow are snow-free areas where old, compressed ice with few air bubbles has been exposed by strong katabatic winds and sublimation. This dense ice absorbs red wavelengths of light and reflects blue wavelengths, making it appear blue. Areas of blue ice are rare in Antarctica, covering about 1 percent of the continent’s surface.

“The image captures the Nivlisen Ice Shelf during a period of intense, extensive hydrological convergence,” said Geetha Priya Murugesan, a remote sensing scientist at the Center for Incubation, Innovation, Research and Consultancy (CIIRC) and the Jyothy Institute of Technology in Bengaluru, India. Such features are not always visible in optical satellite images, he added, noting that they are often frozen, covered by snow, or wet. “This image is notable because the ‘cerulean streaks’ we see on the surface are consistent with a deep, stable water system that we monitor with radar.”

Murugesan and colleagues analyzed decades of satellite data and conducted field research in the area for several years, including 2026. Their work shows that since 2000, surface melting caused by seasonal melt ponds and channels on the ice shelf has increased in depth, area and volume. The depth and size of the melting parts increased by a factor of 1.5, while their area increased by a factor of 1.2.

Murugesan thinks that the appearance of drainage networks in images like these suggest a serious vulnerability of the ice shelf. The drainage channels follow existing structural weaknesses, including crevasses, which act as “hydraulic channels” that direct meltwater to vulnerable areas near the foundation’s edge, where it can weaken the ice shelf, Murugesan said.

Researchers have also linked periods of peak melt like this to atmospheric rivers and foehn winds that enhance surface melting and help transport meltwater into the water network. The color is dark–low albedo–of the many blue-glacier areas surrounding the oasis contribute to water events by making the ice less reflective, warmer, and thus more likely to melt in the summer, Murugesan added.

While Murugesan and colleagues are conducting a detailed analysis of the 2026 melt season to see how it compares to previous years, he said it appears to be “an intense melting event consistent with high melting levels.”

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the US Geological Survey. The story of Adam Voiland.

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