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James Lea

@jamesmlea.bsky.social
1.6K followers 585 following 104 posts

Glaciological magpie. Ice, mud and satellite botherer at Liverpool Uni. He/him ❄️🛰️🏳️‍🌈

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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Not used it in a while, but Planet imagery might be worth a look (2-5m resolution). There's a free quota for academic/education use, but not sure how pricey they are for commercial rates! www.planet.com
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Planet Satellite Imaging | Planet
Discover how Planet's daily satellite imagery and insights empower global decisions and actions with a multidimensional view of our changing planet.
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
GEEDiT helping understand how emperor penguins will respond to climate change! Really cool study by @geogeordie.bsky.social out now in Antarctic Science 🐧🐧🐧
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Awesome stuff. Let me know if you run into anything (hoping it's fairly bombproof though!). Pints at EGU of you're going?
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
As ever, if something is misbehaving do email me to let me know!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
New year, new data for GEEClimT and all your climate reanalysis needs! Now giving easy access to: - ERA5 Hourly (1940-present, 292 variables!) - New *Palaeoclimate* datasets (back to 800k BP!) - 27 other climate and ocean datasets (>400Tb of data!) Links and user guide: github.com/jmlea16/GEEC...
Picture of the GEEClimT user interface
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
🚨POSTDOC JOB ALERT🚨 We have an exciting opportunity for a 2 year postdoc on remote sensing of icebergs and marine terminating glaciers. See the link below for more info! Please spread widely, and feel free to email me with any Q's :) tinyurl.com/2jjcmea9
Photo of a marine terminating glacier in Greenland with icebergs in front of it
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Geography at Durham @geogdurham.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Great work by our colleagues Stewart Jamieson and Guy Paxman: "We have been using satellite data to map an ancient river landscape beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet:. The landscape has been frozen in time for up to 34 million years." ⚒️🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Extensive fluvial surfaces at the East Antarctic margin have modulated ice-sheet evolution - Nature Geoscience
Extensive flat surfaces observed beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet margin were formed by fluvial erosion and have modulated the ice-sheet response to climate change, according to an analysis of rad...
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Harold Lovell @hazlovell.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Inspired by many, many viewings with my kids, I wrote something for @uk.theconversation.com that imagines how the Arendelle glacier in Disney's Frozen might look after 200 years of climate change: theconversation.com/frozen-thawe...
theconversation.com
Frozen, thawed: how Arendelle’s glacier would fare under modern climate change
A glaciologist investigates a Disney classic.
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Billy Armstrong @app-glaciers.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Excited that Noah Caldwell's work is officially out in @igsoc.bsky.social Journal of Glaciology! Noah used satellite remote sensing to estimate how much ice is being lost to iceberg calving and subaqueous melt on 55 Alaska lake-terminating glaciers. Read more: doi.org/10.1017/jog....
Schematic illustrating estimation of frontal ablation on lake-terminating glaciers
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Not the bio from #wikipedia I was expecting of new #pope...
Wikipedia page giving the entire biography of the new pope as "poopbutt"
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Finished Danish Duolingo! Slightly disappointed the owl seems indifferent, though to be fair I did systematically skip all the spoken exercises after resigning myself to never getting the pronunciation right 😅
Screenshot showing all levels completed of Danish Duolingo!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Anyone interested this afternoon should head along to 1.34 at 15:30 meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/EGU25-...
meetingorganizer.copernicus.org
Abstract EGU25-12214
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Unfortunately not at EGU as planned this year, but Steve Brough is stepping in for me this afternoon to tell you how many glaciers globally have disappeared or fragmented since 2000. CW: it's a *lot*
Title slide of presentation
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Penny How @snowhow.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
I should probably re-introduce myself here to new and old connections… - Hi my name is Penny and I am a data scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland 🇬🇱 🇩🇰 - I have a Ph.D. in glaciology but have moved away from academia a little with my data scientist role ❄️
Penny in Iceland last week. She is taking a selfie on Sólheimajökull, wearing a helmet, sunglasses, and gear for being on a glacier and learning some rescue training. It is very sunny and warm, so smiles all round!
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Movies Silently @moviessilently.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
Please enjoy a moment of Norwegian-Penguin diplomacy taken during Roald Amundsen's successful attempt to reach the South Pole.
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Well worth a read for all glacios, and that Karl Schimper (amongst others) should be much better known!
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Christopher Darvill @chrisdarvill.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Job Alert! Permanent Lecturer in Physical Geography (Teaching & Research), specialising in peatland science. Come join our Department of Geography at The University of Manchester! Deadline 27 March 2025 www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
jobs.manchester.ac.uk
Lecturer in Physical Geography :Oxford Road
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Bethan Davies @iceybethan.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
28 people have added their names already. If you'd like to join us in solidarity and to emphasise the importance of EDI in polar science, then let me know. www.antarcticglaciers.org/2025/02/pola...
antarcticglaciers.org
Polar science needs diversity - AntarcticGlaciers.org
We write in solidarity with our colleagues in the USA and internationally, who are suffering as efforts to increase equality, diversity and inclusion are systematically eroded and destroyed. It is imp...
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Tom Chudley @tomchudley.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Our new paper is out in Nature Geoscience! In an ice-sheet-wide 3-D inventory of crevasses in 2016 and 2021, we find that crevasses are growing in response to ice acceleration on short timescales. @durham-university.bsky.social @byrdpolar.bsky.social @leverhulme.bsky.social
