vailsymposium

Kristin Poinar is an expert in climate change, ice sheets and sea-level rise. She recently returned with new research from the Greenland Ice Sheet. As a researcher, she uses computer modeling to understand how Earth’s ice sheets are shrinking and contributing to rising oceans. She investigates how ice and water move and interact within glaciers, and how these processes affect a glacier’s health and flow speed and the rate of a glacier’s decline.

Poinar’s work focuses primarily on the Greenland Ice Sheet. One of her studies found that meltwater inside certain deep fissures called crevasses can reach bedrock and find its way to the ocean, contributing to sea level rise. She gave an international TED Talk on this research in 2017. In addition to the Greenland Ice Sheet, Poinar’s areas of academic interest include the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the prehistoric Laurentide Ice Sheet.