by Ben Johnson

PhD student at Bristol University and POLARIN Ambassador for the “GLASS” project.

In summer 2025, scientists from the University of Bristol travelled to northern Sweden to study life on glacier surfaces as part of the GLASS (Glacier Algal Sampling Strategies) project, funded by POLARIN’s first call for Transnational Access to Research Infrastructures.

Working from Tarfala Research Station, the team followed microscopic glacier algae on Storglaciären through the melt season. In July, a short Scandinavian heatwave briefly accelerated snowmelt around the research station, revealing colourful algal blooms in nearby snowpacks. By August, much of the glacier surface was exposed, allowing detailed sampling and drone surveys to capture the bloom at its peak. The final visit in September documented how these algal communities changed as the melt season came to an end. Together, the work helps improve understanding of how blooms are structured across ice surfaces and how they should sampled for more representative upscaling to satellite imagery, needed to monitor biological activity across the cryosphere in a warming climate.

Read more in the GLASS fieldwork blog by Ben Johnson, PhD student at Bristol University and POLARIN Ambassador for the GLASS project.

GLASS  was one of the projects successfully selected through POLARIN’s first call.