Firn
Firn is the porous layer of snow that compacts into glacier ice. Firn density, temperature, and enthalpy evolution affect surface elevation change and set the speed at which light can travel through the near surface. Our group uses firn models that represent compaction, heat transport, and meltwater percolation and inverse methods to assimilate observations of compaction to initialize poorly constrained densification parameters. These constraints improve the interpretation of satellite altimetry trends, and can be used to reconstruct past climate from firn observations.
Andrew Hoffman
Assistant Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Rice University
My research interests include ice-sheet dynamics, ice–ocean interactions, ice-sheet modeling, glacier geophysics, glacier basal processes, glacier hydrology, subglacial lakes and subglacial ecosystems, glacier seismicity, firn dynamics and hydrology, ice–volcano interactions, autonomous vehicles for ice-sheet and ocean exploration.