Dr. Alison Criscitiello - Ice Core Scientist

About this episode

Dr. Alison Criscitiello discusses her work as an ice core scientist and mountaineer, exploring climate history through ice core research.

Dr. Alison Criscitiello is an ice core scientist and high-altitude mountaineer. She is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Canadian Ice Core Lab at University of Alberta, and co-founder of Girls on Ice Canada. Criscitiello explores the history of climate and sea ice in polar and high-alpine regions using ice core chemistry. This involves long months of living in a tent and drilling ice cores in places like Antarctica, Greenland, the Yukon, and the Canadian high Arctic. Criscitiello's work also focuses on environmental contaminant histories in ice cores from the Canadian high Arctic and the water towers of the Canadian Rockies. She has earned the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal, three American Alpine Club (AAC) climbing awards, the John Lauchlan and Mugs Stump alpine climbing awards, and the first PhD in glaciology ever conferred by MIT. Criscitiello and her team installed the highest weather station in North America near Mount Logan's summit in 2021, and in 2022 drilled a record-breaking 327m ice core on its summit plateau that will shed light on how climate change impacts even the world’s highest peaks. Most recently, in spring 2025, she drilled a new ice…

People in this episode

Host: Mary Anne Ivison

Guest: Dr. Alison Criscitiello

Topics covered

• ice core science
• climate change
• mountaineering
• environmental science
• polar research

Keywords

• ice core
• climate history
• mountaineer
• environmental contaminants
• polar regions
• high-altitude
• Canadian high Arctic

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Alberta, Girls on Ice Canada

Places: Antarctica, Greenland, Yukon, Canadian high Arctic, Canadian Rockies, Canada, Mount Logan, Axel Heiberg Island

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