Richard Hodgkins

Richard has worked as a Lecturer, then as a Senior Lecturer, at Loughborough University since 2005. His research focuses on how Arctic terrestrial glaciers influence the hydrology of the catchments they occupy, and in which marine-terminating – or tidewater – Arctic glaciers influence the fjords into which they flow. His research encompasses processes which control (1) the generation of meltwater at the ice-atmosphere interface; (2) its transit through glacier drainage systems; (3) its release at the ice-ocean interface.

Recent achievements include (1) significant improvement in estimated positive degree-day totals at an Icelandic ice cap from variable lapse-rate modelling with reanalysis climate data; (2) demonstration of seasonally-increasing drainage efficiency and the co-existence of drainage pathways of contrasting efficiencies at a polythermal glacier in Svalbard; (3) successful calibration of MODIS reflectance for the identification of significant relationships between the turbidity of meltwater plumes and cumulative positive degree-days and floating ice extent in the Jökulsárlon tidal system in Iceland.