Deglaciation of the Western Margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) is shrinking today in response to the warming atmosphere and ocean. The GIS holds enough freshwater to raise sea level by 7.4 meters (24 feet) if it melted completely. Thus, understanding how it responds to warming is important. In this project we are investigating GIS vulnerability by studying how the GIS responded to climate warming in the past. At the end of the last ice age, about 20,000 years ago, the western GIS margin extended farther into Baffin Bay, hundreds of kilometers west of its present position.
Pliocene-Pleistocene Variability of Weddell Embayment and Antarctic Peninsula Glaciation
The potential for future sea level rise from melting and collapse of Antarctic ice sheets and glaciers is concerning. We can improve our understanding of how water is exchanged between Antarctic ice sheets and the ocean by studying how ice sheets behaved in past climates, especially conditions that were similar to or warmer than those at present.
Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2 Degrees Celsius (SWAIS2C)
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet presently holds enough ice that it would raise global sea level by five meters if it all melted. Information from satellites demonstrates that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing ice faster than any other region in the Antarctic. However, how much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt and how quickly it will happen when average global temperatures exceed 2 degrees C is currently unknown.
IODP Expedition 403: Eastern Fram Strait Paleo-Archive
During the Summer of 2024 we joined an international team of scientists for the final voyage of the JOIDES Resolution under the International Ocean Discovery Program. The team is investigating sedimentary records from several contourite drifts along the Svalbard margin, with the LDEO Past Group working on refining the chronologies of recovered sediment cores using magnetostratigraphy. Stay tuned for more on this project as our post-cruise research ramps up. For now, you can learn
Paleomagnetic Secular Variation
Our magnetic field influences Earth's habitability, human technology and communications, upper atmospheric dynamics, and more. Recent changes to the field open questions as to how the field will to change in the future, and the impact this will have on the Earth system. Paleomagnetic Secular Variation (PSV), or the changes in the geomagnetic field (direction and intensity) that are reconstructed from geologic and archaeologic materials, offer a means to study the long-term behavior of our magnetic field.