ClimateCrocks: Dr. Jason Box, Chief Scientist of the Dark Snow Project, and a researcher formerly of the Byrd Polar Center at Ohio State, now with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland – has spent the last week in Svalbard, a group of Islands high in the arctic, controlled by Norway.

I asked him to chat by skype and update us on the intense winter of 2013 and 14, the “cold continents warm arctic” paradox, and the ‘ridiculously resilient ridge” that continues to deliver punishment on both sides of the Atlantic.