William Armstrong
Appalachian State University, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
Glaciers that end in water often thin and retreat faster than glaciers that end on land. This is because they also lose ice by melting below the waterline and by shedding icebergs, a process called calving.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
glaciology
glaciers
proglacial lakes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Quantify ice lost through iceberg calving and underwater melt at three lake-terminating glaciers of the Juneau Icefield, using ground-based radar, GPS and satellite measurements of ice thickness and speed.
- Record short- and long-term lake conditions, including depth, temperature and suspended sediment, with sonar, boat-cast probes and buoy-mounted instruments to understand how lakes drive melting at the glacier front.
- Use computer models fed by field data to estimate how much additional ice loss the lakes cause and how much they will change total glacier ice loss over the 21st century.
More about the research
Lakes at the fronts of glaciers have grown quickly worldwide. It is still unclear whether these lakes simply fill in as warming air and reduced snowfall drive retreat, or whether the lakes themselves speed retreat by adding extra ice loss. Most past studies focused on glaciers ending in the ocean, so lake-ending glaciers remain poorly understood.
Why it matters
Glacier retreat affects downstream ecosystems and water supplies. Measuring how much glacier-front lakes speed up ice loss could improve forecasts of how quickly glaciers worldwide will change in coming decades. Better forecasts could help communities manage water resources and ecosystems below glaciers and build resilience to climate change.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Marianne Karplus
University of Texas at El Paso, TX·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure ice thickness, subglacial sediments, and hydrologic processes in the Lunana glaciers of Bhutan using radar and seismic surveys.
David Rounce
Carnegie Mellon University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Conduct the first systematic study of glacier mass balance on inner-tropical Andean volcanoes in Ecuador, using field and remote sensing observations and modeling.
Eric Klein
University of Alaska Anchorage, AK·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Measure water-cycle components in permafrost watersheds in High Arctic Greenland that range from heavily glaciated to glacier-free, to track how sources of river water shift as glaciers shrink.
The school
Appalachian State University: 2 labs on PI Pages, $11M a year on research, 20 research doctorates a year.
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