| Summary: | A frost flower near Barrow, Alaska. Little known outside the world of polar research, these crystalline structures haven't been studied much till recently. Forming atop fresh sea ice, they're highly salty, which makes them potentially important in the chemistry of depletion events. The Arctic could soon blossom with more frost flowers as the dramatic loss of year-round sea ice leads to more first-year ice in the winter and spring. This image was taken during the OASIS (Ocean_Atmosphere_Sea Ice_Snowpack) field project, which made some of the most extensive measurements ever on the chemical exchanges between polar air, snow, frost, brine, and sea ice. Part of International Polar Year, OASIS tackled a number of standing questions in polar chemistry, with the emphasis on the life cycle of pollutants that drift into the Arctic.
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