Tracking our ICE Caps:
Geodynamics Research at
ANU
PEI Summer of Learning Symposium
October 4, 2013
Nihar Madhavan
The Internship
 Paul Tregoning
 Geodynamics Research Group
 Research School of Earth Sciences
 Australian National University
The Location
 Canberra, Australia
 Planned capital
The Research: Overall
 Reconciling ICESat Data on polar ice
caps
 Building a model to track ice change over
time
ICESat: The Mission
 Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite
 NASA Mission to track altitude levels at ice
sheets from 2003 to 2009
ICESat: Inconsistent Data
 Problem: Tracks aren’t exact.
 How to compare from track to track?
Campaign Crossover Method
 Method of combining data from different years in order
to track changes
 Finding “crossovers” – where tracks meet and
interpolating data
Building a Tool
 Collaborated on implementing method as a
global, public tool
 Built foundation for data manipulation, analysis
 Challenges of “big data” and real-world data
Takeaways
 Experienced the research environment
 Collaborative problem solving
 Look into “Geodynamics”
 Used Computer Science to solve real world
problems
 Helped build a tool that others will use in the
study of climate change
Acknowledgements
 ANU
 Dr. Paul Tregoning
 Janosch Hoffman
 IIP
 PEI