Tonie van Dam

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Tonie Marie van Dam (born April 19, 1960) is an American geophysicist and geodesist, known for her pioneering research on solid Earth deformations due to loads from atmospheric and hydrologic pressures. She and her collaborators used space geodetic observations and modeling for increased precision in measuring and understanding such loads. [1]

Contents

Biography

Tonie van Dam graduated in 1982 with a B.S. in physics and geology from Mary Washington College (now renamed the University of Mary Washington). At the University of Colorado Boulder, she graduated in 1991 with a Ph.D. in geophysics. Her Ph.D. thesis Atmospheric Load Response of the Solid Earth and Oceans [2] was supervised by John M. Wahr. [1] From 1991 to 1993 she was a postdoc at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From 1993 to 2000 she worked for the U.S. civil service as a research geophysicist at the Geosciences Laboratory of the National Geodetic Survey (part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). In the Faculté des Sciences, de la Technologie et de la Communication at the University of Luxembourg, she was an associate professor from 2006 to 2013 and a full professor from 2013 to 2019. (In language skills, she has functional ability in French and basic skills in both Luxembourgish and Spanish.) [2] In 2020 she was appointed to a full professorship in the University of Utah's Department of Geology and Geophysics.

Van Dam is the author or coauthor of more than 120 publications. [3] Her research focuses on the geodesy and geophysics of loads from atmospheric and hydrologic pressures. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Her 2001 article Crustal displacements due to continental water loading (written with six collaborators, including John M. Wahr, Geoffrey Blewitt, and Kristine M. Larson) [11] is considered a classic in geodesy. [1] [3] [12] Van Dam has served the community of geophysicists and geodesist in several capacities and since 2019 is a member of the board of directors of UNAVCO. She is an associate editor for the Institute of Geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences's Studia Geophysica et Geodaetica from 2010 to the present and for the International Association of Geodesy's Journal of Geodesy from 2015 to the present. [2]

In 2017 van Dam was awarded Luxembourg's Grand Prix en Sciences de l’Institut Grand-ducal, Science Geologiques/Prix Feidt. [2] The American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2017 appointed her the Bowie Lecturer [13] and in 2020 elected her a Fellow of the AGU. [12] She received in 2019 the European Geosciences Union’s Vening Meinesz Medal. [1]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

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Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the geometry, gravity, and spatial orientation of the Earth in temporally varying 3D. It is called planetary geodesy when studying other astronomical bodies, such as planets or circumplanetary systems. Geodesy is an earth science as well as a discipline of applied mathematics, and many consider the study of Earth's shape and gravity to be central to the science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geophysics</span> Physics of the Earth and its vicinity

Geophysics is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists, who usually study geophysics, physics, or one of the Earth sciences at the graduate level, complete investigations across a wide range of scientific disciplines. The term geophysics classically refers to solid earth applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational, magnetic fields, and electromagnetic fields ; its internal structure and composition; its dynamics and their surface expression in plate tectonics, the generation of magmas, volcanism and rock formation. However, modern geophysics organizations and pure scientists use a broader definition that includes the water cycle including snow and ice; fluid dynamics of the oceans and the atmosphere; electricity and magnetism in the ionosphere and magnetosphere and solar-terrestrial physics; and analogous problems associated with the Moon and other planets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoid</span> Ocean shape without winds and tides

The geoid is the shape that the ocean surface would take under the influence of the gravity of Earth, including gravitational attraction and Earth's rotation, if other influences such as winds and tides were absent. This surface is extended through the continents. According to Gauss, who first described it, it is the "mathematical figure of the Earth", a smooth but irregular surface whose shape results from the uneven distribution of mass within and on the surface of Earth. It can be known only through extensive gravitational measurements and calculations. Despite being an important concept for almost 200 years in the history of geodesy and geophysics, it has been defined to high precision only since advances in satellite geodesy in the late 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Satellite laser ranging</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Geophysical Union</span> Nonprofit organization of geophysicists

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Terrestrial Reference System and Frame</span> World spatial reference system co-rotating with the Earth in its diurnal motion in space

