West Antarctic Ice Rises
This research explores twelve ice rises along the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) coast, using NASA Operation IceBridge (OIB) airborne snow radar data, shallow ice cores from the Ross-Amundsen Ice Core Array (RAICA) project, HYSPLIT back-trajectories, and reanalysis datasets, to best understand coastal WAIS surface mass balance and snow accumulation rates. Background: The coastal margin of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is a dynamic and critical region where ice, ocean, and atmosphere converge. Persistent regional ice loss is of global concern for sea level rise; however, direct climate observations along coastal WAIS are extremely limited. Ice core records are largely unavailable along the coast from the Ross Sea to the Amundsen Sea, restricting observational surface mass balance (SMB) constraints to the continent’s inland regions. The aim of this research is to address these datagaps and create better comprehension of this region's past, present, and future climatology. See the Science Magazine article featuring our fieldwork here: |
Mt. Waddington This research explores the climatology of southwestern British Columbia through ice cores, detailed radar surveys, and snow surface and density samples. Background: Mt. Waddington, at 4,019 meters (13,186 feet), is the highest massif entirely within British Columbia and is one of very few sites in North America which has demonstrated potential for obtaining an ice core paleoclimate record so far south of 60° North latitude. The goal of this project is to develop a record of annual snow accumulation for the last 200-500 years. Such a record may provide insight into how climate in the North Pacific region has varied in the past, extending understanding beyond that gained from short instrumental records in the region. Read more about this project here: |
Antarctic Ice Shelves This research manually delineated and tracked the movement of 34 ice shelves located around Antarctica's periphery over an 11-year period (2009-2019) using MODIS satellite imagery. Background: Antarctic ice shelves provide buttressing support to the ice sheet, stabilizing the flow of grounded ice and its contribution to global sea levels. Over the past 50 years, satellite observations have shown ice shelves collapse, thin, and retreat; however, there are few measurements of the Antarctic-wide change in ice shelf area. Over the 11 years from 2009 to 2019, we observed six distinct types of ice shelf calving front behaviour characterized by (a) major calving events, (b) rapid calving front retreat, (c) gradual calving front retreat, (d) advance with periodic retreat, (e) rapid calving front advance, and (f) steady calving front advance. Check out my first-author publication from this work here: |