Eric Steig

Eric Steig, the Department of Earth and Space Sciences Chair, is a glaciologist and isotope geochemist who studies how the climate behaved in the past to learn what it can tell us both about the effects of climate change today, and how it will change in the future. He uses ice core records to study climate variability over thousands of years. He works on the geological history and dynamics of ice sheets, as well as on aspects of atmospheric chemistry, and develops novel laboratory research tools in isotope geochemistry. He is the founding co-director of ISOLAB, a state-of-the art isotope geochemistry facility involving research ranging from climate, atmospheric chemistry and neotectonics, to geobiology, aquatic science and fisheries. Steig has led or participated in all major US ice core programs in Antarctica since 1990 and leads the current Hercules Dome project.