Ice & Dirt

I'm a Postdoctoral Research Associate working with Prof. Marianne Haseloff in the Glacier and Ice Sheet Dynamics Group at the Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin-Madison. I received my PhD in Geoscience in August 2023 as a part of Prof. Ken Ferrier's Surface Processes and Sea Level Group at UW-Madison. With dual training in galciology and geomorphology, I am pursuing emerging and cross-disciplinary research themes aimed to advance our understanding of the fundamental physical processes that shape Earth's Critical Zone and Cryosphere, two crucial components of Earth's dynamic surface and climate system.

My PhD thesis focuses on quantifying the physical and chemical processes operating in Earth’s Critical Zone that generate soil and shapes topography. I measured the sensitivity of soil chemical erosion and soil production to climate and dust deposition along a steep climate gradient spanning nearly 3 km in elevation at San Jacinto Mountain in California, the largest vertical relief in a uniform granitic lithology in the contiguous United States. As a part of my PhD research, I also investigated drainage divide migration and river basin reorganization at Qilian Shan, northeast Tibet and San Jacinto Mountain.

I switched gears from digging soils to playing with ice and math as a postdoc to pursue my deep interests in the physics behind the multiway connection between ice sheets, climate, topography, sea level, and solid earth, one of the main themes of long-term Earth system evolution. My current postdoc work focuses on using mathematical ice sheet models to understand the dynamics of water-terminating glaciers and ice sheets and its response to climate and non-climate forcings. I simulate how the grounding line and ice flow dynamics of the Lake Superior Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet responds to rapid lake level drops in a warming climate during last deglaciation. My postdoc work is a part of a larger collaborative research effort to understand how ice sheets, rivers, lakes, and solid Earth interacted to shape the continental landscape of the Lake Superior Basin.

Kai is offloading data from a climate monitoring station at San Jacinto Peak (SJP), California. This is one of a series of stations set up by Kai and his colleagues in the San Jacinto Peak area for his PhD research. These stations took high temporal resolution measurements of rainfall, air temperature and humidity, soil temperature and water content along a steep climate gradient at SJP. These measurements are paired with co-located measurements of soil chemical depletion and denudation rate. To learn more about Kai's current research, please check out his research page and his climate monitoring project at SJP.

Though not formally trained as an applied mathematician, I have a strong interest for mathematical modeling, particularly of coupled physical processes in the natural world. Outside of my primary research projects, I enjoy exploring the fascinating world of fluid mechanics, which governs many phenomena within the Earth system. From the flow of rivers to the creep of glaciers, the convection of the mantle, and the circulation of the atmosphere, I am deeply captivated by how these interconnected processes shape our planet Earth and other worlds in our solar system.

Contact

Email: kai.hu@wisc.edu

Address: 1215 West Dayton Street, Weeks Hall for Geological Sciences, Madison, WI 53705, USA