Achievement

IGERT Field Seminar team assisted trainees (Wong, Earth Sciences; Keegan & Williams, Engineering) in obtaining snow samples and mapping subsurface melt layers at Summit, Greenland, that are important to understanding the melt event in July 2012 of more than 95% of the ice sheet surface. There is intense interest in this extreme event, not observed in the Summit record since late 1800s. This interdisciplinary IGERT research bridges glaciology, geochemistry, robotics, and imaging science. The Yeti robot and its ground penetrating radar are mapping snow stratigraphy for ice core science and may also reduce risks of working in extreme polar environments by mapping crevice free routes for travel. Two dissertations in this cluster of studies are near completion (Williams, Keegan) and a paper on snow geochemistry and melt was published. In 2013 IGERT will expand on these studies with new work conducted at Summit by trainees Adolph and Walker on robotics and surface snow albedo.