Glaciology

This interview was conducted first solely with Terry Hughes, then a brief segment with both Hughes and George Denton, and finally a segment with only Denton. It is part of a series of interviews done documenting the history of scientific work on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), and it concentrates primarily on Hughes’s career. It briefly covers his upbringing in South Dakota and undergraduate education in metallurgy at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and discusses his introduction into glaciology through Johannes Weertman, while doing graduate work in metallurgy at Northwestern University. The interview moves on to field work in Antarctica as a research associate under Colin Bull, subsequent employment at the Institute of Polar Studies at The Ohio State University, and production of his ISCAP Bulletins outlining the possibility that WAIS might disintegrate. Hughes’s move to the University of Maine as part of the CLIMAP project and his association with Denton and Hal Borns, are discussed. There is a focus on Hughes and Denton’s identification in The Last Great Ice Sheets of marine portions of ice sheets as playing a crucial role in the destruction of past ice sheets, as well as their identification of Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers as a potential outlet for rapid ice loss from WAIS. There is also discussion of early attention to the WAIS disintegration problem circa 1980 and Hughes’s distance from subsequent research on ice streams. Denton describes field work in reconstructing past climate conditions, including the contributions of John Mercer.

This interview was conducted by Morgan Seag for her graduate research work on the U.S. Antarctic Program at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge.  In this interview, Mosley-Thompson discusses her family background and upbringing in West Virginia, her interest in science from an early age, her decision to study physics in college, and the happenstance manner in which she became involved with the Institute of Polar Studies at the Ohio State University.  Mosley-Thompson describes extracting the climate history of an Antarctic ice core for her Ph.D. and the circumstances leading to her first visit to Antarctica in 1982, and what it was like to be among the first female scientists working in this field.  The interview covers Mosely-Thompson’s subsequent trips to the Antarctic and other locales for field research, and her thoughts on the changing programmatic and research aspects of the field over the past three decades. Mosley-Thompson also discusses her involvement in federally-supported research initiatives and her specialized contributions in data analysis and graphing, while balancing family and research responsibilities with her husband and fellow scientist and Ohio State University professor Lonnie Thompson.  The interview concludes with Mosely-Thompson’s description of her work as Director of the Byrd Center and her ongoing interest in research and teaching.  

In this interview, Kolumban Hutter discusses topics such as: his work at ETH Zurich; his research in glaciology; graduate degrees at Cornell University in theoretical and applied mechanics; Hans Ziegler; Hans Rothlisberger; Peter Kasser; ice plates; Daniel Vischer; John Nye; John Glen; thermodynamics; Andrew Fowler; Leslie Moreland; International Glaciological Society; hydrodynamics; Richard Sebass; fluid mechanics; physical limnology; visiting professorship at University of Arizona in Tucson; Terry Hughes; ice sheets and shelves; teaching at Darmstadt University of Technology; Ernst Becker; Reinhard Calov; Mary Williams; cold-temperate transition surface (CTS); global climate models; and working at Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

Born in California in 1911; recollections of childhood. Undergraduate studies in geology at California Institute of Technology, then one year of graduate work (J. P. Buwald, Chester Stock, William Morris Davis). Graduate studies in geology at Harvard University (R. A. Daly, Kirk Bryan, Percy Bridgman, Francis Birch, David Griggs), 1935-1938; comparisons between Harvard University and Caltech. To University of Illinois for teaching position, 1938-1943; summer research in geomorphology and glaciology. Research in Army Air Force during World War II. Accepts position at University of Minnesota (Larry Gould); professorship at Caltech, 1947. Debates over geochemical and geophysical approaches to geology; reassessment of curriculum in Division of Geological Sciences; decision to encourage research in space and planetary sciences (Harrison Brown), late 1950s.

This interview was conducted as part of a series documenting the history of scientific work on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Since 1990, Robert Bindschadler has been a key organizer of this work as chair of the WAIS initiative, an annual workshop dedicated to sharing research results and strategizing about future work. He has also conducted glaciological research as a member of the staff at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. In addition to these positions, Bindschadler discusses his entry into glaciology, work under Charles Raymond at the University of Washington, brief work with the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule) ETH in Zurich, his arrival at NASA, field work on the Siple Coast Project, and the inclusion of glaciological work under the Earth Systems Science rubric at NASA.

This interview was conducted as part of a series documenting the history of scientific work on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Charles Bentley has been a geophysicist at the University of Wisconsin since 1959. This interview discusses his entry to geophysics and graduate work at Columbia University under Maurice Ewing, and his inclusion by Frank Press in Antarctic traverses associated with the International Geophysical Year. He discusses his discovery with Ned Ostenso of the marine nature of WAIS during this field work, and then the building of the geophysics program at Wisconsin. There is detailed information about the organization and work of the Ross Ice Shelf Geophysical and Glaciological Survey, and the Siple Coast Project, and his group's subsequent field work. He also discusses his interest in the subject of the prospective disintegration of WAIS, and his shift in interest from geophysics to glaciology on account of this problem.

This interview was conducted as part of a series documenting the history of scientific work on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Charles Bentley has been a geophysicist at the University of Wisconsin since 1959. This interview discusses his entry to geophysics and graduate work at Columbia University under Maurice Ewing, and his inclusion by Frank Press in Antarctic traverses associated with the International Geophysical Year. He discusses his discovery with Ned Ostenso of the marine nature of WAIS during this field work, and then the building of the geophysics program at Wisconsin. There is detailed information about the organization and work of the Ross Ice Shelf Geophysical and Glaciological Survey, and the Siple Coast Project, and his group's subsequent field work. He also discusses his interest in the subject of the prospective disintegration of WAIS, and his shift in interest from geophysics to glaciology on account of this problem.