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September 5, 2006
Derrick Lampkin
Assitant Professor of Geography Derrick Lampkin received a CO-PI, NASA AIST (Advanced Information Systems Technology) Grant. He will collaborate with PI Dr. Howard of Georgia Tech. The three-year developmental grant is aimed to redesign mobile rovers (serving as data collectors) for use in harsh, Antarctic climates. Once the design phase is complete, the rovers will be tested in Colorado's Front Range where Antarctic conditions are most closely mirrored. The intention is to deploy these rovers on Antarctica to establish a quantitative relationship between the spatio-temporal variability of Antarctic sea ice concentration and ice shelf surface melt onset and duration.
Why is this important? Antarctic ice shelves play a major role in the stability of the ice sheet. Their potential disintegration would seriously affect the discharge rate of grounded ice from inland regions. The ice shelf instability has been linked to persistent melt and the formation of pond assemblages. It is important to understand and characterize these sources of energy used to initiate and expand melt pond structures.
This is Dr. Lampkin's first grant. Congratulations!