Robert DeConto
University of Massachusetts, MA·Earth & Environmental Science
The Greenland Ice Sheet holds enough ice to raise global sea level by about 7.4 meters, yet scientists still struggle to predict how fast it will melt or whether it has tipping points. These two collaborative projects tackle that uncertainty from different directions.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
Greenland Ice Sheet
GrIS
ice sheet modeling
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Dec 2029
What they work on
- Test whether the northern Greenland Ice Sheet is more sensitive to Arctic warming than the southern ice sheet, by drilling through the ice and measuring cosmogenic nuclides such as beryllium-10 and aluminum-26 in the bedrock below to find past ice-free periods.
- Identify plausible ice sheet histories and the climate forcing behind past retreats using a numerical ice sheet model with a built-in cosmogenic nuclide module, and map sea-level rise fingerprints and flooding scenarios for major port cities.
- Build consistent models of crust and mantle stiffness and thickness beneath Greenland by combining data from multiple seismic networks with a new seismic deployment in central-eastern Greenland.
- Test whether solid-Earth feedbacks prevent full retreat and allow the Greenland Ice Sheet to at least partly recover over 10,000–20,000 years, using a fully coupled tectonic-atmospheric-ice sheet model.
More about the research
One reads the ice sheet's past from bedrock buried beneath it. The other asks how the rock and mantle under Greenland help or hinder ice loss. Both feed their results into computer models of the ice sheet to improve estimates of past and future sea-level change.
Why it matters
Better estimates of how much and how fast Greenland's ice could melt would improve sea-level rise projections. Those projections matter to coastal communities and planners worldwide. GreenDrill's planned maps of sea-level fingerprints and flooding scenarios for major port cities could help those cities judge their future flood risk. TIGRIS could clarify whether feedbacks from the solid Earth limit ice loss.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Samantha Hansen
University of Alabama, AL·Earth & Environmental Science
Build self-consistent models of the crust and mantle beneath Greenland by combining data from several seismic networks with a new seismic deployment in central-eastern Greenland.
Shaun Marcott
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Earth & Environmental Science
Date the thinning of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet by measuring 135 beryllium-10 exposure ages along about 15 vertical mountain transects in western Canada, known as the "glacial dipstick" approach.
Alia Lesnek
CUNY Queens College, NY·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Reconstruct when the Cordilleran Ice Sheet retreated across Southwest Alaska, using geologic mapping and cosmogenic nuclide surface exposure dating, which measures atoms that build up in rock once it is exposed.
The school
University of Massachusetts: 28 labs on PI Pages, $282M a year on research, 337 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.