Doctoral Dissertation Research: Using Novel Luminescence Dating Techniques to Constrain Past Periods of Greenland Ice Sheet Minima as Analogs for Future Ice Sheet Decay

The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is an important component of the global sea level budget – when the ice sheet loses mass, global sea level rises, and vice versa. Well-documented changes in global land ice have shown that, currently, the GRiS is the single largest contributor to global sea level rise. Improving our understanding of how the Greenland Ice Sheet changes with global temperatures is critical to forecasting future changes to sea levels. Data on the history of this interaction over millennia allow scientists to more fully understand these interrelated processes. This dissertation research will investigate how the Greenland Ice Sheet changed over the past 40,000 years. This interval encompasses large swings in the global climate system, including Ice Age Conditions and warm interglacial conditions, as we have today. This research will be led by a doctoral student at the University at Buffalo, who will collect samples from the Greenland Ice Sheet to test new methods to shed light on the timing of past ice history of the Greenland Ice Sheet. This dissertation research will apply a novel analysis in glacial geology - luminescence rock surface dating - to further constrain the timing of the extent northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) over millennia. These data will provide critical insight into the relationship between the extent of the ice sheet over time and how sea level may have changed during different climate intervals. This project will provide invaluable research training for an early career scientist, who will leverage connections with two organizations: Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in Geoscience and Polar Impact to share this research and encourage other minority students in field science. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.