Kasia Warburton is a fluid dynamicist investigating the mechanisms setting the flow speed of ice sheets and glaciers. She constructs mathematical models to interrogate how limited quantities of data from Antarctica can nevertheless reveal the processes occurring beneath several kilometres of ice. Her focus is on water transport below glaciers, and the deformation of the wet sediments over which the ice slides. By better understanding these mechanisms on these small scales, we can build more reliable estimates for ice sheet evolution at the largest scale, particularly in response to unprecedented climatic change.

During her PhD she looked at what the tidal acceleration of the Rutford Ice Stream implies for the transport of ocean water into subglacial sediments, and the resulting impact on sediment strength and rate of ice sliding. At Dartmouth, she plans to extend this work to the sculpting of sediments by ice flow, and connect the morphology of landforms in both formerly and currently glaciated areas to the stability of present day ice sheets.