I am a journalist and blogger specializing in polar issues since the International Polar Year in 2007. My fascination for ice and snow goes back to my first experiences of hiking in the Alps in the 1970s. Later, as an environment journalist with Deutsche Welle, I had my first opportunity to visit the Arctic in 2007. It was the start of the International Polar Year and, along with other award-winning science and environment colleagues from international broadcasters, I had been invited to make a series of half-hour radio features on the Arctic and the Antarctic. After my first trip to the Ny Alesund scientific research station on Svalbard in 2007, I was hooked on the cryosphere. Since May 2023, I have been Senior Media Advisor to the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative.

When the snow melts on Svalbard1 was my first feature for the series. The years that followed took me back to Svalbard, Greenland and – in 2008 – to Alaska, where my Ice Blog was born. I am fascinated by the fragile beauty of the unique ecosystem, the people who live there, the animals and plants that thrive in the cold. And I am deeply disturbed by the extent to which our behaviour has warmed and goes on warming the planet, endangering the icy regions which play such an important role in regulating the climate all over the globe.

My M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland are in Language and Literature. Translating polar science into formats that appeal to a wider public is my passion. My blog is at www.iceblog.org. The blog posts also appear in RCI Eye on the Arctic. German and French versions of the articles appear on the Swiss online publication Polar Journal.

I can be contacted by email: iceblogger@t-online.de

On Twitter / X: @iceblogger

Website: www.iceblog.org

  1. Program credits: “When the Snow Melts on Svalbard airs as part of Pole to Pole, an international media celebration of the 2007-2009 International Polar Year, produced with support from the National Science Foundation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Deutsche Welle Radio, Radio New Zealand, and the SOUNDPRINT Media Center, INC. ↩︎

Published by Women in the Arctic and Antarctic