CryoGARS Glaciology

NEW GROUP WEBSITE (AS OF FALL 2023)!!! Although I will still post important news to this site every so often, check out https://sites.google.com/boisestate.edu/cryogarswebsite/home for all the latest from the full Cryosphere Geophysics and Remote Sensing (CryoGARS) Group!

Welcome to Boise State University's Cryosphere Geophysics and Remote Sensing (CryoGARS) Glaciology Group!

My group's research aims to advance our understanding of the varying sensitivity of glaciers to climate change so that society is able to prepare for, and hopefully mitigate/minimize, the impacts of glacier loss on the Earth system. Recent and ongoing research projects focus on combining remotely-sensed and in situ observations to develop a better understanding of controls on the flow of marine-terminating glaciers (i.e., glacier dynamics) as well as seasonal snow in mountain regions and on glaciers. I am particularly interested in glacier-ocean interactions, namely submarine melting and iceberg calving, and how changes in these interactions influence the rate of glacier mass loss. My group has conducted a number of projects focused on ice-ocean interactions, including remote sensing projects focused on mapping glacier terminus position change and iceberg melting, as well as numerical modeling of marine-terminating glaciers. My group is part of the larger Cryosphere Geophysics And Remote Sensing (CryoGARS) group in the Department of Geosciences at Boise State University and I collaborate with a number of faculty at Boise State and the University of Idaho. Please contact me if you're interested in joining my group!

I am passionate about getting undergraduate students involved in research so that they leave college with the ability to conduct research and convey their research to the public. I am particularly interested in providing research opportunities to women and other under-represented populations in STEM fields since my undergraduate research experiences are what got me interested in glacier research.  In line with my interests in mentoring to promote early-career scientists, I am currently the chair of the Boise State University Department of Geosciences' Graduate Program Committee. If you are a prospective student interested in learning more about my department's graduate programs or a current student with questions you don't want to ask your advisor or that your advisor cannot answer, do not hesitate to reach out to me. I am always happy to talk to students!

I also enjoy giving presentations on glaciers and climate change to middle and high school students (see Outreach tab). If you're a teacher looking for a guest speaker, please contact me! 

Group News

Fall 2023 & Spring 2024

This was a busy year for my group and I've summarized our major achievements below.  Expect several more papers to be published in 2024!

Publications:

• Two papers from Chris Miele's PhD research at the University of Idaho were published: Marginal detachment zones: the fracture factories of ice shelves?  and Brief communication: Is vertical shear in an ice shelf (still) negligible? 

• The group's research on iceberg melting around Antarctica was published with the Journal of Glaciology! We found that iceberg melt rates near the ice sheet and glacier margins are <50 m/yr, which is far less than open ocean melt rates, and that melt sensivity to ocean thermal forcing varies tremendously. 

• The first of many papers on the surging Sít' Kusá was published in Winter 2024: Propagating speedups during quiescence escalate to the 2020-2021 surge of Sít’ Kusá, southeast Alaska. Using satellite-derived glacier speed and elevation time series, Jukes Liu found that there are seasonal down-glacier-propagating pulses of mass during the quiescent phase that are very similar to surges except that they do not propagate the full length of the glacier. The magnitude and extent of the pulses scale with the previous melt season's cumulative runoff and indicate the glacier is highly dynamic even during quiescence.

• UIdaho PhD student Yoram Terleth's paper on seismically-inferred subglacial hydrology at Sít' Kusá ("Transient subglacial water routing efficiency modulates ice velocities prior to surge termination on Sít’ Kusá, AK") was accepted for publication in the Journal of Glaciology.

• Jukes Liu and Rainey Aberle's novel automated pipeline's for glacier speed and snow-covered area mapping were submitted to The Cryosphere. Check out the discussion papers! 

Awards:

• Aman K C was awarded a university-level Graduating Student Leader Award as well as a Bronco Spirit Award for doing a terrific job representing the ideals of the university!

• Alexandra Friel was awarded a university-level Graduating Student Leader Award.

Milestones:

• Aman K C successfully defended his thesis and received his Master in Geoscience degree in December 2023. Undergraduate researchers Adam Dickson and Alexandra Friel also received their Bachelor of Geoscience degrees with emphases in Geophysics in December 2023.

• Congrats to Karina Zikan, who passes her preliminary exams for her PhD in Geophysics in Fall 2023 and successfully defended her dissertation proposal in Spring 2024.

• A huge congrats to Jukes Liu and Chris McCaslin, who graduated with their PhDs in Geophysics in Spring 2024. Jukes was Ellyn's first PhD graduate!!!

