I am a Research Scientist in the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, and I am interested in processes affecting glaciers and ice sheets under changing conditions. When ice melts on the surface of a glacier, some (or all) of the meltwater drains through the glacier to the bed, where the ice meets rock or sediment. Glaciers do not only melt on top; they also melt from below, so water is also produced through basal melting due to geothermal flux, frictional heat from the glacier sliding, and heat produced by turbulent dissipation. The water pressure under the ice affects how fast the glacier slides by lubricating the bed and reducing friction.
In my current research, I use mathematical modeling to simulate water drainage beneath glaciers and ice sheets with projects in Greenland and High Mountain Asia. This is important for making better predictions of sea-level rise, understanding and predicting hazards such as glacier surges and outburst floods, and projecting changes in downstream water resources.
Primary topics of interest:
- subglacial hydrology
- glacier and ice-sheet dynamics
Education:
Rice University: Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (2009)
University of Colorado at Boulder: PhD in Civil Engineering (2018)
Postdoctoral work:
Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (2019-2020)
Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (2020-2022)
Current research grants (as Principal Investigator):
NASA: ICESat-2 Science Team, “Coupled subglacial hydrology and ice dynamics constrained by surface elevation evolution” (2023-present)
NASA: Understanding changes in High Mountain Asia, “Quantifying the role of subglacial hydrology in glacier surges and outburst floods of High Mountain Asia” (2024-present)
Publications:
- Thota, V. K., Vijay, S., Sommers, A. N., Banerjee, A., Mey, J. and Motagh, M. (in review). Seasonal variability in velocity of a Himalayan Glacier driven by subglacial hydrology. Submitted to Journal of Glaciology.
- Stubblefield, A., Sommers, A., Meyer, C., and Andrews, L. (in review). Estimating effective pressures in active subglacial lakes with ICESat-2 satellite altimetry. Submitted to Journal of Glaciology.
- Narayanan, N. G., Sommers, A. N., Chu, W., Steiner, J., Siddique, M. A., Meyer, C. R., & Minchew, B. (2025). Simulating Seasonal Evolution of Subglacial Hydrology at a Surging Glacier in the Karakoram Range. Journal of Glaciology.
- Mejia, J., Poinar, K., Meyer, C., Sommers, A., Chu, W. (2024). Mechanisms for upstream migration of firn aquifer drainage: preliminary observations of Helheim Glacier, Greenland. Journal of Glaciology.
- Warburton, K.L., Meyer, C.R. and Sommers, A.N. (2024). Predicting the onset of subglacial channels. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.
- Sommers, A. N., Meyer, C. R., Poinar, K., Mejia, J., Morlighem, M., Rajaram, H., Warburton, K.L.P, Chu, W. (2024). Velocity of Greenland’s Helheim Glacier controlled both by terminus effects and subglacial hydrology with distinct realms of influence. Geophysical Research Letters.
- Sommers, A. N., Meyer, C. R., Morlighem, M., Rajaram, H., Poinar, K., Chu, W., & Mejia, J. (2023). Subglacial hydrology modeling predicts high winter water pressure and spatially variable transmissivity at Helheim Glacier, Greenland. Journal of Glaciology.
- Sommers, A.N., Otto-Bliesner, B.L., Lipscomb, W.H., Lofverstrom, M., Shafer, S.L., Bartlein, P.J., Brady, E.C., Kluzek, E., Leguy, G., Thayer-Calder, K., Tomas, R.A. (2021). Retreat and regrowth of the Greenland Ice Sheet during the Last Interglacial as simulated by the CESM2-CISM2 coupled climate-ice sheet model. Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology.
- Otto-Bliesner, B.L., Brady, E.C., Tomas, R.A., Albani, S., Bartlein, P.J., Mahowald, N.M., Shafer, S.L., Kluzek, E., Lawrence, P.J., Leguy, G., Rothstein, M., Sommers, A. (2020). A Comparison of the CMIP6 midHolocene and lig127k simulations in CESM2. Journal of Advances in Modeling of Earth Systems, Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2) Special Issue.
- Yang, K., Sommers, A., Andrews, L.C., Smith, L.C., Lu, X., Fettweis, X. and Li, M. (2020). Inter-comparison of surface meltwater routing models for the Greenland Ice Sheet and influence on subglacial effective pressures, The Cryosphere.
- Sommers, A.N., and Rajaram, H. (2020). Energy transfer by turbulent dissipation in glacial conduits, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.
- Sommers, Aleah N., “Insights into Processes Affecting Greenland Ice Sheet Dynamics in a Changing Climate: Firn Permeability, Interior Thermal State, Subglacial Hydrology, and Heat Transfer Coefficients” (2018). Civil Engineering Graduate Theses & Dissertations. 346.
https://scholar.colorado.edu/cven_gradetds/346 - Sommers, A., Rajaram, H., and Morlighem, M. (2018). SHAKTI: Subglacial Hydrology and Kinetic Transient Interactions v1.0, Geoscientific Model Development.
- de Fleurian, B., Werder, M.A., Beyer, S., Brinkerhoff, D.J., Delaney, I., Dow, C.F., Downs, J. Gagliardini, O., Hoffman, M.J., Hooke, R.L., Seguinot, J., and Sommers, A.N. (2018). SHMIP: The Subglacial Hydrology Model Intercomparison Project, Journal of Glaciology.
- Sommers, A. N., Rajaram, H., Weber, E. P., MacFerrin, M. J., Colgan, W. T., and Stevens, C. M. (2017). Inferring Firn Permeability from Pneumatic Testing: A Case Study on the Greenland Ice Sheet, Frontiers in Earth Science.
- Colgan, W., Sommers, A., Rajaram, H., Abdalati, W. and Frahm, J. (2015). Considering thermal-viscous collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, Earth’s Future.
- Sommers, A.N. and Viswanadham, B.V.S. (2009). Centrifuge model tests on the behavior of strip footing on geotextile-reinforced slopes, Geotextiles and Geomembranes.
Aleah Sommers 