Michele Koppes | |
|---|---|
| Born | Greece [1] |
| Nationality | Dutch [2] |
| Alma mater | University of Washington (Ph.D, MSc) and Williams College (BA with honours) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Glaciology, geomorphology, climate science |
| Institutions | Associate Professor at University of British Columbia's Department of Geography |
| Website | blogs |
Michele Koppes is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who uses glaciology and geomorphology to study climate and changing landscapes.
Koppes attended Williams College and received a BA in Geology with honors. She continued her education at the University of Washington, earning her Masters of Science in Geological sciences, a Certificate in Environmental Geology and Doctor of Philosophy in Earth and Space Sciences in 2007. [3] [4] At the University of Washington, Koppes worked with advisor Brenard Hallet writing her dissertation on the “Influence of rapid glacial retreat on erosion rates for tide-water glaciers”. [5]
Currently, she is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia's Vancouver campus in the department of geography. Koppes studies glaciers and climatology. Through various methods, her and her team are able to quantify the effects of climate change on landscapes and people. Her research is interdisciplinary; bringing together geomorphology, glaciology, climate, and human adaptation and resilience. [6] As of 2017, she also serves on the Executive Board of the Canadian Geomorphology Research Group. [7]
One of Koppes most cited articles is "The relative efficacy of fluvial and glacial erosion over modern to orogenic timescales". She and her co-author, David Montgomery, present that there has been much contention about glaciers or rivers being more effective at eroding. Looking at erosion rates, they have found that both vary significantly; the main driver of erosion is tectonics. In addition, they found that volcanic activity, changes in climate, and agriculture have led to the largest erosion rates. [8]
Michele Koppes is a TED senior fellow and Canada Research Chair. As a TED senior fellow, she has written and published the article "Why what's happening in Antarctica won't stay in Antarctica". [9] Discussing the collapse of ice shelves to the lay public, Koppes explains that scientists are not sure when its effects will be felt. Part of the Canadian government program in which "chairholders aim to achieve research excellence", Koppes is a Canada Research Chair in Landscapes of Climate Change, Tier II. [10] Working with TED, she also acted as the educator for the animation Why is Mount Everest so tall? [11] In 2011, she received the Ross Mackay Award from the Canadian Geomorphology Resesarch Group. [12] In 2009, Koppes was nominated by the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists to attend the International Council for Science's Science Visioning Meeting. [1]
Koppes has published numerous articles, many funded by grants from the National Science Foundation. [13] [14] Here are some of her most cited articles:
As a science policy fellow for US Congress, Koppes worked to help to bring policymakers, media, and the scientific community together. [16] As a legislative consultant on climate change policy, she worked with Congressman Jay Inslee of 1st district Washington State. [17]
Koppes is a co-founder of Girls on Ice, a program for high school girls about wilderness science, glaciology, ecology, and mountaineering. [3] [18] She also acts as an adviser for a summer exploration and field research program, the Juneau Ice Field Research Program, for high school to graduate students interested in studying glaciology. In addition, she has worked with the Student Conservation Association to help coordinate high school students build and restore trails. [19]
Acting as a scientific consultant, Koppes has been involved with various media from organizations such as the Discovery Chanel, BBC, and NPR. She has been featured on BBC's documentary Operation Iceberg; as one of five team scientists, Koppes looked to observe and study the formation of icebergs on Greenland's west coast. [20] She also presented about ice tsunami's on BBC's Nature's Weirdest Events series. She's also helped to explain the impacts of climate change on Alaska on Discover Channel's Expedition Alaska. Appearing on Spacepod, she spoke about her research on glaciers and how they are powerful agents of change; mentioning a large landslide triggered by melting glaciers. [21] Along with 11 other women TED fellows, she has been working to change the way that society views women in the scientific community, stating “Doing science properly is rife with failed attempts — on top of this, women must stand up for their legitimate seat at the table. The time has come for both women and men to discard the cultural stereotypes of what a ‘proper scientist’ should be — we can all be curious, creative, brainy, rational, driven, successful, and loving partners and parents, playful and engaged teammates and citizens.” [22]
A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as crevasses and seracs, as it slowly flows and deforms under stresses induced by its weight. As it moves, it abrades rock and debris from its substrate to create landforms such as cirques, moraines, or fjords. Although a glacier may flow into a body of water, it forms only on land and is distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water.
Physical geography is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere. This focus is in contrast with the branch of human geography, which focuses on the built environment, and technical geography, which focuses on using, studying, and creating tools to obtain, analyze, interpret, and understand spatial information. The three branches have significant overlap, however.
Axel Heiberg Island is an uninhabited island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. Located in the Arctic Ocean, it is the 32nd largest island in the world and Canada's seventh largest island. According to Statistics Canada, it has an area of 43,178 km2 (16,671 sq mi). It is named after Axel Heiberg.
Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is a large ice stream, and the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica, responsible for about 25% of Antarctica's ice loss. The glacier ice streams flow west-northwest along the south side of the Hudson Mountains into Pine Island Bay, Amundsen Sea, Antarctica. It was mapped by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) from surveys and United States Navy (USN) air photos, 1960–66, and named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) in association with Pine Island Bay.
