Dr Rob Massom

Senior Research Scientist, Australian Antarctic Division

Principal Investigator

With over 26 years’ experience in a broad spectrum of polar-related research, Dr Rob Massom has worked extensively both in Arctic (1980-1992) and Antarctic (1986-present) research. He has participated on 9 Antarctic and 3 Arctic major international multi-disciplinary sea-ice research field campaigns. He earned a Ph.D. in Glaciology/Remote Sensing in 1989 from the Scott Polar Research Institute (University of Cambridge), having joined the Sea Ice Group there in 1980. Prior to joining the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre in 1992, he spent 3 years as a postdoc in the Oceans and Ice Branch of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He is currently a senior research scientist with the ACE CRC and Australian Antarctic Division, and is a member of the ACE CRC Climate Variability and Change and Antarctic Marine Ecosystems programmes.

Rob’s current research interests include polar remote sensing and the validation of key satellite-derived geophysical/climatic data products; the distribution and properties of sea ice and their ecological and climatic significance; fast ice and penguins; and the impact of large-scale modes of (anomalous) atmospheric circulation, climate variability/change and extreme events on sea ice, ice shelf break-up, precipitation over the Antarctic Ice Sheet and polar ecosystems. He has a strong interest, and involvement, in cross-disciplinary and “bi-polar” research, benefiting greatly from collaboration with sea-ice biologists and ecologists, meteorologists, oceanographers and ice-sheet glaciologists from the USA, UK, Japan, Belgium and Germany (as well as within Australia).

Rob’s primary role on the SIPEX voyage will be acquiring detailed measurements of snow thickness and properties, and overseeing the acquisition and analysis of satellite data. He is currently PI on projects to validate key sea ice variables (sea ice concentration, thickness, temperature and snowcover thickness) acquired by NASA’s EOS AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS) and ESA CryoSat-2 GLAS (Geoscience Laser Altimeter System) sensors.