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vertical deflection</span> Measure of the downward gravitational forces shift due to nearby mass

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<i>Journal of Geophysical Research</i> Peer-reviewed scientific journal

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UNAVCO (University Navstar Consortium) was a non-profit university-governed consortium that facilitated geology research and education using geodesy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lwandle Plate</span> Mainly oceanic tectonic microplate off the southeast coast of Africa

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Juliet J. Biggs is a British geologist who is Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. Her research uses satellite geodesy and interferometric synthetic-aperture radar (InSAR) to understand the physics of the Earth's crust. She was awarded the American Geophysical Union John Wahr Award in 2017 and a European Research Council (ERC) consolidator grant in 2020.

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Thomas A. Herring is a geophysicist, known for developing and applying systems of space geodesy to high-precision geophysical measurements and geodynamic research.

The Vening Meinesz Medal is an annual award for outstanding research in geodesy.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "2019 Vening Meinesz Medal is awarded to Toni van Dam". European Geosciences Union.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Tonie van Dam, Professor of Geology & Geophysics". University of Utah. CV
  3. 1 2 "Vening Meinesz Medal awarded to Tonie van Dam". News, Université du Luxembourg.
  4. ↑ Van Dam, T. M.; Wahr, J. M. (1987). "Displacements of the Earth's surface due to atmospheric loading: Effects on gravity and baseline measurements". Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 92: 1281–1286. Bibcode:1987JGR....92.1281V. doi: 10.1029/JB092iB02p01281 .
  5. ↑ Dam, Tonie M van; Wahr, John M.; Milly, P. Chris D.; Francis, Olivier (2001). "Gravity Changes Due to Continental Water Storage". Journal of the Geodetic Society of Japan. 47. doi:10.11366/sokuchi1954.47.249. S2CID   132648732.
  6. ↑ Dam, T. M.; Wahr, J.; Chao, Y.; Leuliette, E. (1997). "Predictions of crustal deformation and of geoid and sea-level variability caused by oceanic and atmospheric loading". Geophysical Journal International. 129 (3): 507–517. Bibcode:1997GeoJI.129..507V. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.1997.tb04490.x .
  7. ↑ Tregoning, P.; Van Dam, T. (2005). "Effects of atmospheric pressure loading and seven-parameter transformations on estimates of geocenter motion and station heights from space geodetic observations". Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 110 (B3). Bibcode:2005JGRB..110.3408T. doi: 10.1029/2004JB003334 .
  8. ↑ Tregoning, P.; Van Dam, T. (2005). "Atmospheric pressure loading corrections applied to GPS data at the observation level". Geophysical Research Letters. 32 (22). Bibcode:2005GeoRL..3222310T. doi:10.1029/2005GL024104. S2CID   28448645.
  9. ↑ Collilieux, Xavier; Altamimi, Zuheir; Coulot, David; Van Dam, Tonie; Ray, Jim (2010). "Impact of loading effects on determination of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame". Advances in Space Research. 45 (1): 144–154. Bibcode:2010AdSpR..45..144C. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2009.08.024.
  10. ↑ Van Dam, T.; Collilieux, X.; Wuite, J.; Altamimi, Z.; Ray, J. (2012). "Nontidal ocean loading: Amplitudes and potential effects in GPS height time series". Journal of Geodesy. 86 (11): 1043–1057. Bibcode:2012JGeod..86.1043V. doi: 10.1007/s00190-012-0564-5 .
  11. ↑ Van Dam, T.; Wahr, J.; Milly, P. C. D.; Shmakin, A. B.; Blewitt, G.; Lavallée, D.; Larson, K. M. (2001). "Crustal displacements due to continental water loading". Geophysical Research Letters. 28 (4): 651–654. Bibcode:2001GeoRL..28..651V. doi:10.1029/2000GL012120. S2CID   16913286.
  12. 1 2 "Prof Tonie van Dam Inducted as AGU Fellow". News, Université du Luxembourg . 19 November 2020.
  13. ↑ "Tonie M. van Dam, Bowie Lecture, December 2017". American Geophysical Union (AGU).
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