Thwaites Glacier is an unusually broad and vast Antarctic glacier located east of Mount Murphy, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land. It was initially sighted by polar researchers in 1940, mapped in 1959–1966 and officially named in 1967, after the late American glaciologist Fredrik T. Thwaites. The glacier flows into Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea, at surface speeds which exceed 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) per year near its grounding line. Its fastest-flowing grounded ice is centered between 50 and 100 kilometres east of Mount Murphy. Like many other parts of the cryosphere, it has been adversely affected by climate change, and provides one of the more notable examples of the retreat of glaciers since 1850.
Women in geology concerns the history and contributions of women to the field of geology. There has been a long history of women in the field, but they have tended to be under-represented. In the era before the eighteenth century, science and geological science had not been as formalized as they would become later. Hence early geologists tended to be informal observers and collectors, whether they were male or female. Notable examples of this period include Hildegard of Bingen who wrote works concerning stones and Barbara Uthmann who supervised her husband's mining operations after his death. Mrs. Uthmann was also a relative of Georg Agricola. In addition to these names varied aristocratic women had scientific collections of rocks or minerals.
Periglaciation describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing and freezing, very often in areas of permafrost. The meltwater may refreeze in ice wedges and other structures. "Periglacial" originally suggested an environment located on the margin of past glaciers. However, freeze and thaw cycles influence landscapes also outside areas of past glaciation. Therefore, periglacial environments are anywhere when freezing and thawing modify the landscape in a significant manner.
Erin Christine Pettit is an American glaciologist focusing on climate change. She is an associate professor of geophysics and glaciology at Oregon State University. Her work focuses on ice-ocean interactions, ice-shelf disintegration, sea-level rise and ocean circulation changes.
Julie Michelle Palais is an American polar glaciologist who has made significant contributions to climate change research studying volcanic fallout in ice cores from both Greenland and Antarctica. For many years, starting in 1990, she played a pivotal role working at the National Science Foundation (NSF) as Program Director of the Antarctic Glaciology Program in the Division of Polar Programs, including many trips to both North and South Polar regions. Both the Palais Glacier and Palais Bluff in Antarctica were named in her honor and she has received many further recognitions for her distinguished career.
Christine Siddoway is an American Antarctic researcher, best known for her work on the geology and tectonics of the Ford Ranges in western Marie Byrd Land. Other discoveries relate to preserved records of continental-interior sedimentation during the Sturtian glaciation, Cryogenian Period, in Rodinia, and evidence of a reduced Pliocene extent of the West Antarctic ice sheet, based upon investigation of clasts transported to/deposited in deep water by Ice rafting in the Amundsen Sea.
Frank Jean-Marie Léon Pattyn is a Belgian glaciologist and professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He is best known for developing ice-sheet models and leading model intercomparisons.
Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a soil biogeochemist and political ecologist who served as Director of the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy from 2022 to 2024. She is a Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry and the Ted and Jan Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology in the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences; University of California, Merced. Her research group works to understand how soil helps regulate the Earth's climate.
Jane Kathryn Willenbring is an American geomorphologist and professor at Stanford University. She is best known for using cosmogenic nuclides to investigate landscape changes and dynamics. She has won multiple awards including the Antarctica Service Medal and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
Julie Brigham-Grette is a glacial geologist and a professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she co-directs the Joseph Hartshorn Quaternary Laboratory. Her research expertise is in glacial geology and paleoclimatology; she has made important contributions to Arctic marine and terrestrial paleoclimate records of the late Cenozoic to recent periods, the evolution of the Arctic climate, especially in the Beringia/Bering Strait region, and was a leader of the international Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project in northeastern Russia.
Kirsteen Jane Tinto is a glaciologist known for her research on the behavior and subglacial geology of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Suzanne Prestrud Anderson is an American geophysicist who is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research considers chemical weathering and erosion, and how it shapes the architecture of critical zones. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union.
Ruth Mottram is a British climate scientist who is a researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute. Her research considers the development of climate models and the dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets in the climate system.
Tyndall Glacier is a valley/tidewater glacier in the U.S. state of Alaska. The glacier lies immediately west of 141° West longitude, within the boundaries of the Wrangell–Saint Elias Wilderness, itself part of Wrangell–St. Elias National Park & Preserve, in the borough of Yakutat, Alaska.
Catherine Walker is an American Earth and planetary scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she is on the scientific staff in the Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering. Her research spans fracture mechanics and dynamics in ice, cryosphere change, physical oceanography, and geomorphology on Earth and other planets and moons using a variety of methodologies including remote sensing.
Gino Casassa Rogazinski is a Chilean glaciologist, serving as director of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) since 2024. He studied civil hydraulic engineering at the University of Chile (1984), completed a master's degree in geophysics/glaciology at Hokkaido University (Japan), and obtained a doctorate in glaciological sciences at The Ohio State University. He is assosiated with the University of Magallanes. He also maintains that the increase in the planet's temperature is largely due to human activity.
