Glacier Change in the Southern Indian Ocean: Brown Glacier, Heard Island

该奖项支持探索性研究小额赠款（SGER），以利用最近出现的一个机会，让私家侦探与澳大利亚南极分部（AAD）一起在赫德岛工作。赫德岛是一个小的（367平方公里）亚南极岛，由一个2700米高的复合火山组成，四面都被冰川覆盖。这项工作的目的是确定南印度洋赫德岛布朗冰川目前的物质平衡、几何形状和流动状况。这项工作将通过测量一些基本的冰川学参数（质量平衡、流速、冰厚），帮助建立赫德岛冰川的基线剖面。这将有助于将观测到的冰川变化与气候联系起来，从而为地球上最偏远、人迹罕至的地方之一提供气候变化的重要指标。拟议中的工作为美国参与一个没有当地合作几乎不可能运作的领域提供了一个极好的机会。这项研究的学术价值在于，它增加了对世界上一个很难进入、几乎没有收集到数据的地区的气候变化的观察。赫德岛是这个纬度上为数不多的陆地之一，它的海拔范围使它成为冰川研究的主要候选者。记录冰川变化填补了全球气候变化图景中的一个重要空白。这项工作的更广泛的影响是，这是一个与澳大利亚南极司的合作项目，后者将提供后勤和一些人员。这项工作将成为澳大利亚霍巴特塔斯马尼亚大学博士论文的一部分，因此将有助于年轻科学家的教育。赫德岛的野外小组包括地质学家、冰川学家、植物和野生生物学家，他们研究这个独特的系统。很多工作都是跨学科的，比如研究冰川消退后植物的再定居。赫德岛是世界遗产，据信岛上没有人类引进的植物或动物。澳大利亚南极分部与美国调查人员的成功合作有着悠久的历史，并热衷于保持这种合作。它将工作集中在南极大陆东部及其周围，因此补充了美国在南极洲西部的工作。这项工作的结果将发表在同行评议的期刊上。这位调查员还为公众做了讲座，并就冰川问题向记者提供了反馈，今后还将继续这样做。

This award supports a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) to take advantage of an opportunity that recently presented itself for the P.I. to work on Heard Island with the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD). Heard Island is a small (367 km 2 ) subantarctic island which consists of a 2700 m high composite volcano that is glacierized on all sides.. The objective of the work is to determine the current mass balance, geometry and flow regime of Brown Glacier on Heard Island in the Southern Indian Ocean. The work will help to establish a baseline profile of Heard Island glaciers by measuring some basic glaciological parameters (mass balance, flow velocity, ice thickness). This will help relate the observed glacier changes to climate, and thus provide an important indicator of climate change in one of the most remote and least visited places on the planet. The proposed work provides an excellent opportunity for U.S. involvement in an area where it would be nearly impossible to operate without local collaboration. The intellectual merit of this study is that it adds to observations of climate change in a region of the world that is very difficult to access, and where few data have been collected. Heard Island is one of only few landmasses at this latitude, and its elevation range makes it a prime candidate for glacier study. Documenting glacier change fills an important gap in the picture of global climate change. The broader impacts of this work are that this is a collaborative project with the Australian Antarctic Division who will provide the logistics and some personnel. The work will be part of a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia and will thus contribute to the education of a young scientist. The Heard Island field team includes geologists, glaciologists, and plant and wildlife biologists, studying this unique system. Much of the work is interdisciplinary, such as the study of plant re-colonization after glacial retreat. Heard Island is a World Heritage site, and it is believed that no human-introduced plant or animal life exists on the island. The Australian Antarctic Division has a long history of successful collaboration with U.S. investigators and is keen on maintaining that. It concentrates its work in and around the eastern part of the Antarctic continent, and therefore complements the U.S. work on the western part of Antarctica. The results of this work will be published in peer-reviewed journals. The investigator has also given lectures to the general public and provided feedback to journalists on glacier issues, and will continue to do so in the future.