Glaciers and ice streams are speeding up in Greenland and Antarctica. We work to understand these changes, using a variety of tools including remote-sensing data, field data, and models.
Areas of interest
We generally focus on large systems that have the potential to raise global sea level. Understanding changes in such systems is crucial for understanding how speedup and retreat will progress in the future. Two primary areas of focus are the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) and the Amundsen Sea Embayment.
NEGIS is a ribbon of fast flow extending 600 km inland in Greenland. It has been intensely studied due to its draining a large portion of the ice sheet, and since its outlets have retreated and sped up recently. Understanding how these changes may impact upstream ice has been our focus. For example, we have worked to understand deep inland speedup (Grinsted et al., 2025) and to understand how ice-crystal fabric affects flow here (Gerber et al., 2023). Stay tuned for work on understanding what the new EastGRIP ice core suggests about flow in the area!
The Amundsen Sea Embayment is the fastest changing region of Antarctica. We have worked on Smith, Pope, and Kohler Glaciers in the area, using remote sensing and modeling. We are currently spinning up work on Thwaites Glacier, one of the largest and most important glaciers worldwide.
References
Banerjee, D, DA Lilien, M Truffer, A Luckman, CT Wild, EC Pettit, TA Scambos, A Muto, and KE Alley. Evolution of Shear-Zone Fractures Presages the Disintegration of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf (2025). Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 130, e2025JF008352 (doi:10.1029/2025JF008352).
Lilien, DA, KE Alley, RB Alley. The effect of melt-channel geometry on ice-shelf flow (2025). Journal of Glaciology. 71, e73 (doi:10.1017/jog.2025.36).
Voss, KM, KE Alley, DA Lilien, and D Dahl-Jensen. The role of near-terminus conditions in the ice-flow speed of Upernavik Isstrøm in northwest Greenland (2023). Annals of Glaciology, 64(92), 370–384 (doi:10.1017/aog.2023.76).
Grinsted, A, CS Hvidberg, DA Lilien, NM Rathmann, NB Karlsson, TA Gerber, HA Kjær, P Vallelonga, and D Dahl-Jensen. Accelerating ice flow at the onset of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (2022). Nature Communications. 13, 5589 (doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32999-2).