nature.com
Increased crevassing across accelerating Greenland Ice Sheet margins - Nature Geoscience
Greenland-wide observations of crevasse volume and distribution suggest substantial increases in crevassing between 2016 and 2021 at marine-terminating sectors with accelerating ice flow.
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
No aurora flying south from Tromsø, though did manage to get a slightly shaky photo of Venus and Mars just above the Manchester clouds
Photo from an aeroplane window of Venus (top left) and Mars (bottom right) above clouds illuminated from below by the lights of Manchester
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
Looks like my flight to Oslo picked up the jet stream on way across the North Sea. According to @flightradar24.com we hit about 930kph!
Screenshot of flight radar website showing Manchester to Oslo flight with a top ground speed of 504 knots!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Just implemented a bug fix highlighted by a GEECE user that was stopping them generating a daily resolution CMIP6 ensemble. Periodic reminder to let me know when things don't work and I'll fix them!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
As someone who's supported Liverpool and Blackpool since childhood I'm all too familiar with his pain 😅
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
Ah, my commiserations to Arthur 😉
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
Can't we all just let Liverpool win the league, hope City get stripped of their titles, and get behind Man United getting relegated?
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
What's with the Liverpool hating?!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Congrats Ellyn! Excellent news and super well deserved! 😁🎉🥳
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Will keep an eye out!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Which channel?!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Still mispronounces Poulton with their East Lancs shenanigans! *shakes fist in the general direction of Accrington*
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
🤣
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
each brief foray I've made into it (with the very patient help of colleagues) has really highlighted how diverse and interesting this corner of history is, and how you really can't just lump "The Vikings" altogether into a single group or period of time. [3/3]
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
As someone who's occasionally worked very much on the edges of this field during my work in Greenland I claim practically zero expertise on this. However... [2/3]
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
"The Vikings" might not be what you think they are... Really nice (and accessibly written) piece on why "The Viking Age" may only be historically useful as a term if you're looking at English history, and applying it more broadly doesn't make sense. [1/3]
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Bethan Davies @iceybethan.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
I’m thrilled to bits to have been awarded the Richardson Medal by @igsoc.bsky.social. Thanks so much to all my wonderful colleagues and especially to those who nominated me! You’re all so kind. www.igsoc.org/about/awards...
igsoc.org
Bethan Davies (2024) | IGS
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
Super happy to say congratulations to @iceybethan.bsky.social on being awarded the @igsoc.bsky.social Richardson Medal! Hugely well deserved and really couldn't have happened to a nicer person 🥳🥳🥳 www.igsoc.org/about/awards...
igsoc.org
Bethan Davies (2024) | IGS
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
[aware you might hate me for this 😅]
Kevin Keegan with a perm
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Á la Kevin...?
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Last week before Christmas - perfect time to come down with flu 🤒😭
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
They're easy (though extremely messy) to make though not sure how easy it'll be to get all the ingredients!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
Chokoladbollar!
Tub of Swedish style chokoladbollar rolled in coconut. Slight misjudgment of ingredients means now have excellent problem of 5 boxes to get through!
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Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
TIL that you do occasionally get TWELVE-sided snowflakes, when two six-sided ones collide in the right way and stick together. They seem to stick at a suspiciously perfect angle! Photos from Ken Libbrecht's brilliant website here: www.snowcrystals.com...
Two twelve-sided snowflakes
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
ScotRail have much better views
View of the road bridges over the Forth taken from the Forth Rail Bridge
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Looks like I've drawn the Avanti "window seat" sort straw again
Solid wall on a train where there should be a window
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Harold Lovell @hazlovell.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Two glacier-themed PhD projects available at the University of Portsmouth as part of @treesdla.bsky.social: www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/mou... with Clare Boston and me, plus...
trees-dla.ac.uk
Mountain glacier response to climate change | UCL Trees
Mountain glaciers are sensitive indicators of climate change. In recent decades retreat and thinning of these glaciers has accelerated and many are predicted to have disappeared by the end of the 21st...
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Standard reminder that if you spot any bugs do let me know!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
For more info on the tools see: GEEDiT - liverpoolgee.wordpress.com/geedit-geedi... GEEClimT - github.com/jmlea16/GEEC... GEECE - github.com/jmlea16/GEEC...
liverpoolgee.wordpress.com
GEEDiT
The Google Earth Engine Digitisation Tool (GEEDiT) is designed to allow users to rapidly access time series of full resolution satellite imagery from anywhere on the planet, and to manually digitis…
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Cathartic update to my #GoogleEarthEngine tools replacing socials link to the *other place* with Bluesky. As a quick reminder of the tools: GEEDiT - digitising from satellite imagery GEEClimT - easy access to loads of climate reanalysis products GEECE - easy and customisable CMIP6 data access tool
GEEDiT user interfaceGEECE user interfaceGEEClimT user interface
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Should hopefully be down in London more often in the new year and semi regularly - will let you know when I'm about!
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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Were they tonight?! Should have made it over!
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