Spring 2023

Lots of news and announcements for the CryoGARS Glaciology team this semester! A big thanks to all the students who make this an awesome group. Their hard work, passion for science, collegiality, and positive attitudes are what make everyone in the group successful!

Publications:

• Rainey Aberle's MS thesis research on the sensitivity of Crane Glacier, East Antarctic Peninsula, to climate following the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf was published with the Journal of Glaciology!

• Ellyn co-authored a publication on application of the Non-hydrostatic Unified Model of the Ocean (NUMO) to ice melting, led by Mathematics' Associate Professor Michal Kopera and Computing PhD student Yao Gahounzo.

Awards:

• Karina Zikan was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to continue her PhD research on remote sensing of mountain snow using primarily NASA's ICESat-2. 

• Rainey Aberle was awarded a Department of Defense Science, Math, and Research for Transformation (SMART) fellowship to continue her PhD research on spatial and temporal variations in mountain snow and glacier ice extents using a variety of satellite remote sensing datasets. Rainey also received an award for an outstanding presentation at the Boise State Graduate Student Showcase.

• Maddie Gendreau was named one of Boise State's top ten undergraduates to graduate in 2023.

• Aman KC was awarded the Geological Society of America's Arthur D. Howard award for outstanding MS students. 

Milestones:

• Ellyn's early application for tenure was approved and she has been promoted to an Associate Professor!!!

• Congrats to Maddie Gendreau and Phoebe Kinzelman, who graduated with Bachelors of Science in Hydrologic Sciences and Masters of Earth Science degrees, respectively.

• Congrats to Rainey Aberle who passed her comprehensive exams and has advanced on to PhD candidacy.

Winter/Spring 2022

• This was a productive semester for student publications! A big congrats to:

  • PhD student Jukes Liu for an accepted publication in Geophysical Research Letters detailing results of the application of the automated glacier terminus mapping algorithm from her MS thesis to southeast Greenland's oeripheral glaciers "Synchronous retreat of southeast Greenland’s peripheral glaciers"

  • PhD student Karina Zikan for an accepted publication in the Journal of Glaciology detailing her undergraduate research on snow mapping

  • former MS student Kate Bollen (now at USGS) for an accepted publication in the Journal of Glaciology describing her thesis research on changes in iceberg discharge from Greenland's peripheral marine-terminating glaciers "Dynamic mass loss from Greenland’s marine-terminating peripheral glaciers (1985-2018)"

• Congrats to Jukes Liu and Karina Zikan for winning the Top Honor and Dean's awards, respectively, for posters on their dissertation research: https://www.boisestate.edu/earth/2022/04/18/congrats-to-jukes-liu-greg-shafer-and-karina-zikan-for-winning-graduate-student-showcase-awards/

• Congrats to Phoebe Kinzelman for a successful thesis proposal defense! Phoebe's MS Geosciences thesis will be titled "Characterization of terminus position change for Greenland’s peripheral marine-terminating glaciers: 2000 - present"

• Keep on the look-out for presentations by graduate students Jukes Liu, Rainey Aberle, Karina Zikan, Phoebe Kinzelman, and Aman K C at upcoming International Glaciological Society symposia. PDFs of posters will be displayed here after the symposia!

Congrats to another great year with my awesome students. From right to left in the group photo below: Aman K C, Maddie Gendreau, Rainey Aberle, Karina Zikan, Alexandra Friel, me + my kids, Adam Dickson, Jukes Liu, and Phoebe Kinzelman.

Fall 2021

• Welcome to new PhD Geophysics student Karina Zikan, MS Geoscience students Phoebe Kinzelman and Aman K C, and undergraduates Adam Dickson and Alexandra Friel! 

• PhD students Jukes Liu and Rainey Aberle presented on their research and filled in as in-person chairs in the "Icebergs: Origin, Decay, and Everything In Between" sessions at the AGU Fall Meeting. Jukes' poster ("The recent surge of Sit' Kusá (Turner Glacier), Alaska: New Insights on Surge Kinematics from Sentinel image processing") described velocities and seismic data for Sit' Kusá during its most recent surge. Rainey's talk ("Modeling glacier stability following the 2002 Larsen B ice shelf collapse, Antarctic Peninsula") summarized Rainey's numerical modeling of Crane Glacier's recent advance and projected sensitivity to climate forcing. Jukes also presented Ellyn's research poster ("Insights on Calving Processes from Fragmentation Theory Applied to Iceberg Size Distributions")

• Kate Bollen, former MS Geophysics student and current USGS employee, presented her thesis research on dynamic mass loss from Greenland's peripheral marine-terminating glaciers during her AGU talk ("Dynamic mass loss from Greenland's peripheral glaciers from 1985-2018") and will be published in Journal of Glaciology in 2022.

