Mathieu Morlighem

Mathieu Morlighem is the Evans Family Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College. His research group focuses on the physics of glacier ice and the role of the ice sheets in the climate system. Ice sheets play a central role in the climate system: They store significant amounts of fresh water and are the conveyor belts for transporting snow that accumulates inland back into the oceans. The interactions of the ice sheets with the atmosphere and the ocean have an internal variability but also affect the coupled ice sheet–climate response to external forcings on time scales of months to millions of years. If the current warming of the climate continues, the ice sheets will respond at a yet unknown rate, with unknown consequences for the rest of the climate system. A better understanding of the processes driving these changes is critical to improve projections of sea level rise. Morlighem combines numerical modeling techniques and remote sensing to improve our understanding of ice dynamics and how they affect the climate system. He uses and develops the Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM) to address these questions.