The glacier dynamics group at the University of Idaho seeks a Ph.D. student to pursue research into the factors controlling iceberg calving around the Greenland Ice Sheet. This NSF funded project, with Co-PI Dr. Ellyn Enderlin of UMaine, will draw on a wide variety of remotely sensed imagery, oceanographic data, and timelapse photography to evaluate terminus boundary conditions (calving laws) used by ice flow models. These calving laws predict terminus positions and calving rates (formally: “frontal ablation rates”) around the ice sheet. Increases in calving and submarine melt rates at the marine termini of Greenland’s tidewater outlet glaciers lead to the most rapid rates of ice loss from around the ice sheet, and therefore to acceleration in the rate of sea level rise. Outcomes from this project will include: 1) New, mechanistic understanding of the drivers of terminus ice loss in the diversity of settings around Greenland; and 2) Model improvements in the handling of calving, thus directly leading to improved predictions of ice sheet change and sea level rise.
The successful applicant will join a growing lab group with two other graduate students in fall 2018, including a masters student working on a portion of this calving law project. Collaboration with this student and Dr. Enderlin, and support from others in the group, provides a rich and varied research experience. The student would additionally work towards completion of a Ph.D. within the Dept. of Geological Sciences at the Univ. of Idaho, a group of researchers with strong backgrounds in geophysics, climate change, remote sensing, numerical modeling, and statistics. The University’s location in Moscow, ID, adjacent to the northern rockies, is an exciting and diverse geologic region with ample opportunities for diverse outdoor recreation.
This position includes two years of financial, educational, and benefits support through a research assistantship, with subsequent years of support through teaching assistantships. Ph.D. student applicants with backgrounds in programming (python, matlab, r, etc.), geographic data analysis, and strong quantitative skills are preferred.
Expressions of interest are requested by Friday, March 2nd. Please email a short statement of interest, a CV, and transcripts (unofficial is fine) to Dr. Timothy Bartholomaus. Additional information about the group and the graduate school application process is available at this link and this link. Following the statement of interest, complete applications for this opportunity should be submitted to the College of Graduate Studies prior to the project-specific deadline of March 9th.