Climate models used to predict future global climate and sea level changes require inputs from the two polar ice sheets: Greenland and Antarctica . These two ice sheets hold 80 percent of the world's fresh water – the equivalent of a 70 m rise in global sea level. They also play important roles in both atmospheric and oceanic systems. One of the primary efforts in the glaciological community is to model these huge ice sheets. These models predict how the ice is moving and, ultimately, whether or not more ice is melting into the oceans than is being replenished. One of the key parameters required to model ice sheets is the condition at the glacial sole. For example, if there is water present at the bed of the ice sheet, the water lowers the friction between the ice and the bed. A common analogy is an ice cube on a slanted surface; once a thin film of water forms between the ice and the surface the cube will slide because there is not enough friction to keep it from moving.

My research has been to design, develop, and field a radar system, called a synthetic aperture radar, that produces images of these bed conditions similar to satellite imagery. This data will be plugged back into ice sheet models to improve their accuracy. The new information provided by the models will help policy makers decide how to deal with the possible threats of future climate change.