Home | Community | Faculty | Colin Meyer

Colin Meyer

Associate Professor of Engineering

Academic Cluster: Changing Polar Regions

+1 (603) 646-6656

colin.r.meyer@dartmouth.edu

Twitter/X

Short Talks on Big Ideas: Colin Meyer on Worlds of Ice and Snow (See full video on Vimeo)

Research Interests

Fluid dynamics; snow and ice mechanics; glaciology; icy satellites; applied mathematics

Education

BS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley 2012
MASt, Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, Cambridge University 2013
PhD, Applied Mathematics, Harvard University 2017

Research Projects

NASA — ICESat-2 Science Team (investigations using ICESat-2)

NASA — ICESat-2 Science Team (investigations using ICESat-2)

Coupled subglacial hydrology and ice dynamics constrained by surface elevation evolution.
NASA — Understanding changes in High Mountain Asia

NASA — Understanding changes in High Mountain Asia

Quantifying the role of subglacial hydrology in glacier surges and outburst floods of High Mountain Asia.
Irving Institute faculty seed grant: machine learning for glacier intelligence

Irving Institute faculty seed grant: machine learning for glacier intelligence

Data-driven tools to predict meltwater dynamics and inform water security under climate change.
Arete glacier initiative

Arete glacier initiative

Leveraging and preserving historical Trapridge Glacier data.

Selected Publications

Colin R. Meyer, Jacob J. Buffo, Francis Nimmo, Andrew Wells, Samuel Boury, Mark Fox-Powell, Tara Tomlinson, Jamie R. G. Parkinson, Geoffrey M. Vasil (2025). A potential mushy source for the geysers of Enceladus and other icy satellites. Geophys. Res. Lett. doi:10.1029/2024GL111929
Aleah Sommers, Colin R. Meyer, Kristin Poinar, Jessica Mejia, Mathieu Morlighem, Harihar Rajaram, Katarzyna L.P. Warburton, Winnie Chu (2024). Velocity of Greenland's Helheim Glacier controlled both by terminus effects and subglacial hydrology with distinct realms of influence. Geophys. Res. Lett. doi: 10.1029/2024GL109168
Colin R. Meyer, Christian Schoof, and Alan W. Rempel (2023). A thermomechanical model for frost heave and subglacial frozen fringe. J. Fluid Mech. doi: 10.1017/jfm.2023.366
Jacob J. Buffo, Lujendra Ojha, Colin R. Meyer, Ken Ferrier, and Marisa C. Palucis (2022). Revisiting subglacial hydrology as an origin for Mars' valley networks. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117699
Jacob J. Buffo, Colin R. Meyer, and James R. G. Parkinson (2021). Dynamics of a Solidifying Icy Satellite Shell. J. Geophys. Res. doi: 10.1029/2020JE006741
Colin R. Meyer, Kaitlin M. Keegan, Ian Baker, and Robert L. Hawley (2020). A model for French press experiments of dry snow compaction. Cryosphere. doi: 10.5194/tc-14-1449-2020
Brent M. Minchew, Colin R. Meyer, Samuel S. Pegler, et al. (2019). Comment on "Friction at the bed does not control fast glacier flow." Science. doi: 10.1126/science.aau6055
Colin R. Meyer, Anthony S. Downey, and Alan W. Rempel (2018). Freeze-on limits bed strength beneath sliding glaciers. Nat. Comms. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05716-1
Colin R. Meyer and Ian J. Hewitt (2017). A continuum model for meltwater flow through compacting snow. Cryosphere. doi: 10.5194/tc-2017-128
Colin R. Meyer, Matheus C. Fernandes, Timothy T. Creyts, and James R. Rice (2016). Effects of ice deformation on Röthlisberger channels and implications for transitions in subglacial hydrology. J. Glaciol. doi: 10.1017/jog.2016.65

Videos

Dartmouth Engineering Professor Colin Meyer

The Power of Fieldwork in Education

Glacier Sliding Controlled by Subglacial Water Flow (Seminar)

