As scientists, policymakers, and other environmentally-concerned individuals search for solutions to the changing climate, glaciers are an important topic. With the ability to both study glaciers in their current states, and use geomorphology and numerical modeling to understand the historical placements of glaciers in the past, they hold clues for interpreting the climate.
Dr. Leif Anderson has been studying glaciers since the completion of his undergraduate degree at Montana State University-Bozeman. After completing his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado – Boulder, he studied geomorphology and glacialology through two postdoctoral appointments in Iceland and Germany.
Dr. Anderson, an assistant professor of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah, spends his time researching both the past extent of glaciers and the current conditions of glacial ice and how the changing environment is impacting them. By combining the information he learns with other scientific understandings, his research is helping to understand a future changing climate.
Listen to the Interview:
Transcript:
Margaret
Welcome! Would you mind just introducing yourself a little bit and what you’re doing on campus? What your research focuses on or any other involvement you think is relevant?
Leif Anderson
Well, thank you so much for having me, Margaret. I appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit more about my research. My name is Leif Andersen. I’m faculty in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and my research focuses on glaciers. And in addition to, you know, pursuing many different ways of researching those glaciers, I’m also a teacher in the department as well.
Margaret
Awesome. That’s pretty great. So, I’m curious… with this field of research, I know it’s kind of a smaller subsection of the geosciences, but I’m curious how you got to wanting to study it and how you decided that that’s the path you wanted to follow?
Leif Anderson
Yeah, that’s a great question. For me, I sort of grew up in the Pacific Northwest and my father would always take me into the mountains and he was he was a mountain climber in the Himalaya back in the seventies and showed me all sorts of photos of glaciers in the Himalaya and glaciers that were in steep mountains. They might have been covered with rocks, things like that, but it always sort of stuck in my mind. I’ve been pursuing science related to that ever since. So that’s one motivation. The other is, is just, you know, we’re facing some significant changes in climate and the environment and especially in alpine settings. There’s a lot of uncertainty about what that means in terms of the negative effects to folks living downstream, so I’m also motivated by that.
Margaret
So within this realm of climate research, I’m curious if you could give us some more details about what exactly you’re looking at within climate related studies, but also what do you think the future implications of what you’re researching could have to play on how we understand climate and how we can kind of combat climate change or what that means? Yeah, what can we learn from what you’re doing?
Leif Anderson
Absolutely. So very broadly, I study glaciers and ice sheets and as they contract with warming temperatures, one of the biggest implications is, is what is the future of sea level. Right? And there’s millions of people living on the coast that are affected by this. So, by studying modern glaciers, not the big ice sheets like Greenland and Antarctica, we are really constraining the most recent sea level rise or the sea level rise that will happen in the next 50 years or so by studying the ice sheets. For example, Greenland and Antarctica. We’re talking about sea level rise in the in the 100 to 200 to 300 thousand year time scale. So that’s really one of the most important things that that my research informs. I also study on glaciers that are smaller, that are covered with rocks. So, in Utah we might not be aware of it, but we actually do have some glacial ice that remains and so, for example, Mount Timpanogos, just to the east of Provo, there’s actually a substantial amount of ice that’s still preserved there. So, one of the things that I’m working on is to understand first how much ice is there and then what’s going to happen to that ice going into the future. In the places where we have really small glaciers, what’s really important is how the change in the ice is going to affect the downstream hydrology and then also life relies on the streams downstream as well. So those are a couple of ways that my research is informing, you know, climate impacts and the impacts that climate change will have. Yeah.
Margaret
Cool. I also I’m curious with a little bit more of like the paleogeography stuff and the paleogeomorphology that you study with understanding what the climate looked like before. I’m curious what we can learn from that about how that can inform our current climate understanding. I know a lot of people, like I volunteer up at the museum in their new climate exhibit, and so I talk to a lot of people about how climate change is normal and that we see climate fluctuation. So I’m curious if there’s things we can learn from your research about how those are different, like how past climate change is different from what we’re experiencing now. But anything else like that too? What can we learn from what it used to look like?
Leif Anderson
Yeah, that’s a great question. So, another aspect of my research is to constrain past climate using glaciers that are no longer present. For example, in the Wasatch we had glaciers, at least in Little Cottonwood, extending all the way to the mouth, you know, the Yellowstone, the famous super volcano was covered by quite a large ice cap. So there was quite a lot of ice around during the last ice age.
Yeah, that’s an interesting fact, but how does it inform what’s happening today really? What we can do is we can use the past shape of glaciers using numerical models, 3D numerical models. We can estimate what the climate was in the past and why that’s important. Really it comes down to climate sensitivity. So, we know how much greenhouse gas was in the atmosphere during the last ice age because air bubbles are trapped in ice cores in Greenland in Antarctica. So we know how much CO2 is in the atmosphere if we can constrain what the past temperature was then we have a sensitivity to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So we can use that that sensitivity to then project into the future, if that makes sense. So we know that we’re increasing greenhouse gases and we can project, you know, substantial like increases. And so, yeah, knowing what the past climate was paired with CO2 in the past, it helps us inform what the future will hold. So that’s, that’s one way that it does inform the present and future. Yeah.
Margaret
Oh, cool. Okay. So, you can compare how much carbon or like how much greenhouse gas is trapped with how far the glacier would extend it to kind of determine the temperature?
Leif Anderson
Yeah.
Margaret
Interesting. Okay. So, kind of more of a personal question, but what has been your favorite part of your research? Both, like, throughout the whole time that you’ve been studying the environment, but also recently, what’s been most exciting and appealing to you?