• Ellyn and 4 graduate students (Jukes, Rainey, Karina, and Phoebe) completed Wilderness First Responder training in November to help ensure safety of the group when completing fieldwork in snowy and/or glacierized regions and when enjoying the great outdoors outside of work! See photos below...

Winter/Spring 2021

Even though I welcomed a new addition to my family on January 10th (Tyler Jacob Enderlin) and I was on maternity leave for most of the semester, my students continued to make great research progress! Some highlights are listed below, including links to some recent publications and presentations.

• Congrats to undergrad intern Rebecca Muhlheim for winning an American Geophysical Union Outstanding Student Presentation Award for her research on Greenland's peripheral glaciers.

• Congrats to Andrew Nolan and Jukes Liu on the publication of their Honors undergraduate and MS theses research projects, respectively.

• Welcome to new undergraduate research assistant Maddie Gendreau!

• Check out undergraduate research assistant Caitlin Oliver's work on Antarctic iceberg melting at the Boise State Undergraduate Research Showcase on Friday, April 23rd. More info here: https://sites.google.com/boisestate.edu/urs2021

• Check out the research of my 4 graduate students at the Boise State Graduate Research Showcase on April 7th-9th. More info here: https://www.boisestate.edu/graduatecollege/gss/ Congrats to Rainey and Jukes for winning Deans awards for their presentations!

Winter/Spring 2019

Before the covid pandemic sent everything into chaos, my students participated in a number of cryosphere-focused field opportunities! Below I've included some photos from graduate students Rainey Aberle & Kate Bollen's travels to Volcan Villarrica in Chile for fieldwork on the glacier-clad volcano (lower left = arriving at the glacier), graduate student Colten Elkin's snow sampling short-course in New Hampshire (upper left = drone demonstration), and from Bogus Basin snow sampling for the NASA SnowEx program (right). 

FALL 2019

Check out the bios for all the new students in the Enderlin Glaciology Group (aka the EGGheads) under the Students tab! We have a diverse set of ongoing projects, ranging from the development of new methods to automatically map changes in glacier length, to assessing spatio-temporal patterns in mass loss from Greenland's peripheral glaciers, to modeling of the response of glaciers to ocean change inferred from satellite-derived iceberg melt rates, to quantifying spatial patterns in snow depth in the mountains using ICESat-2 laser altimeter data. Expect to see results from these research projects at conferences and publications in the next year or so!

If you want to get my advice on navigating your career and starting a family, check out my guest blog post for USAPECS https://usapecs.wixsite.com/usapecs/post/personal-and-professional-success-are-not-mutually-exclusive-by-ellyn-enderlin. I also recommend that you attend the USAPECS Career Development Panel on Monday, Dec. 9th, from 2-3pm in the Moscone South Career Center Theatre and the informal women in the cryosphere social at the Mikkeller Bar on Tuesday, Dec. 10th, at ~8pm (after the AGU Cryosphere Business Meeting and Reception). There will be tons of people at both events to provide diverse insights on early career issues. 

It's a relatively light AGU year for my group  but check out the following presentations if you're in San Francisco for the 2019 Fall Meeting, including my talk Monday at 5pm. Also, if you're early in your career and interested in things cold and snowy/icy, don't miss the USAPECS Career Development Panel on Monday, December 9th at 2pm in the Career Center Theatre in Moscone South. I'll be sitting on the panel this year, (hopefully) dishing out helpful advice on navigating a career path that may be a little more circuitous than you had planned and time management tips that have helped me stay happy and mostly sane as I've navigated academia and motherhood.

Fall 2018

New graduate student: The CCI Glaciology & CompuMAINE groups are happy to add Julia ("Jukes") Liu to our teams! Jukes will be developing an automated technique to map changes in glacier length over time using the Landsat image archive. Welcome Jukes!

Summer 2018

The UMaine Glaciology and CompuMAINE labs have paired-up on the NASA-funded project “Quantification and Analysis of Greenland Glacier and Ice Cap Discharge using Automated Landsat Terminus Change Time Series and NASA Data Products”. This is a joint project led by Dr. Ellyn Enderlin from the Climate Change Institute and School of Earth and Climate Sciences and Dr. Andre Khalil, founder and director of the CompuMAINE Lab. The CompuMAINE lab is collaborating with the Enderlin lab to develop an automated satellite image analysis procedure to help answer the questions below. 

