KITP Conference: The Future of Earth’s Polar Regions

KITP Conference: The Future of Earth’s Polar Regions
(Jun 23-26, 2025)
Coordinators: Qinghua Ding, Helene Seroussi, Gunilla Svensson, Patrick Taylor, and Andrew Thompson

Monday, Jun 23, 2025
	State of polar systems and variability, Chair: Helene Seroussi (Dartmouth)
8:50am	Mark Bowick (KITP)	Welcome[Video]
9:00am	Patrick Taylor (NASA Langley)	The Great Unfreezing: A brief history of the rapidly changing Arctic[Slides][Video][CC]
9:45am	Michael Previdi (LDEO)	Effective Heat Capacity and Its Role in Arctic Amplification[Slides][Video][CC]
10:30am	Morning Break
11:00am	Helen Fricker (UCSD)	The Eras of Satellite Altimetry: Bringing Antarctic mass loss processes into focus[Video][CC]
11:45am	Marika Holland (NCAR)	A Tale of Two Poles. Changing Climate in the Arctic and Antarctic[Slides][Video][CC]
12:30pm	Lunch Break
	Physical Processes in the Polar Climate System and their representation in models, Chair: Andrew Thompson (Caltech)
2:00pm	Claudia Czimczik (UCI)	Permafrost Carbon: Lessons from Long-Term Climate Change Experiments[Slides][Video][CC]
2:45pm	Lilian Dove (Brown)	Ocean ventilation in an increasingly stratified Southern Ocean[Slides][Video][CC]
3:30pm	Afternoon Break
4:00pm	Lily Hahn (Scripps Inst. of Oceanography)	Role of ocean circulation and water vapor for Arctic warning and its uncertainty[Video][CC]
4:45pm	Francois Massonnet (UC Louvain)	Towards a decade of rapid sea ice loss?[Slides][Video][CC]
5:30pm	SHUTTLE TO BWSCI
Tuesday, Jun 24, 2025
	Ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions, Chair: Mathieu Morlighem (Dartmouth)
9:00am	Qiang Wang (Alfred Wegener Inst.)	Changes in Arctic Ocean eddy activity and eddy-sea ice interaction under climate warming[Video][CC]
9:45am	Ethan Campbell (Washington)	Lagrangian reconstruction of snow evolution on Antarctic sea ice[Slides][Video][CC]
10:30am	Morning Break
11:00am	Earle Wilson (Stanford)	Drivers of the recent whiplash in Antarctic sea ice trends[Video][CC]
12:30pm	Lunch Break
	Ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions, Chair: Helene Seroussi (Dartmouth)
2:00pm	Till Wagner (UW-Madison)	Differences in calving styles at tidewater glaciers explained by horizontal stress balance[Video][CC]
2:22pm	Yoshihiro Nakayama (Hokkaido U)	Development of ECCO downscaled regional simulations of the Antarctic continental shelves[Slides][Video][CC]
2:44pm	Alexandra Jahn (CU Boulder)	The first ice-free day in the Arctic Ocean could occur before 2030[Slides][Video][CC]
3:06pm	Lars Aue (Alfred Wegener Inst.)	Serial clustering of Arctic cyclones: A new perspective on Arctic weather extremes and their impact on sea ice[Slides][Video][CC]
3:30pm	Afternoon Break
	Poster Session, Chair: Helene Seroussi (Dartmouth)
5:30pm	RECEPTION
6:00pm	SPECIAL EVENTS DINNER
7:30pm	SHUTTLE TO BWSCI
Wednesday, Jun 25, 2025
	Beyond the Poles and the Present: Teleconnections and Paleoclimate Perspectives, Chair: Qinghua Ding (UCSB)
9:00am	Sarah Kang (MPI-M)	The Far-Reaching Impacts of Extratropical Climate Perturbations[Video][CC]
9:45am	Xiyue (Sally) Zhang (Nevada)	Robust yet diverse Southern Ocean teleconnection from Antarctic Meltwater[Slides][Video][CC]
10:30am	Morning Break
11:00am	Eric Steig (Washington)	Ice-core constraints on recent climate forcing of ice-sheet change[Video][CC]
11:45am	Sarah Shackleton (Woods Hole)	When was central Greenland most recently ice free?[Video][CC]
12:30pm	Lunch Break
	Technological Advances for Observations, Chair: Patrick Taylor (NASA Langley)
2:00pm	Catherine Walker (Woods Hole)	Observations at the process scale: Emerging capabilities and ongoing progress[Video][CC]
2:45pm	Ellen Buckley (UIUC)	Signals of Sea Ice Change: Insights from Remote Sensing in the Polar Regions[Video][CC]
3:30pm	Afternoon Break
4:00pm	Craig Lee (Washington)	Technologies and Opportunities for Sustained, Autonomous Polar Observing[Video][CC]
4:45pm	Rebecca Jackson (Tufts U)	Where glaciers meet the ocean: testing theories for submarine melt with observations from autonomous vessels[Video][CC]
5:30pm	RECEPTION
6:00pm	SPECIAL EVENTS DINNER
7:30pm	SHUTTLE TO BWSCI
Thursday, Jun 26, 2025
	Improving Predictions with the next generation of models, Chair: Alexander Robel (Georgia Tech)
9:00am	Gavin Schmidt (GSFC)	Characterization and impacts of anomalous freshwater from melting ice sheets and shelves[Video][CC]
9:45am	Alice Du Vivier (NCAR)	Opportunities and challenges with state-of-the-art modeling of sea ice processes[Slides][Video][CC]
10:30am	Morning Break
11:00am	Paul Summers (Rutgers)	GLACIOME: The Coupled Glacier/Ocean/Melange Model[Slides][Video][CC]
11:23am	Gong Cheng (Dartmouth)	Physics-Informed Neural Networks for Ice and CLimatE - PINNICLE[Video][CC]
11:45am	Ching Yao Lai (Stanford)	Inferring Constitutive Models of Antarctic Glacial Ice via Physics-Informed Deep Learning[Slides][Video][CC]
12:30pm	Lunch Break
2:00pm		Panel Discussion
3:30pm	SHUTTLE TO BWSCI *Also available to SB Airport and SB Airbus, Goleta location. (See Registration Desk BEFORE THURSDAY to sign up.)

Monday, Jun 23, 2025

State of polar systems and variability, Chair: Helene Seroussi (Dartmouth)

Physical Processes in the Polar Climate System and their representation in models, Chair: Andrew Thompson (Caltech)

Tuesday, Jun 24, 2025

Ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions, Chair: Mathieu Morlighem (Dartmouth)

Ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions, Chair: Helene Seroussi (Dartmouth)

Poster Session, Chair: Helene Seroussi (Dartmouth)

Wednesday, Jun 25, 2025

Beyond the Poles and the Present: Teleconnections and Paleoclimate Perspectives, Chair: Qinghua Ding (UCSB)

Technological Advances for Observations, Chair: Patrick Taylor (NASA Langley)

Thursday, Jun 26, 2025

Improving Predictions with the next generation of models, Chair: Alexander Robel (Georgia Tech)