Jackson School Research in Greenland Identifies Key to Slow Glacial Thinning
- Jan 28, 2021
NASA research scientist and Jackson School of Geosciences alumnus Denis Felikson, alongside glaciology professor Ginny Catania, have identified key natural features in Greenland’s terrain that are crucial to understanding how to slow climate change.
In their research, the team learned about what causes variability in thickness across the area’s glaciers, a phenomenon that has been baffling scientists. Steep slopes in the glaciers’ underlying bedrock, termed “knickpoints,” appear to protect the region from warm coastal water—a significant contributor to the thinning of Greenland’s massive ice sheet, twice the size of Texas.
Lead author Felikson began the study while he was a doctoral student at the Jackson School. Now at NASA, Felikson partnered with co-authors from institutions in the U.S. and the Netherlands. The study gives scientists a deeper understanding of how the loss of ice will play out as the world gets hotter, identifying which glaciers are most likely to contribute to sea level rise.
Read the full article from UT News.
