Professor James Lea

James is a glaciologist with wide-ranging interests in both contemporary processes and the reconstruction and simulation of former ice masses. His work focuses on investigating the dynamics of the marine-terminating margins of ice sheets and their potential as agents for past, present, and future sea-level change. To achieve this, he employs a range of approaches including remote sensing, numerical modelling, and fieldwork.

Research Interests

Calving Behaviour of Ice Sheets
James studies the calving front of Kangiata Nunaata Sermia (KNS) and explores iceberg calving, a major but poorly understood mechanism of mass loss from contemporary ice sheets. His research examines how numerical models incorporate this behaviour, the impact of model assumptions on simulated behaviour, and potential improvements to enhance simulation realism.

Dynamics of Contemporary and Palaeo Ice Streams and Tidewater Glaciers
During his PhD at the University of Aberdeen, James focused on understanding the fluctuations of KNS, SW Greenland, since the Little Ice Age through glacier reconstruction, remote sensing, and numerical modelling. This work continues at KNS as part of the CALVE project, aimed at reconstructing the last advance phase of KNS and investigating its longer-term Holocene dynamics. Additionally, James has investigated palaeo-ice stream dynamics in Svalbard, comparing the Kongsfjorden and Isfjorden outlets during the last glaciation.

Background

• 2019-present: Senior Lecturer in Glaciology, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool
• 2015-2019: Lecturer in Glaciology, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool
• 2014-2015: Postdoctoral Researcher in Glaciology, Stockholm University, Sweden
• 2010-2014: Ph.D., University of Aberdeen
  Thesis title: Fluctuations of a Greenlandic tidewater glacier from the Little Ice Age to present: reconstruction and modelling of Kangiata Nunaata Sermia, SW Greenland.
• 2009-2010: M.Sc. Quaternary Science, Royal Holloway/UCL
• 2006-2009: M.A. Geography, University of Cambridge