Glaciologist
Dr Rob Massom
Dr Massom has 35 years’ experience in sea ice research, both in the Arctic (1980-1992) and Antarctic (1986-present) and on 14 international marine science cruises. Following a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship with NASA (USA), he joined the Antarctic CRC in 1992 and AAD in 2006, and is co-leader/leader of the ACE CRC/AAD Sea Ice Processes and Change group.
His research focus is sea ice and snow physics, remote sensing, and analytical synthesis of sea ice and other data to assess polar sea-ice change/variability, its causes and impacts. To this end, his work is strongly cross-disciplinary and collaborative. Publications include 3 textbooks on satellite polar remote sensing, and 8 book chapters and 69 peer-reviewed papers on wide-ranging topics.
Research highlights include first studies/reviews on E Antarctic sea ice change/variability; physical and ecological implications of Antarctic sea-ice change; and linkage between fast ice and penguin breeding success and ice sheet margin stability.
social & academic profiles
Current Research
Dr Massom is a Co-Leader of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre’s Sea Ice Processes and Change program.
Some of his ACE activities include:
• observational analyses to better understand and attribute change and variability in the distribution and properties of Antarctic sea ice (both pack and fast ice);
• retrieval of improved Antarctic sea-ice geophysical products from satellite data;
• investigation of cross-cryosphere interactions (between icebergs, floating ice sheet margins, polynyas, sea ice) as they determine Antarctic coastal sea ice conditions;
• snow-sea ice linkage studies;
• analysis of linkages between changing sea ice distribution and the stability/breakup of vulnerable floating ice sheet margins; and
• lead authorship of annual assessments of the state of the Antarctic sea ice cover (for the NOAA/BAMS annual State of the Climate review).
This research is based on strong cross-disciplinary collaboration with sea-ice biologists/ecologists, remote sensing experts, meteorologists, oceanographers and glaciologists from Japan, USA, UK, France, Belgium, New Zealand, Germany and Australia.
Selected Publications
Lubin, D., and R.A. Massom. 2006, Polar Remote Sensing. Volume 1: Atmosphere and Polar Oceans. Praxis/Springer, Chichester, UK, and Berlin, Germany, 756 pp.
Sturm, M. and R.A. Massom. 2010. Snow and Sea Ice. In D. Thomas & G. Dieckmann (editors): Sea Ice. 2nd Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, New York (USA) & Oxford (UK), pp. 153-204.
Massom, R.A., P. Reid, S. Stammerjohn, B. Raymond, A. Fraser and S. Ushio. 2013. Change and variability in East Antarctic sea ice seasonality, 1979/80-2009/10. PloS One, 8 (5), e64756, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064756.
Massom, R.A. and S.E. Stammerjohn. 2010. Antarctic sea ice change and variability – Physical and ecological implications. Polar Science, 4, 149-186.
Massom, R.A., A.B. Giles, H.A. Fricker, R.C. Warner, B. Legresy, G. Hyland, N. Young and A.D. Fraser. 2010. Examining the interaction between multi-year landfast sea ice and the Mertz Glacier Tongue, East Antarctica: Another factor in ice sheet stability? Journal of Geophysical Research. 115, C12027, doi:10.1029/2009JC006083.
Authorised by the CEO of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre October 2019.
The ACE CRC was established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program.
core participants
