Dr. Nick Holschuh is an Assistant Professor of Geology at Amherst College, iHARP Researcher

Changes to the ocean, in part driven by our emissions of CO2, have caused the acceleration of ice flow in West Antarctica. This enhanced discharge has resulted in a net mass loss from the Antarctic ice sheet, which contributes ~0.5 mm/a to global sea level rise. Thwaites Glacier, which sits in a deep marine basin in West Antarctica, is thought to be unstable in the face of ocean warming, but the rate and magnitude of ice loss there depends on unknown material properties of the glacier substrate. In his talk, Dr. Holschuh will discuss a geophysical campaign conducted on Thwaites Glacier during the 2023/24 Austral Summer, designed to constrain models of ice flow over the coming century. This will include an overview of ice penetrating radar, a discussion of the challenges in automated interpretation of ice penetrating radar data, and a description of the logistics-for and experience-of collecting data on one of Earth’s most rapidly changing glaciers.

Dr. Nick Holschuh is an Assistant Professor of Geology at Amherst College. His primary research interest is in improving our understanding of ice, rock, and water interactions at the base of glaciers using observational geophysics. That work has taken him to Antarctica four times, most recently to Thwaites Glacier, where he has used ice penetrating radar, active and passive seismic techniques, and gravimetry to measure the glacier subsurface.