Leif Anderson
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think one thing that that I really love about my research is how challenging it is. I like that every day I come to work, I have something new to learn. And, you know, that’s something that I think, more of us should be able to strive for. It’s difficult. It’s definitely difficult work, but it’s very rewarding. I would also say that I really take a lot of personal satisfaction from working with students and helping sort of change the environment of science and research and creating a place where it’s more inclusive of folks that may not have traditionally had access to working on glaciers. I think that is, that’s more of a new movement in science, but it personally aligns with what I do and I and it feels great when I can make breakthroughs in that realm too.
Margaret
That kind of perfectly leads into my next question. Since you’ve been involved with students both as a teacher, but do you have undergrads in your lab?
Leif Anderson
I do. I have a number. Yeah.
Margaret
Awesome. So with being involved in research and with students in research, I was curious if you have any recommendations or just suggestions on how students that are interested in studying climate, especially because you’re in earth sciences through the geosciences, how would they like get involved? Do you have any like recommendations on or also just deciding if you like research? How can students decide if they want to pursue research, anything like that?
Leif Anderson
That’s a great question. I’m I’ve mentored a number of UROP scholars and then a Wilkes scholar as well.
I think the most important thing to decide is to try it. Undergrad research is it seems scary, I think, at first. But a good mentor will give you sort of a slow lead in to what the research experience is like because yeah, there’s a lot there and it takes years to really become, you know, to become a leader in the field. So, you have to take a long-term view. But I think the most important thing to do is, you know, do well in your classes. And when you’re excited by someone who’s teaching that class, talk to them and then you know, that professor might not be exactly in the field that you’re interested in. But we’re all there to sort of facilitate your education. So oftentimes students will come to me with an interest and I will connect them with another professor. So, the really the thing is I would say, you know, if you’re going to be a researcher, you should follow what you’re excited about yourself because there’s a lot of freedom in being a researcher. And so, in addition to what I already said, a big part of it is getting to know what you’re really interested in. So, self-knowledge is key to becoming a successful researcher too. So, there’s some pieces, you know, but we could go on for a while. But, you know, I think the main thing is to be excited and, you know, talk to people. I think that’s a first start. Yeah.
Margaret
Cool. Yeah, that is kind of everything that I had prepared to ask you. Is there anything additionally that we missed that you would like to tell us about what you study or climate in general?
Leif Anderson
Mm hmm. I mean, yeah, I think one thing that then I think is an interesting thing. I think it’s an interesting thing about what’s going on with climate change today and maybe a little bit about policy. Um, I think it’s easy to get frustrated with, with the lack of progress perhaps on, you know, changing our use of fossil fuels, in mitigating the effects of climate change. But I like to remind myself that I, you know, taking a little bit more of a long-term view, I’m not sure there’s any other time period in human history when we’ve been able to identify a problem as large as this and mitigate it. So, I think we need to be a little patient with, with the changes and we just need to continue to make efforts. So, I think I think that’s something that, that maybe is overlooked a little bit. We’re doing something exceptional by trying to mitigate this big environmental issue.
Margaret
Yeah, I have another question on that. I know. So, in studying climate, we get a little discouraged sometimes with stuff like. With you being, so involved in the field and studying climate, what do you, other than just like that patience, what do you use to kind of keep motivated to study it without just being super depressed. Because I hear that a lot from students that we walk out of a climate change class and they hand us a counseling card for climate change counseling. And so, like, it’s a big issue for undergrads right now that are looking at studying climate because it just seems to be a downward spiral, I think sometimes. What do you use to stay motivated and positive?
Leif Anderson
Yeah, that’s I mean, that’s a great question. And, you know, society today kind of builds anxiety in a lot of ways. It’s not, I would say, healthy. So, I think one thing that you can really do is try to step back and see the bigger picture. And a lot of times we’re trying you know, scientist, teachers, we’re trying to convince you that it’s an issue.
But I mean, this is more of personal, like how you can handle that stuff. But I think it’s a lot more time just with ourselves. It’s great that we have all the connectivity that we have, But, sometimes that gets in the way of just having a little bit of space. I think I would just step away from that, you know, and just take time for yourself to think about what the bigger issues are. And that’s, you know, there’s a lot of great things happening in our society with all the technological advancement advancements. But I don’t think that we as a society, you know, in America and Europe, globally, we’ve really learned how to deal with the new technologies we’ve created. And so I think we just need to have a little bit of faith that we’ll figure that out. And I think we will. But yeah, I think resiliency maybe is the word we’re looking for. But it’s, you know, I understand it’s difficult and I think all of us are dealing with that same feeling.
Margaret
Yeah, Cool. Yeah. So just kind of the last thing. Is there any resources or anything that you would like to refer people that are listening to learn more about you and your research, but also to learn more about the climate issue or what you study? Is there anything you think would be helpful to look at to learn more?
Leif Anderson
Yeah, great question. You know, we have a new working group in the Western U.S. to look at paleoglaciers, so there’s a western U.S. Paleo Glacier working group, and I’ll share the URL with you on. Yeah, there’s a number of, you know, climate change websites that I think are that sort of can cut through the I’ll just say it propaganda that’s out there. Um, I’ll also share with you that’s really important. And then yeah if you’re really interested in my research, you can Google me and take a look at my website. That’s what I’d say. Or, look for the classes that I’m teaching. I love to love to interact with any of you.
Margaret
Perfect. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us and it’s been great chatting me.
Leif Anderson
It’s a pleasure. Thank you so much.