Resolving subglacial properties, hydrological networks and dynamic evolution of ice flow on the Greenland Ice Sheet
GPS & Met Stations
UAVs
Passive Seismology
ApRES
3D Modelling
Boreholes
Fibre Optics
RESPONDER is an ERC-funded research project based at the University of Cambridge. It aims to develop an intergrated understanding of the evolution of ice flow on the Greenland ice sheet and the co-evolution of hydrological networks operating at its base. By employing multiple, complementary approaches, ranging from geophysical imaging techniques to direct exploration in kilometer-deep boreholes, the project is collecting an unparalleled stream of observational data from the basal environment which is rarely studied, yet responsible for making Greenland glaciers flow faster than glaciers anywhere else on Earth.
The Team
POUL CHRISTOFFERSEN
Principal Investigator
Poul is is a Reader in Glaciology at the Scott Polar Research Institute. His research focuses on glacier dynamics and ice-sheet interactions with the atmosphere and ocean, and on a broad scale the interactions of the global cryosphere with Earth’s climate system.
BRYN HUBBARD
Co-PI
Bryn is a Professor in Glaciology at the Centre for Glaciology in the University of Aberystwyth. His research aims to better understand the links between motion and subglacial drainage via hot-water borehole access.
MARION BOUGAMONT
Senior Research Associate
Marion is a Senior Research Associate at the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge. Her research uses modelling techniques to study the dynamics and subglacial processes that affect the mass balance of ice sheets.
SAM DOYLE
Research Associate
Sam is a research associate at the Centre for Glaciology in Aberystwyth University. His research uses a combination of borehole sensors and GPS units to understand the dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Charlie Schoonman
Research Associate
Charlie is a geophysicist at the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge. Her research investigates the subglacial properties of the Greenland Ice Sheet using passive seismic techniques.
TOM CHUDLEY
PhD Candidate
Tom is a PhD candidate at the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge. His research uses UAV technology to explore interactions between surface melt and subglacial processes on the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Samuel Cook
PhD Candidate
Samuel is a PhD candidate at the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge. His PhD project aims to develop a fully-coupled model of a tidewater glacier, using an open-source, 3D glacial flow model.
ROB LAW
PhD Candidate
Rob is a PhD candidate at the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge. He uses the scattering properties of fibre optics to obtain temperature and strain profiles, which will lead to better constraint in numerical models.
Seismology is one of the standard pieces of the glaciological toolkit. Glaciologists have long known that seismic energy – vibrations travelling through the ice – can be used for actively imaging glacier structure, or for listening out for the natural rumblings as a glacier scrapes across its bed and water drains through networks of channels.[…]
In a new article published in The Cryosphere, the RESPONDER team reports how a channelised subglacial drainage system evolves and how discharge into Ikerasak Fjord affects melting the Store Glacier’s calving ice front. The team modelled the subglacial drainage network of Store Glacier in the high-surface-melt summer of 2012 and low-surface-melt summer of 2017, as[…]
A new paper from the RESPONDER team led by PhD student Tom Chudley has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In it, we present in situ records of a rapidly draining supraglacial lake in a fast-flowing sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Despite supraglacial lake drainage influencing ice sheet dynamics[…]
Sean Peters, Eliza Dawson, and Mickey MacKie from Stanford University deployed a number of different radar systems on Store Glacier. Sean experimented with passive radar using the Sun as a radio source for bed echo detection. Mickey, Sean, and Eliza tested a bistatic radar system developed by Nicole Bienert and Sean Peters during the 2018[…]
Here’s an update on how Cryoegg performed during the field season. We deployed it in the borehole at Store Glacier, but regrettably it was too large to reach the bed. The borehole is narrowest in the middle of the glacier where the ice is coolest, so this was where it got stuck, roughly 400m below[…]
There are many approaches to designing a geophone network on a glacier, but one of the most important controls on data quality is coupling: the better the contact between the ice and the geophone, the higher the quality of the seismograms recorded. However, good coupling usually comes at a price- in this case, the ultimate[…]
I’m excited to be joining the RESPONDER team at Store Glacier next week – I’m Mike Prior-Jones from Cardiff University, and together with my PI Liz Bagshaw, I’ve been developing Cryoegg, a wireless subglacial probe. The plan is to put Cryoegg down a borehole to the bed of the glacier, where it can measure the[…]
The first scientific paper resulting from the UAV work package of RESPONDER has been published in The Cryosphere. Led by PhD student Tom Chudley, the paper described how we use carrier-phase GPS and UAVs to produce high-quality 3D models of the Greenland Ice Sheet, without requiring ground control points (GCPs), a common requirement in traditional UAV[…]
When hooked up to a suitable analyser, fibre-optic cables, much like those used for superfast broadband, can function as very long, very bendy thermometers or strain gauges, which record data at all points along their length. This incredible effect has been exploited for over a decade by oil companies, keen to monitor the temperature throughout[…]
Conversations on the ice sheet took on a sort of cyclical quality. If you’re with the same seven people for an entire month, with very little external stimulus, it’s fairly easy to run out of things to say. One strategy to cope with this was reeling out topics to exhaustion, for example discussing blue storage[…]