The overall aim of the proposed project is to quantify dynamic mass loss from Greenland’s peripheral glaciers and ice caps (GICs) over the last two decades and to assess variations in their ice discharge with respect to atmospheric and oceanic forcing. Two questions guide this work:

1) Has terminus retreat and/or ice flow acceleration substantially contributed to mass loss from Greenland’s GICs over the last two decades?

2) Do spatial and temporal patterns in Greenland GIC dynamics differ from the ice sheet’s outlet glaciers due to differences in their sensitivity to atmospheric and oceanic forcing?

Winter/Spring 2018

PAPERS! PAPERS! AND MORE PAPERS! If you are interested in learning about the use of remotely-sensed iceberg melt rates as a means to infer variations in ocean conditions in glacial fjords, check out my paper recently published in The Cryosphere: https://www.the-cryosphere.net/12/565/2018/. The iceberg melt data that my students and I produced for Greenland suggest that although ocean conditions in glacial fjords generally adhere to expected spatial patterns based on variations in regional air and ocean temperatures, differences in fjord geometry lead to deviations from expected patterns: long fjords packed with icebergs have lower melt rates than fjords where icebergs are rapidly transported to the open ocean. Whether these variations are due to differences in water temperature or circulation between fjords is an area of future interest.

Masters student Will Kochtitzky also recently had his undergraduate thesis work published in the Journal of Glaciology: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/improved-estimates-of-glacier-change-rates-at-nevado-coropuna-ice-cap-peru/AE2C29B25C4757967B2C6CEB8C918C33. Congrats Will! He mapped glacier change at the Coropuna Ice Cap in Peru using Landsat satellite images. 

I also have a paper on variations in controls on mass loss from Columbia Glacier in Alaska at seasonal to inter-annual time scales that is under review at the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface. Check back for updates on the publication of these papers and more!

Fall 2017

New graduate student: The CCI Glaciology group is happy to add Mariama Dryak to our team! Mariama is TAing this year and will also be assisting with research on Antarctic iceberg melting. Mariama will be using very high-resolution satellite images to estimate iceberg melt rates around Antarctica and (hopefully) link melt rate variations in space and time to changes in ocean conditions and melting beneath Antarctica's ice shelves. Welcome Mariama!

Winter 2017

New Project on Antarctic Icebergs: Starting in June, I will be expanding the scope of my research on iceberg melting as part of an NSF-funded project titled "Antarctic Submarine Melt Variability from Remote Sensing of Icebergs". The project will compare spatial and temporal variations in iceberg melt rates, obtained using repeat very-high resolution (~0.5 m pixel width) satellite images, with variations in ice shelf thinning and ocean forcing. The major objectives of the project are to determine whether (1) differences in iceberg melting can be used as a proxy for variations in melting of Antarctica's ice shelves and (2) current ocean models are capable of simulating changes in ocean forcing, which have important implications for our ability to accurately predict future changes in Antarctic ice shelf stability.

Fall 2016

UMaine Glaciology in the News! Check-out the press release issued by the American Geophysical Union on iceberg melting in Greenland's glacial fjords: http://news.agu.org/press-release/most-meltwater-in-greenland-fjords-likely-comes-from-icebergs-not-glaciers/

New undergraduate research assistant: Time-lapse photos of glaciers and glacial fjords, like those featured in the movie "Chasing Ice", provide the opportunity to observe rapid changes in ice-ocean interactions. Undergraduate Mike Driscoll is currently working with time-lapse photos from Helheim Glacier in SE Greenland (see real-time photos here: http://glacierresearch.org/realtime-images.html) to characterize changes in iceberg calving. These data will be used to quantify iceberg calving volumes, which will be compared to glacier stress time series in order to assess the glacier's sensitivity to changes in terminus position.

New graduate student: The CCI Glaciology group is happy to add a new graduate student, Will Kochtitzky. Will is assisting with research on my Greenland iceberg melting project: he is extracting iceberg meltwater flux and melt rate estimates for ~6 fjords in Greenland using very high-resolution satellite images. Welcome Will!

Spring 2016

Undergraduate Research: Undergraduate research assistant and UMaine junior, Caroline Carrigan, presented her research results on iceberg melting at the UMaine Center for Undergraduate Research symposium. This was Caroline's first scientific poster! She presented her preliminary results on submarine melting for icebergs calved from Alison Glacier in NW Greenland and Zachariae Isstrom in NE Greenland. She's found that 2011 iceberg melt rates were similar in both locations, with an average of ~0.04 m/d and no significant seasonal variations. She'll be expanding her datasets to investigate seasonal and inter-annual variations in iceberg submarine melting near these two glaciers during her senior year at UMaine.