NASA Postdoctoral Program - Observing sub-annual mechanics of Antarctic ice streams using short repeat time InSAR

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific postdoctoral position focuses on using temporally dense SAR acquisitions to capture the three component surface velocity response of ice streams and ice shelves to forcing from ocean tides. The research aims to systematically map this response to illuminate the basic mechanical characteristics of streaming ice, the bed-ice interface, and floating ice in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Filcher-Ronne system. The postdoctoral scholar will work to combine dense Cosmo-SkyMed observations with other geodetic imaging data to develop comprehensive time series of deformation and integrate these observations with mechanical models of ice streams and ice shelves. The position requires strong interest in furthering both geodetic and glaciology science, with candidates working collaboratively with JPL researchers and Caltech faculty to improve the retrieval of 3-D displacement fields from InSAR data and connect tidal perturbations of displacement rates to mechanical characteristics of ice streams and ice shelves.