Cutting through Ice to Understand the Behavior of Glaciers

News

Machine Learning Models May Help Predict Glacier Melt and Movement
May 29, 2026

Dartmouth Engineering Professor Colin Meyer Wins NSF CAREER Award
Oct 09, 2025

New Program Expands Access to Undergraduate Engineering Research
Mar 19, 2025

Dartmouth Expands Partnership with US Army Corps Labs
Jul 22, 2024

Permafrost Restrains Arctic Rivers—and Lots of Carbon
Feb 06, 2024

A Cool Compound
Oct 02, 2023

Bridge Builder
Jan 20, 2023

Winners of 2022 Neukom Institute CompX Faculty Grants
Jun 06, 2022

Lab Report: Space Ice
Dec 01, 2021

Dartmouth Engineering Receives $1.25M to Study Space Ice
Aug 24, 2021

Dartmouth Engineering PhD Student Receives NSF Fellowship
May 13, 2021

Lab Report: Life on Mars
Mar 15, 2021

Best Region for Life on Mars Was Far Below Surface
Dec 02, 2020

Dartmouth Engineering Professor Receives Grant to Study Glacial Melt in Greenland
Oct 01, 2020

Dartmouth Engineering PhD Student Receives NASA Funding for Glacier Research
Jul 28, 2020

Meet Dartmouth's Newest Teacher-Scholars
Jan 30, 2020

Engineering Faculty Joins Academic Clusters
Nov 18, 2019

In the News

Living on Earth
Melting Glaciers Trigger Earthquakes [Audio]
Jul 17, 2026

The Guardian
We study glaciers. 'Artificial glaciers' and other tech may halt their total collapse
Jan 07, 2026

MIT Technology Review
Inside a new quest to save the "doomsday glacier"
Mar 21, 2025

Daily Galaxy
Could Saturn's Icy Moon Be More Alien Than We Imagined?
Feb 26, 2025

Scienmag
Permafrost alone holds back Arctic rivers—and a lot of carbon
Feb 01, 2024

Earth.com
Water beneath glaciers may surge due to thinning ice sheets
Aug 21, 2023

The Planetary Society
Worlds of snow and ice
Jan 26, 2022

Sky & Telescope
Do the Plumes from Saturn's Icy Moon Reach Down To Its Ocean?
Jan 13, 2022

Science News
Enceladus' plumes might not come from an underground ocean
Jan 03, 2022

NHPR
Dartmouth Scientists Get $1.25 Million In Grants To Study Icy Worlds
Sep 07, 2021

Research Quick Takes

May 21, 2026

Reducing Glacier Mass Loss

Professor Colin Meyer and Research Scientist Aleah Sommers are co-authors of "A model of water extraction from the subglacial hydrologic system under idealized conditions" published in The Cryosphere. The study investigates how removing water from under the ice can moderately slow glaciers by lowering subglacial water pressure. "Our work improves understanding of glacier dynamics and suggests that studying water removal could enhance knowledge of subglacial systems and potentially slow glacier flow," said Meyer.

Jun 27, 2024

Glacier Surges & Floods

Research Scientist Aleah Sommers (pictured) and Professor Colin Meyer won a two-year ~$180,000 NASA grant to work with international collaborators in Pakistan to study the influence of water flowing at the base of glaciers in High Mountain Asia. "Improved understanding of subglacial drainage has great potential benefit for hazard prediction and water resources, in terms of how they are likely to change with continued warming," says Sommers.

Photo by Meyer of Greenland's Heim glacier, taken from a helicopter.

May 23, 2024

Understanding Glacier Sliding

Professor Colin Meyer and Luce Fellow Julia Bellamy Th'23 co-authored "Subtemperate regelation exhibits power-law premelting," selected for the cover of Proceedings of the Royal Society A. Meyer and Bellamy worked with collaborator Alan Rempel (Oregon) on wire regelation, or cold ice, which is important for glacier motion as they slide over sediments and bedrock. "We developed a model for the cold data and found excellent agreement between a power-law model and the laboratory data. These results advance our understanding of the role of temperature in glacier sliding by providing a link between the water, temperature, and friction," he said.

Jun 29, 2023

Subglacial Hydrology & Ice Dynamics

Research Scientist Aleah Sommers and Professor Colin Meyer applied a simpler form of the SHAKTI subglacial hydrology model to the Helmheim Glacier in Greenland to predict high water pressure and other variables in seawater movement under glacial ice. Their model improves upon current models by reducing reliance on unconstrained parameters, which have posed challenges to reproducing results. Their findings were published in the Journal of Glaciology.