Skip to main content Skip to footer

Ronan Agnew

College positions:
Affiliated Postdoctoral Member
Subject:
Geophysics
Department/institution:
British Antarctic Survey
Contact details:
rognew91@bas.ac.uk

Dr Ronan Agnew

Ronan Agnew is a glacier geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey and a postdoctoral affiliate of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge

He uses active and passive seismic methods to study the processes beneath and within the Antarctic Ice Sheet, focussing particularly on understanding the processes at the glacier bed. During his PhD at the University of Leeds, he worked to improve methods of seismic inversion to quantify better the properties of subglacial materials and the structure of glacial ice. He has an interest in conditions and processes at the boundaries of fast-flowing ice streams, and has participated in field campaigns to study the bed, shear margins, and grounding zones of Antarctic glaciers. These processes are important to understand and parameterise in ice sheet models, as they control the flow of ice into the ocean and affect projections of sea level rise.

Select publications

  • Agnew RS, Pearce E, Karplus M, Ranganathan M, Hoffman AO, Hunt M, Pretorius A, Shanly SE, Beres M, Pradhan KK, Seldon Y, Booth AD, Clark RA, Young TJ. (2025) Active and passive seismic experiments over the grounding zone of Eastwind Glacier, Antarctica. Seismological Research Letters, in review
  • Hoffman AO, Christianson K, Karplus M, Agnew RS, Pearce E, Ranganathan M, et al. Geophysical surveys and instrument incubation program across a glacier grounding zone: Eastwind Glacier’s contribution to McMurdo ice shelf mass balance. ESS Open Archive . January 14, 2025. doi: 10.22541/essoar.173687398.85162904/v1
  • Agnew RS, Clark RA, Booth AD, Brisbourne AM, Smith AM. Measuring seismic attenuation in polar firn: method and application to Korff Ice Rise, West Antarctica. (2023) Journal of Glaciology. 69(278):2075-2086. doi:10.1017/jog.2023.82