Achievement

Through her research studying the physical properties of the top layers of the ice, the firn, on the Greenland Ice Sheet, IGERT Trainee Kaitlin Keegan established 1889 as the date of the last major ice melt at Summit, nearly the highest point on the ice sheet. Almost the entire ice cover of Greenland experienced some degree of melting at its surface during the summer of 2013, during the Dartmouth IGERT Greenland Field Seminar. Keegan established the date of 1889 by studying ice cores from NEEM and Summit. Her research put the extent and seriousness of the thaw into perspective worldwide. Coincidentally, she was conducting science workshop with NSF JSEP students near the time news broke on the melt.