About Me

I am a geophysicist who studies the near-surface hydrology of ice sheets and glaciers and the role that this system plays in their mass balance and stability in a warming world. My primary tool is airborne ice penetrating radar, and much of my work focuses on combining radar scattering models, field observations, and geophysical inverse methods to link physical conditions in the ice sheet to their expression in radar data. This approach lets me observe shallow water processes from the kilometer to ice-sheet scales over decades, illuminating the influence of climate on near-surface hydrology and the role of this system in modulating water and heat exchange between the glacier surface and bed. I also use many of these terrestrial observations as analogs to study near-surface cryo-hydrologic processes on icy satellites such as Europa.

I am currently a Hess Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University.

Research Areas

Publications

Submitted/In Review

  • K. Chan, C. Grima, A. Rutishauser, D. A. Young, R. Culberg, D. D. Blankenship, "Spatial Characterization of Near-Surface Structure and Meltwater Runoff Conditions Across Devon Ice Cap from Dual-Frequency Radar Reflectivity"

Journal Publications

  • R. Culberg, W. Chu, D. M. Schroeder, "Shallow Fracture Buffers High Elevation Runoff In Northwest Greenland," Geophysical Research Letters, 2022, doi: 10.1029/2022GL101151
  • R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, G. Steinbrügge, "Double Ridge Formation Over Shallow Water Sills on Jupiter's Moon Europa," Nature Communications, 2022. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29458-3
  • J. Z. Miller, D. G. Long, C. A. Shuman, R. Culberg, M. Hardman, M. J. Brodzik. "Mapping Firn Saturation over Greenland using NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive Satellite," IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 2022. 10.1109/JSTARS.2022.3154968
  • J. Z. Miller, R. Culberg, D. G. Long, C. A. Shuman, D. M. Schroeder, M. J. Brodzik. "An Empirical Algorithm to Map Perennial Firn Aquifers and Ice Slabs Within the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Satellite L-band Microwave Radiometry," The Cryosphere, 2022. 10.5194/tc-16-103-2022
  • W. Chu, A. Hilger, R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, T. M. Jordan, H. Seroussi, D. A. Young, D. G. Vaughan. "Multi-System Synthesis of Radar Sounding Observations of the Amundsen Sea Sector from the 2004-2005 Field Season," Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 2021. 10.1029/2021JF006296
  • R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, W. Chu, “Extreme Melt Season Ice Layers Reduce Firn Permeability Across Greenland,” Nature Communications, 2021. 10.1038/s41467-021-22656-5
  • T. J. Young, D. M. Schroeder, T. M. Jordan, P. Christoffersen, S. M. Tulaczyk, R. Culberg , N. L. Bienert, “Inferring ice fabric from birefringence loss in airborne radargrams: Application to the eastern shear margin of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 2021. 10.1029/2020JF006023
  • R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, “Firn Clutter Constraints on the Design and Performance of Orbital Radar Ice Sounders,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2020. 10.1109/TGRS.2020.2976666
  • K. Winter, J. Woodward, N. Ross, S. A. Dunning, A. S. Hein, M. J. Westoby, R. Culberg, S. M. Marrero, D. M. Schroeder, D. E. Sugden, M. J. Seigert, “Radar-detected englacial debris in the West Antarctic ice sheet,” Geophysical Research Letters, 2019. doi: 10.1029/2019GL084012

Refereed Conference Proceedings

  • R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, “Inverting for Firn Aquifer Properties from Ice-Penetrating Radar Data," IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2022. 10.1109/IGARSS46834.2022.9884947
  • A. A. McLeod, S. T. Peters, R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, N. L. Bienert, W. Chu, T. J. Young, P, Christoffersen, “Processing and Detecting Artifacts in Phase-Sensitive Ice-Penetrating Radar Data," IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2022. 10.1109/IGARSS46834.2022.9883837
  • M. Altenburg, R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, “Empirical Characterization of Surface Crevasse Clutter in Multi-Frequency Airborne Ice-Penetrating Radar Data," IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2022. 10.1109/IGARSS46834.2022.9883652
  • R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, “Simulations of Englacial Radiostratigraphy from Ice Core Measurements," IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2021. 10.1109/IGARSS47720.2021.9553760
  • E. J. Mackie, D. M. Schroeder, G. Steinbruegge, R. Culberg, “Quantifying Spatial Relationships in Ice Penetrating Radar Measurement Uncertainty through Clutter Simulation," IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2021. 10.1109/IGARSS47720.2021.9553045
  • D. M. Schroeder, N. L. Bienert, R. Culberg, E. J. Mackie, T. Teisberg, W. Chu, D. A. Young, “Glaciological Constraints on Link Budgets for Orbital Radar Sounding of Earth’s Ice Sheets," IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2021. 10.1109/IGARSS47720.2021.9553237
  • R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, “Strong Potential for the Detection of Refrozen Ice Layers in Greenland’s Firn by Airborne Radar Sounding,” IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2020. 10.1109/IGARSS39084.2020.9324268
  • R. Culberg, D. M. Schroeder, “Radar Scattering in Firn and its Implications for VHF/UHF Orbital Ice Sounding,” IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2019. 10.1109/IGARSS.2019.8898991

Opportunities

The admissions cycle for Fall 2023 has closed. Prospective graduate students interested in joining my new research group in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University starting Fall 2024 can reach out to me at rtculberg@princeton.edu. Please include your CV, a brief description of your research interests, and why you are interested in pursuing a graduate degree with my group.

Students with interests or experience in any of the following are particularly encouraged to apply:

  • Geophysical glaciology
  • Ice sheet hydrology
  • Multiphase flow in porous media
  • Near-surface and hydrogeophysics
  • Radar geophysics and/or remote sensing
  • Signal processing
  • Applied and/or computational electromagnetics

More information on the Geological Sciences Graduate Program is available here. General information on the graduate admissions process at Cornell is available here.

Press and Outreach