Persistent Surface Thermal Signatures Following Ice-Patch Ablation in the Scottish Highlands

Present-day periglacial landscapes in mid-latitude mountain regions provide critical analogues for understanding both past cryospheric change and future responses of high-latitude systems to ongoing global warming trends. In the Scottish Highlands, long-lived seasonal ice patches have undergone increasingly frequent and extensive melt events in recent decades, reflecting broader patterns of cryosphere retreat documented across alpine and Arctic environments12. These rapidly changing features offer a testbed for examining how ice-ground interactions evolve during and after ice loss, and how their geomorphological and thermal signatures persist within the landscape34. 

During the Oxford University Foundations Expedition to the Cairngorms, Scotland in August 2025, we conducted a grid-based thermal imaging survey of a recently ablated ice patch hollow called the Sphinx to investigate post-melt surface thermal behavior5. Thermal data was collected using a lightweight handheld infrared camera (HIKMICRO E01), enabling systematic acquisition of high-density surface temperature measurements across the former ice basin, its marginal slopes, meltwater channels, and adjacent control surfaces. Field observations, GPS locations, shading context, and surface characteristics were recorded alongside thermal measurements to support interpretations. 

Measurements demonstrated that, within the historical ice patch hollow, the ground temperature averaged 11.52°C ± 0.60°C, 11.88°C ± 1.85°C colder than the adjacent terrain and 7.68°C ± 1.21°C colder than the ambient air temperature at the time of measurement. Hence, we found that coherent thermal anomalies persist following ice loss, which may reflect the former presence, thickness distribution, and melt history of the ice patch. A mosaic reconstruction of the thermal images demonstrates a clear thermal boundary coincident with the historical ice patch, indicating persistently lower surface temperatures relative to surrounding terrain despite the absence of surface ice. 

By combining field-based thermal imaging with geomorphological context, this study demonstrates how present-day periglacial processes in a mid-latitude mountain setting can inform reconstructions of recent cryosphere change and provide analogues for future high-latitude warming scenarios. The Scotland campaign also serves as a methodological testbed for transferable thermal survey strategies applicable across cold-region environments. The expedition team aims to further explore this methodology in Western Greenland in summer 2026.