Geologists form unique partnership on climate change research

Two UB geologists working on climate change research have formed a unique partnership that combines their different disciplines.

Glaciologist Beata Csatho and paleoclimatologist Jason Briner make up the climate change group in UB’s geology department. Both work mostly on Arctic climate change, but the similarities end there.

Csatho looks at contemporary data, while Briner studies earth’s history. By combining their experience and backgrounds, they’re trying to determine how fast the Greenland Ice Sheet is melting and how it might contribute to raising global sea levels.

“The approaches [Csatho] uses include remote data collection, satellite information and altimetry, mostly dealing with how glaciers and ice sheets are changing in today’s world,” says Briner. “That information is all current, or at least collected in the last couple decades.”

Csatho’s latest study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, uses NASA laser altimetry data to provide a detailed reconstruction of how the Greenland Ice Sheet and its glaciers have been changing over a 20-year period.

Briner, meantime, says he is more of a traditional geologist, looking back through time for historical changes that can be applied to present issues.

“I use various geological techniques, looking at the landforms and landscapes, and digging in sediments,” he says. “Through radiocarbon dating and various isotopic dating methods, I try to reconstruct past changes in the ice sheet and to determine when those changes took place.”

The two started writing proposals to the National Science Foundation together to work on Greenland. They currently are on their second NSF grant together.

“We try to put these two traditionally different disciplines of science together to see if we can learn something new. And we’ve done that,” says Briner. “Bea can look at the spatial pattern of how the ice sheet is changing today and I can look at the history of the ice sheet to determine if a similar pattern occurred in the past. Doing so allows us to bridge the gap between the geologic studies that I do and the contemporary studies that Bea does.”

Briner says it’s rare to have scientists in these disciplines working together. Part of the reason is funding. Much of Csatho’s work is motivated by projects using NASA-generated data sets to study climate change. NASA, however, does not traditionally fund geological field studies.

“If you look around, you don’t see it very often,” Briner says. “It’s not to say that it doesn’t happen; it’s not to say that there aren’t individuals who are fluent in both disciplines, but it remains a unique type of collaboration.”

And it’s not without its obstacles. Briner says the language of their respective fields is different and each involves its own approach. But the possible rewards that might arise from working together help knock down any barriers.

“Depending on how things line up — how the answers from looking at the past versus looking at the present come together — we might be able to help in the prediction phase, to see what areas are indeed most susceptible to global warming.”