Sponsored Cryospheric Research @ NSIDC

data projects research news the cryosphere

Researchers at NSIDC investigate the dynamics of Antarctic ice shelves, new techniques for the remote sensing of snow and freeze/thaw cycle of soils, the role of snow in hydrologic modeling, linkages between changes in sea ice extent and weather patterns, large-scale shifts in polar climate, river and lake ice, and the distribution and characteristics of seasonally and permanently frozen ground.

In-house scientific expertise helps NSIDC improve the quality of research data sets and respond quickly to inquiries on snow and ice topics from the general public. Scientists pursue their work as part of the CIRES Cryospheric and Polar Process Division, University of Colorado, Boulder. National agencies fund research through the peer review proposal process. Please direct all requests for information and data products, including general questions about the cryosphere, to NSIDC User Services (nsidc@nsidc.org).

RESEARCHER	RESEARCH SNAPSHOTS
Roger Barry NSIDC Director CIRES Fellow CU Distinguished Professor CU Geography Faculty	Climate-cryosphere interactions; arctic and mountain climate; climate change; snow and ice data as climate indicators. Current focus on soil temperature trends in Russia. A Regional, Integrated Monitoring System for the Hydrology of the Pan-Arctic Land Mass
Todd Arbetter	Sea ice modeling; polar oceanography and ocean modeling; polar meteorology and atmospheric modeling; coupled regional climate modeling of areas within the Arctic and Antarctic; assimilation of observed sea ice motion in standalone and coupled sea ice models; study of Arctic and Antarctic polynyas using regional climate models
Richard Armstrong	Remote sensing of snow and frozen ground; passive microwave satellite remote sensing, calibration, and validation; physical and mechanical properties of snow; snow avalanches; evaluation of snow cover fluctuations and glacier mass and extent as indicators of climate change; development of scientific data sets to support snow and ice research. Passive Microwave Snow Cover Algorithm Intercomparison and Validation Investigation of the Seasonal Freeze/Thaw Cycle of Soils in the GEWEX American Prediction Program Regions A Regional, Integrated Monitoring System for the Hydrology of the Pan-Arctic Land Mass
Andy Barrett	Western USA water resources; hydrology of mountain and upland drainage basins; use of remotely sensed data in applied hydrologic modeling; hydrologic modeling; hydroclimatology; glaciology; glacier hydrology. NASA Southwest Regional Earth Science Applications Center Regional Assessment of Water, Climate and Society in the Interior Western United States -- Development of Operational Hydrologic Forecasting Capabilities
Florence Fetterer	Sea ice, applications-oriented remote sensing, data rescue, data set development. Serves as NSIDC's NOAA liaison and program manager. Sea Ice Index and Archives Sea Ice Surface Characteristics from High Resolution Reconnaissance Imagery
Oliver W. Frauenfeld	Cryosphere-climate interactions; large-scale atmospheric circulation response to high-latitude forcing; freeze-thaw cycle in seasonally frozen ground and permafrost regions; active layer processes; Northern Hemisphere circumpolar vortex variability; atmospheric teleconnections; climate change; quantitative methods; ocean-atmosphere interactions.
Jim Maslanik	Sea ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions; arctic regional climatic change; remote sensing of ice, ocean, and land conditions; regional modeling of sea ice and climate; satellite algorithm validation; development of unpiloted aerial vehicles for high-latitude climate research. Sea Ice Variability in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas: Processes and Prediction Improving the Simulation of Sea Ice Lead Conditions and Turbulent Fluxes Using RGPS Products and Merged RADARSAT, AVHRR and MODIS Data
Walt Meier	Remote sensing of sea ice from visible, infrared, and active/passive microwave sensors; focus is on passive-microwave sea ice concentration and sea ice motion products; develops data assimilation methods to combine sea ice observations with sea ice and coupled models.
Thomas H. Painter	Multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing of snow, spatially distributed snowmelt modeling, measurement and modeling of the directional reflectance of snow, remote sensing of desertification processes, and robotic instrumentation. Current research on remote sensing products for the NASA/NWS Cold Land Processes Experiment and the hydrologic and radiative effects of deposited dust to alpine snowfields. Multi-Resolution Snow Products for the Hydrologic Sciences
Ted Scambos	Remote sensing of ice sheets, glaciology, Antarctica, global change in the polar regions, extraterrestrial ice, history of the exploration of Antarctica. Characteristics of Snow Megadunes on the East Antarctic Plateau Improvement of the Greenland DEM Using Photoclinometry
Greg Scharfen	Remote sensing of snow cover, sea ice and glaciers. Serves as NSIDC's project manager for the MODIS snow and ice products, GLIMS glacier database, and NSF Antarctic data management projects.
Mark Serreze	Large-scale hydroclimatology of the Arctic, including patterns of precipitation and evaporation; variability in the synoptic scale circulation in the Arctic, including characteristics of cyclone development and decay; atmosphere-sea ice interactions; validation of numerical weather prediction output, especially from atmospheric reanalysis products. A Regional, Integrated Monitoring System for the Hydrology of the Pan-Arctic Land Mass Regional Assessment of Water, Climate and Society in the Interior Western United States -- Development of Operational Hydrologic Forecasting Capabilities
Andrew Slater	Land surface modeling, specializing in cold-regions processes such as snow and frozen ground; land-atmosphere interactions; large-scale, high-latitude hydrology; remote sensing of snow; develops data assimilation techniques for land surface and hydrologic models; hydrologic forecasting. A Land Surface Model Hind-Cast for the Terrestrial Arctic Drainage System
Julienne Stroeve	Remote sensing of snow and ice; optical, thermal and passive microwave remote sensing; radiative transfer modeling; cryosphere-climate interactions; Greenland climate studies; development of scientific data sets for cryospheric research. Evaluation and Error Assessment of Operational Passive Microwave Sea Ice Algorithms
Tingjun Zhang	Seasonally and perennially frozen ground, snow and ice; cryosphere-climate interactions; heat and mass transfer in porous media; numerical modeling of soil freezing and thawing processes, ground thermal regime, lake ice, talik formation under thaw lakes; synoptic-scale snowmelt at high latitudes; application of satellite remote sensing data (passive microwave, SAR, and AVHRR) to study snow, near-surface soil freeze/thaw status, and northern phenomena. Investigation of the Seasonal Freeze/Thaw Cycle of Soils in the GEWEX American Prediction Program Regions A Regional, Integrated Monitoring System for the Hydrology of the Pan-Arctic Land Mass

GRADUATE STUDENT	RESEARCH INTEREST	ADVISORS
Anton Seimon	Social and environmental consequences of climate change in mountainous regions. Current work relates rapid ecological response to ongoing deglaciation and anthropogenic factors in high alpine zones of the Peruvian Andes. Previously worked as research meteorologist investigating mesoscale phenomena in extratropical cyclones and lightning in tornadic thunderstorms.	Roger Barry
Eileen McKim	Cryosphere-climate interactions, climate variability/climate change, land surface interactions with the climate system. Current focus on U.S. Western Water Resources; snow-monsoon relationships, variability in the North American Monsoon System.	Roger Barry

Roger Barry

Todd Arbetter

Richard Armstrong

Andy Barrett

Florence Fetterer

Oliver W. Frauenfeld

Jim Maslanik

Walt Meier

Thomas H. Painter

Ted Scambos

Greg Scharfen

Mark Serreze

Andrew Slater

Julienne Stroeve

Tingjun Zhang