Peter Neff

Peter Neff is an Assistant Professor in Geoscience at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where he conducts pioneering research in ice core paleoclimatology and glaciology within the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate. He earned his BS in 2009 and MS in 2012 from the University of Washington, followed by a PhD in 2015 from Victoria University of Wellington. As director of the Minnesota NICE (Neff Ice and Climate Exploration) Lab, Neff and his team employ ice cores, ground-based chemical and geophysical observations, remotely sensed datasets, and climate reanalysis to expand understanding of climate dynamics along the West Antarctic Ice Sheet's rapidly changing coastline and in North American glaciated mountain ranges. He also holds the position of Director for Field Research and Data at the NSF-funded Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX). Neff's work emphasizes reconstructing past climate, environmental conditions, and atmospheric chemistry, particularly in West Antarctica's coastal ice rises, which contribute significantly to uncertainties in sea level rise projections. Additional efforts include developing the southernmost annually-resolved ice core record in North America from Mount Waddington in southwestern British Columbia to capture 200-500 years of hydroclimate variability. Recent expeditions, such as the RAICA project funded by NSF and the Korean Polar Research Institute, involved collecting two 150-meter ice cores from Canisteo Peninsula during a 2023-2024 cruise aboard RV ARAON in the Amundsen Sea.

Neff's scholarly contributions include high-impact publications such as 'Precise interpolar phasing of abrupt climate change during the last ice age' (Nature, 2015), 'Onset of deglacial warming in West Antarctica driven by local orbital forcing' (Nature, 2013), 'Recent climate and ice-sheet changes in West Antarctica compared with the past 2,000 years' (Nature Geoscience, 2013), 'Quantarctica, an integrated mapping environment for Antarctica, the Southern Ocean, and sub-Antarctic islands' (Environmental Modelling & Software, 2021), and 'A 2700-year annual timescale and accumulation history for an ice core from Roosevelt Island, West Antarctica' (Climate of the Past, 2019). As a member of the WAIS Divide and RICE projects, his research has illuminated Antarctic climate variability over millennia. Neff is a prominent science communicator, sharing insights on Antarctic ice cores via Twitter (@icy_pete), TikTok, and Instagram, with videos amassing millions of views, and co-developing the widely used Quantarctica GIS data package.

Professional Email: pneff@umn.edu