Robert W. Jacobel
jacobel@stolaf.edu

 

 

 

  
 

CEGSIC (Center for Geophysical Studies of Ice and Climate) is a National Science Foundation sponsored research project based in the Physics Department at St. Olaf College. Our main goal is to understand the response of the world's ice masses to global change. More specifically, we utilize the tools of ice-penetrating radar and satellite imagery to study the dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets in various parts of the world.

Kristen Nelson using crampons to pull the profiling radar up a steeper section of South Cascade Glacier.

Ice radar is a remote sensing technique analogous to sonar in water, except it works with electromagnetic waves instead of acoustical waves. Echoes arise from the ice/bedrock interface, from water and air pockets, and also from volcanic debris layers which depict how the ice deforms as it flows. Satellite remote sensing is a complementary technique which gives information about surface topography and motion.

Currently, CEGSIC is involved with projects in arctic Sweden and with the US-ITASE traverse in West Antarctica. The Sweden research is a hydrologic study using ice-penetrating radar together with bore-hole techniques to understand how water is delivered from the glacier surface to the bed. Our research in West Antarctica is a part of an international collaboration to look at global changes recorded in atmospheric deposition in Antarctica. Radar is used to image layers within the ice that link chemical studies of samples acquired from ice cores.

We also have ongoing projects in the Washington Cascades, and recently participated in studies of the flow of fast ice streams of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Ice Streams typically move at speeds 50 to 100 times faster than surrounding ice (up to 2-3 meters per day), and discharge most of the mass from the inland source areas. As such, they are the focus of much attention as we try to understand how they flow, and what controls the mass flux. Some of our recent work on these projects is described in more detail on these pages.