Nina Kirchner Professor i glaciologi

I am professor of glaciology at the Department of Physical Geography at Stockholm University, and Director of Tarfala Research Station. Away from home, I am a regular guest lecturer at the Department of Arctic Geology at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). 

Research interests:

• Dynamics of ice sheets and glaciers, in the past, present and future, with a special focus on the mass balance of Swedish Glaciers, of which Storglaciären holds the World’s longest timeseries; and on processes at marine ice margins floating out into polar fjords and oceans where calving takes place.
• Development and application of methodology for remote data acquisition, such as drones for aerial glacier surveys, and autonomous platforms and instruments for data acquisition in the harsh polar underwater domain, extending from the seafloor to the seasurface. Testing of methodology in the field.
• Development and application of numerical models for glacier and ice sheet dynamics, with focus on calving and uncertainty propagation from measurement to simulation result.
• Impact of cascading effects of climate warming on arctic, pro- and periglacial lakes, including vertical mixing processes and ice cover phenology (timing and duration of annual lake ice cover).
• Arctic convergence research, across disciplines.

Doing marine-glaciological, glaciological and limnological field work, I have spent more than 9 months on Research Vessels in the Arctic Ocean and its adjacent seas, and in the Ross Sea and Amundsen Sea in Antarctica. Also, I work ca 5 month/year on site at Tarfala Research Station.